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(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

“What stops Australia from doing something like Sweden has done to promote multilingualism? Is it too hard to implement mother tongue instruction in the education system of Australia?”

These questions about language education planning in Australia (where I was born and grew up) and Sweden (where I became a researcher and now live and work) were asked during an online conversation I got involved with after a conference (#ICCHLE21) organized by the Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (Sydney University). As the questions relate directly to the topic of my Phd research, they engaged me, to say the least!

Multilingualism is a fact of life

In our globalized world, many people speak languages in addition to the official language(s) of the country they live in. Different terms , for example “home language” “heritage language” even “native language”, are used in different contexts to describe these languages and the forms of education that may exist to promote their development.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

In Sweden they are labelled “mother tongues”, and education to promote their development is called Mother Tongue Instruction (hereafter MTI). In Australia the term “community language” is well-established, but terms “first” and “background” language are also used, specifically in the Australian National Curriculum. There are a range of different approaches to the study of community, first, or background languages in Australia.

Is Sweden really better at promoting multilingualism?

So why did the person who asked the questions above think that the Swedish model of MTI might be better for promoting multilingualism in Australia than the range of approaches that currently exist? In my thesis I argued that organizational, ideological and classroom factors impact on the opportunities for the development of multilingualism that the different models offered. Unpacking the organizational and ideological factors can help answer the questions.

How does Mother Tongue Instruction (MTI) in Sweden work?

In Sweden, since the Home Language Reform in 1977, students from primary to upper-secondary school have been entitled to apply for MTI in any language other than Swedish that they speak at home. If the student has basic proficiency in the language, more than five students in the local area apply for it and a teacher is available, the school is required to organize MTI in that language.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

National funding for MTI is administered by local municipalities, who collaborate with schools in the organization of MTI and who employ many of the 6,183 mother tongue teachers who work in Swedish schools. While teacher education is not mandatory for MTI teachers, there are a range of teacher education programmes and professional development courses offered at universities throughout the country that prepare and support MTI teachers for their work.

MTI has a syllabus, and grades in the subject at the end of lower-secondary school can boost the scores that give students eligibility to upper-secondary school programmes. During the academic year 2020-2021, 150 languages were taught through MTI in Swedish schools.

Mother tongue instruction (MTI) within a strong policy framework

Sweden’s system, offering MTI through the national school system, is relatively unique. Although other countries may have some form of support for the maintenance and development of languages other than the national languages, there is no other country where the right to study mother tongues that are different from the national languages, is offered such strong legal protection.

Community language schools in Australia

Education in first, background or community languages in Australia is organized quite differently. It is possible to study five languages as background or first languages through the school system. Education in the other 295 or so languages spoken in Australia is organized through the community language school network.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Community language schools have existed in Australia since 1857 and are located in most large cities and some smaller towns throughout the country. Each state has a different approach to organizing community language education. See for example how different the systems in the Victorian School of Languages is from Queensland. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have their own systems as well.

While many community language teachers have tertiary qualification, not infrequently in education, they often receive only symbolic payment or work voluntarily. Most community language schools hold lessons on weekends or after school hours, and it is not always possible for all students at community language schools to gain certification or formal recognition of their community language studies.

Community language schools are disconnected from mainstream schooling

Education in community languages in Australia thus usually takes place outside the mainstream school system, is concentrated in larger cities, run by volunteers and not always recognized by the formal education system. These organizational factors can impact negatively on equality of access (for bilinguals living in remote regions) and on student motivation.

It all comes down to language ideologies and policy frameworks

So how do ideological factors impact on the promotion of multilingualism in Sweden and Australia? Language ideologies are not about truth but rather are “beliefs, feelings and conceptions about language that are socially shared and relate language and society in a dialectical fashion” (Piller, 2015). Language ideologies are thus socially situated and dynamic.

Sweden underwent a political and social transformation in the 1970s, throwing off anything associated with the “old assimilationist Sweden” and embracing the vision of “the new Sweden” (modern and pluralistic). It has been argued that it is partly because these ideas were so powerful at a community and political levels that an educational reform as radical as The Home Language Reform, a reform that politicians from every party were committed to, was possible (Hyltenstam & Milani, 2012).

