Plaque commemorating the work of migrants in the construction of the Mundaring Weir In response to my blog post about the disparity between educational qualifications and employment outcomes faced by…
Average employment outcomes of the tertiary-educated (Source: Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 647) The labour market integration of migrants presents a persistent conundrum. The Australian story – as that of other migrant…
Receptionist: Help yourself to a cap! Shiva: Pardon me? Receptionist: Help yourself to a cap! Shiva: This was a conversation I had in the reception area of a storage company on…
Caroline Tennant Kelly with two of her photos from the Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement (Source: Sydney Morning Herald at http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-bohemian-and-her-mission-20100416-skgk.html)In 1924 the first university Department of Anthropology in Australia was founded…
Inside Story has a must-read article about language testing for citizenship in Australia today Citizenship for beginners The Howard government made it harder for some nationalities to become citizens, and…
Luisa Martín Rojo is inviting participants for a thematic session devoted to "Taking over the squares: the role of linguistic practices in contesting public spaces" at the 19th Sociolinguistics Symposium…
I was so grateful to read Ingrid Piller’s in-depth critical post on German language politics, where she offered a profound analysis of the assumptions underlying the campaign “Ich spreche Deutsch”.…
Ads for a campaign to speak German are currently all over Germany. The campaign is called “Ich spreche Deutsch” (I speak German) and aims to convince migrant youths to learn…
Persian translation of my recent post about the tyranny of language and inclusive linguistic practices. Translated by Manouchehr Kouhestani. همکار ما در کراچی، محمد علی خان، مرا از وجود کتابی…
Our contributor in Karachi, Md. Ali Khan, has alerted me to what seems to be a fascinating book: The Tyranny of Language in Education by Zubeida Mustafa published by Ushba…
Richard Lemon Memorial at Lemon Hill, TAS On The Science Show they recently had a program about how unfamiliar sounds, rhythms and tonalities can drive people crazy. I learnt that…
Amoo ('Uncle') Poorang Is it ok to entertain children at the expense of linguistic minorities? That was the question I asked myself a couple of months ago when I was…
The 2011 Report Freedom of Religion and Belief in 21st Century Australia released this week by the Australian Human Rights Commission notes “high levels of unprompted expressions of concern about…
Last year the British Council initiated a dialogue about language policy and particularly language-in-education policy in Pakistan, and their report was recently published. The introduction includes the following two statements:…
Racism is an inevitable part of growing up black in Australia. As a mother of two African-Australian boys, one of the hardest things is that I can only do so…