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Collaborations between researchers, activists, social scientists, and officials were instrumental in transforming attitudes in Sweden concerning the value of education in all languages (Wickström, 2015). As Sweden’s policies on mother tongue instruction have traditionally been influenced more by the academic field than the political field, it is clear that language ideologies held by policymakers in Sweden have been influenced by researchers, community members and collaborations between them, leading to the Home Language Reform of 1977 and the establishment of mother tongue instruction.

Australia’s monolingual mindset remains a barrier

In Australia, a major hindrance to funding and giving equal access to the study of a wider range of languages other than English is a very particular set of beliefs about language that researchers have called, the monolingual mindset. This is a deep-rooted, widespread belief that “Standard Australian English” is the most important language and that being monolingual is common and expected.

There is a lot of research that discusses the negative impact of the monolingual mindset on language learning and use and multilingual identity in Australia. However, policy makers do not appear to have engaged with this research, or if they have, they have not had the political means to enact legislation that would make the study of community languages more widely accessible.

Two diverse societies with different approaches to multilingualism

Although Sweden today is not socially or ideologically the same place as it was in the 1970s and there is no longer unanimous support in the Swedish parliament for MTI, the number of students who study the subject has increased steadily since its introduction. Almost one-third of the student population (Table 8A) in the compulsory school was eligible for the subject in the 2020/2021 academic year. MTI thus remains an important, elective subject in the Swedish curriculum, part of a national and systematic approach to language education.

Australia is also home to many people who speak languages in addition to English. The person who asked the questions at the beginning of this blogpost and many researchers as well believe that a national, systemic approach to education in community languages would benefit these individuals, their families, and the Australian community.

So what is stopping Australia from doing something like Sweden then? To answer this, I ask another question: Are Australian policymakers ready to listen to and collaborate with their multilingual citizens and researchers? Until they are, an Australian version of the Home Language Reform is still a way off.

You probably don’t need to know much about ethnic discrimination in the labor market or German society to guess the order of employer preference correctly.

In a year-long field experiment a total of 1,474 identical application letters that only varied in name and photo were sent in response to job ads for admin assistants. “Sandra Bauer” was invited for interview in response to 18.8% of her applications. For “Meryem Öztürk” (without headscarf) that figure was 13.5% and for “Meryem Öztürk” (with headscarf) such positive feedback was as low as 4.2%.

These results are neither new nor surprising: that ethnic names serve as signals of ethnic identity and may attract discrimination in the job market if the ethnicity in question is negatively stereotyped has been demonstrated in similar field experiments in a range of national and historical contexts and for a variety of ethnic names (for an overview, see Chapter 4 of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice).

What the study by Doris Weichselbaumer does show is that adding an additional stigma – the headscarf as a signal of Muslim identity in this case – results in stronger discrimination and further disadvantages the bearer. So, stigmatized identities obviously intersect to create multiple and complex barriers; but how can these barriers be lifted?

In the field experiment, “Meryem Öztürk” (with headscarf) received the highest call-back rate from employers whose job ad had explicitly stated that they were an intercultural team or that the company valued diversity. The effect was statistically very small but still seems to suggest that experience with ethnic diversity helps to reduce barriers. This is similar to the experience of women in the workplace: while the barriers for the first women to seeking paid employment, to entering a particular industry, or gaining work at a particular level or to being accepted in a particular workplace are high, they are lowered for other women who follow in their steps.

In order to succeed and overcome gender discrimination, pioneering women in the workplace (be it in paid employment generally, in a particular industry, at a particular level or in a particular company) have had to be “better” – more qualified, more experienced, more talented, more connected – than their male counterparts. In fact, that this has not changed even today is most clearly evident from the current US presidential election where a highly qualified, experienced and accomplished female politician competes against a male candidate who has neither relevant qualifications nor experience.

Even in 2016, women’s equality in the workplace has not been achieved anywhere in the world – one indicator is the persistent gender pay gap, which stands at 15.46% on the OECD average. Nevertheless, women have made their way into the workforce and have overcome incredible obstacles to do so in little over a century. For many individual women, overcoming gender discrimination as an entry barrier has meant that they had to be better qualified and more experienced than their male competitors in order to get a chance.

Does this “strategy” also work with ethnic discrimination? Does being better qualified and having more experience mean that an applicant with a stigmatized ethnic name receives a positive response as often as a less-qualified applicant with a “native” name?

Another recent field experiment study in Sweden was designed to find out exactly that. The researchers, Mahmood Arai, Moa Bursell, and Lena Nekby, also used the CVs and application letters of fictitious applicants to respond to job ads for computer specialists, drivers, accountants, high school teachers, and assistant nurses. In the first stage of the experiment, they compared call-back rates for fictitious applicants with an Arabic and a Swedish name – with the same result as the German-Turkish study above (and many, many others): “Fatima Ahmed” and “Abdallah Hossein” were invited for interview significantly less than “Karolina Svensson” and “Jonas Söderström.”

In a second stage of the experiment, the researchers then systematically enhanced the profile of the applicant with the Arabic name so that he or she was more qualified than their counterpart with the Swedish name.

What do you guess happened? Are you betting on employer rationality where the merits of an individual overcome the negative group stereotype or are you a cynic who thinks that bigotry is relatively immune to factual evidence?

Well, neither view would be quite right – as always, the results turned out to be more complex: enhanced qualifications did nothing for male applicants with an Arabic name and their Swedish-named counterparts still had better call-back rates despite being now less qualified. For drivers, a “male” job with the highest callback rates for all applicants, higher qualifications actually reduced an applicant’s chances of being invited for interview. For female applicants, however, their enhanced qualifications “cancelled” the stigma of having an Arabic name: in the second scenario they were invited for interview as often as their (now less-qualified) counterparts with a Swedish name.

How can these conflicting results be explained? The researchers posit that cultural stereotypes are typically associated with the men of a group and are stronger for men. In other words, negative stereotypes about Middle Eastern men are so strong that superior individual merit does not help to overcome the stigma signaled by an Arabic-sounding name. By contrast, cultural stereotypes associated with women are generally weaker because they are not seen as default representatives of the group in the way men are. Furthermore, cultural stereotypes associated with women are often quite different from the stereotype of men of the same group. Therefore, superior individual merit may be cancelling out the group stigma in the case of female applicants with an Arabic name.

In many countries, there are significant gaps in the employment outcomes of migrants and the native-born. The two studies reviewed here both provide evidence that, at least with regard to Muslims, this difference is partly a result of discrimination at the entry stage. The Swedish study also shows that cultural stereotypes affect men and women differently. As a method, field experiments deliver telling results but the intersections between gender, ethnicity and occupation uncovered by Arai, Bursell and Nekby also remind us of the importance of ethnographic research in workplace contexts to understand how the “native” vs. “migrant” divide continues to be produced and reproduced.

If you liked this post, you might also like

• What’s in a name?
• Behind a name
• Migrant women’s empowerment in the city
• Human capital on the move
• Strange academic women
• What would you do?
• Racism without racists

References

Arai, M., Bursell, M., & Nekby, L. (2016). The Reverse Gender Gap in Ethnic Discrimination: Employer Stereotypes of Men and Women with Arabic Names International Migration Review, 50 (2), 385-412 DOI: 10.1111/imre.12170

Piller, I. (2016). Language at work Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937240.003.0004

Weichselbaumer, D. (2016). Discrimination against Female Migrants Wearing Headscarves. Bonn: IZA.

Eurovision Baku 2012 (Source: i3.mirror.co.uk)

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest has come and gone with Sweden crowned the winner for 2012, also taking the title of Australia’s unofficial winner (over 130,000 people in Australia visited the SBS Eurovision websiteto vote). Until recently, I did not take much interest in Eurovision, regarding it as lame, embarrassing and a lightweight media exercise in banal nationalism.

But a few years ago my daughter, who was on an exchange trip to Norway, said she was attending an actual, live Eurovision Grand Final! The idea that she would be somewhere in the crowd prompted me to tune in and since then I have joined the throng of avid Eurovision fans. Over the years the contest seems to be taking itself less seriously and, lord knows, we could do with some frivolity in these times of political crisis and economic austerity.

Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang’s hilarious commentaries are an added bonus! They epitomise the fun of being young, transnational, multicultural, irreverent and quintessentially Australian:  “The UK’s youth policy does not seem to be working,” quipped Sam drily as crooner Engelbert Humperdinck (now well into his seventies) bombed to the bottom of the Eurovision league table! UK nul points!

Let me first recount a little of Eurovision’s fascinating history: The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was formed in 1950 by 23 broadcasting organisations from Europe and the Mediterranean. First conceived as an international experiment in live television, the Eurovision Song Contest has been a focus for Pan-Europeanism since long before the days of satellite TV, digital broadcasting and high definition TV.  In 1954, the Narcissus Festival procession was relayed across the Eurovision network and was watched by four million viewers across Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1955, the EBU proposed the idea of an international song contest whereby countries could participate in one television show, to be transmitted simultaneously in all represented nations. The Eurovision Song Contest has been broadcast every year since 1956, which makes it one of the longest-running television programs in the world.  In response to the setting up of the Eurovision network, Eastern European television stations set up their own network called Intervision, which started its own song contest, presumably in an effort to prevent viewers being too bedazzled by cultures not approved of by the Politburo!  The two networks merged in 1993, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.

Today the Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast throughout Europe and also in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States, even though these countries do not participate. These days, with the entry of former Soviet Bloc and Warsaw Pact nations and those that lie within the European Broadcasting Area or are member states of the Council of Europe, the contest has become increasingly diverse and acts as a social barometer of changing international relations in the region.

But there is another side to Eurovision that is extremely interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view.  The contest has always managed to combine a comforting picture of harmony-in-diversity with the shameless promotion of national chauvinism. Today some 43 states vie for the title of best song in Europe and when one looks at the voting trends among the competitors, they often appear to be along political and nationalistic lines with nothing at all to do with the merits of the music! Voting is the most hotly contested aspect of the contest; geography, history, culture, religion and other socio-cultural affiliations certainly do seem to influence how countries vote. The more dominant countries pack the kind of clout others command in the United Nations: The so-called Big Five countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) get automatic spots in the final regardless of their positions on the scoreboard. Indeed, on a number of occasions the contest and its voting practices have sparked patriotic indignation and withdrawals for political reasons.

Changing Eurovision Song Contest language policies and practices also make for interesting reading. According to Wikipedia, from 1956 to 1965 songs could be sung in any language. In 1966 a new rule stipulated that songs must be performed in one of the official languages of the participating country. This rule was abolished in 1973 and performers were allowed to sing in any language they chose. Several contestants in the mid-1970s took advantage of this relaxation, including Abba in 1974. In 1977, the EBU decided to revert to the national language rule, with special dispensations to Germany and Belgium who had already been selected and whose songs were in English.

By 1999 the hegemony of English in Europe was already well on the rise. At the 1999 contest, the language restriction was again lifted and today songs may be performed in any language. As a result, many of the songs are performed either partly or completely in English. Entries are often performed in English to reach a wider audience but at the same time this practice is often regarded as being unpatriotic. In 2003, Belgium found an alternative solution, entering a song, entitled Sanomi, in an artificial language developed especially for the song. This strategy proved successful as Belgium finished second, only two points behind Turkey (but in the eyes of many it was a sympathy vote. Belgium and France had opposed the British-American proposal to put NATO anti-aircraft guns into Turkey as defence against the threat of Iraqi retaliation in the event of a U.S. invasion of Iraq). In 2006 the Dutch entry was sung partly in an artificial language but it did far less well, coming 17^th out of 23 contestants; the contest was won by the Finns, singing a hard rock song in English.

Songs have been performed in a minority language in only 19 out of 53 contests.  Much like the Olympics, French is used by the contest presenters but it appears to play a largely symbolic role. The presenters announce the scores both in English and in French, a practice which has given rise to the famous exclamation “douze points” when the host repeats the top score in French.

This year the Buranovskiye Babushki, a.k.a the Russian Grannies, took hybridity to a new level in their song Party for Everybody performed in Udmur and English.

What can I say? Eurovision may be trivial and may gloss over political tensions but nobody can deny that it is fun. On a final and uncritical note, whatever you might think about the essentialised, commodified identities promoted by the Eurovision Song Contest, for me nothing will ever surpass the sheer kitsch fabulousness of the unbeatable Abba!

Joe Hill front cover

Today 105 years ago, on November 19, 1905, Joe Hill was executed in Utah. Although his name is rather forgotten today, Joe Hill was arguably one of the most influential American song-writers of the 20^th century. A Swedish immigrant, he was also a second language writer. So it is only fitting that Language-on-the-Move should pay tribute to this remarkable man and his inspirational writing.

Joe Hill was known as “the troubadour of the working class” and he is the poet and song writer of most of the songs in The Little Red Songbook, a collection of folk songs published and sung by the Industrial Workers Union of the World during its heyday in the first half of the 20^th century. He is the author of classics such as “The Preacher and the Slave,” “The tramp,” or “Casey Jones, the union scab.” Joe Hill’s particular talent was to write activist lyrics and set them to well-known traditional folk songs and hymns.

Joe Hill was born as Joel Hägglund in a small town in Sweden and after the death of his parents bought passage to America and arrived in 1902 as a 23-year-old with high hopes for a better future. While little is known about his early life, it seems he had learnt some English before he left Sweden by studying with the YMCA and by also having studied a dictionary (Smith, 1984, p. 47). However, overall his English must have been largely self-taught.

The migration experience that changed Joel Hägglund into Joe Hill ran deeper than the name change:

Joel Hägglund left his native Sweden for America where he believed prosperity would be his merely for the asking and where equality of opportunity was a reality. But, for Joe Hill, America turned out to be a land specializing in the oppression of foreigners and migrant workers. It could have been nothing less than an embittering experience. Certainly, it changed a young man raised in a conservative Christian home which taught him loyalty to “God, King and all authority” into a “rebel true-blue,” opposed to the existing social and economic inequalities, to the authority of the law when it sanctioned injustice, and, apparently, to Christianity (Smith, 1984, p. 57).

Unlike many other migrants with similar experiences, Joe Hill distinguished himself through his writing and his poetry, which is rooted in his experience and is a resounding call for solidarity, equality and justice.

Joe Hill is remembered today as a martyr of the workers’ movement. He is also an inspiring second language writer. Despite the fact that he himself felt that his writing was limited by his lack of education and formal training (Smith, 1984, p. 40), his poetry not only immortalized him but also remains an inspiration today.

On the eve of his execution, Joe Hill wrote his will:

My will is easy to decide,/For there is nothing to divide./My kin don’t need to fuss and moan–/“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”/My body? Ah, if I could choose,/I would to ashes it reduce,/And let the merry breezes blow/My dust to where some flower’s grow./Perhaps some fading flower then/Would come to life and bloom again./This is my last and final will./Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill.

Joe Hill’s wish to be cremated was honored and he was farewelled in Chicago by 30,000 mourners in one of the largest funeral processions ever. Glazer (2002, pp. 194f.) describes how his songs were sung all the way to the crematorium and as soon as a song would die out in one place it was taken up in another. Eulogies to the man whose lyrics inspired so many to organize for solidarity, equality and justice were delivered in nine languages.

Joe Hill’s writings challenge us to lead a better life and to fight for solidarity, equality and justice. They also serve as a role model for aspiring second language writers. If you are a language teacher, why not introduce Joe Hill to your students? There are many good reasons for introducing Joe Hill into English language teaching: First, he makes an excellent language learning role model because the fact that English was not his “native language” did not hold him back to make his voice heard in his adopted country. Second, accounts of his life such as this one, this one or this one have all the hallmarks of great language learning materials: a gripping story with lots of discussion points that lend themselves to the exploration of a wide range of issues be it migration, poverty, resistance, or the law. And, additionally, there is a gripping and unresolved murder mystery to keep everyone intrigued. Third, poetry is a great way to learn and teach a language. It certainly worked for me – “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night” was – along with other Joan Baez songs – one of the first poems I ever learnt in the English language and with which I learn the English language.

Joe Hill never died. Let’s make sure he lives on for another generation.