Abstract
This research analyses how effective multilingual educational reforms (MLE) have been in post-Soviet Georgia in helping ethnic minorities to learn Georgian as a second language in order to integrate into Georgian society. It also examines the language ideologies at play within the interactive dynamics of top-down and bottom-up discourses. This research used qualitative methods of analysis and the data was collected in February and March 2015. The research revealed that MLE processes in Georgia at the current time have not been effective in bridging the language gap for ethnic minorities due to the low proficiency of the Georgian language among ethnic minority teachers. Furthermore, MLE reforms have produced ideologies of exclusion rather than inclusion and the research has revealed a social hierarchy of languages (Weber in Multilingualism, education and change, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2009) is prevalent within Georgian society and in all spheres of language use. However, at the grass-roots level the research discovered that language shift is happening as a natural process externally to multilingual education processes among ethnic minorities in Georgia. This has been attributed to an increase in the motivation of ethnic minority populations to improve their economic opportunities within Georgian society though the use of social media and information technology.
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Notes
There are many definitions of multilingualism and bilingualism, but for the purpose of this research the following definitions will be used:
The term multilingualism is defined as being when more than one language is used on one territory between different communities (Edwards 1994).
The term bilingualism refers to two languages used either by an individual, an ethnic minority school or the two languages used in the bilingual textbooks.
The 1 + 4 programme refers to a pre-university intensive Georgian language course for ethnic minority students. Please see “1 + 4 programme” section for more details.
Some scholars have observed that teachers claim they are carrying out a type of bilingual teaching approach, but often they are actually not (Cziko 1992; Thomas and Collier 2002). Furthermore, some bilingual approaches cannot be referred to as ‘bilingual’ (Benson 2002). Therefore the decision was taken not to categorise the different teaching methods observed in the ethnic minority schools in this research according to the traditional categories in the literature.
Georgian language assistants are Georgian students who are undergoing study for pedagogical Bachelor’s degree programmes at universities in Georgia. As part of their study programme they have to go on a teaching placement to an ethnic minority school. These Georgian students assist the ethnic minority teachers in schools by helping with lesson planning, materials development and translating some of the lessons for the ethnic minority teachers.
See Assessment Document on the Implementation of the National Concept for Tolerance and Civic Integration and Action Plan for 2009–2014, (2014, p. 60).
This project aimed to improve literacy and numeracy rates among primary school children in both national and international assessments. The USAID also supported the MoES with the development of supplementary reading and mathematics instructional material. For further details see http://www.chemonics.com/OurWork/OurProjects/Pages/GeorgiaPrimary-Education.aspx.
The Georgian government provides grants for 100 Armenian students and 100 Azerbaijani students based on the results of the general skills examinations. The additional students enrolled on the Georgian language programme are self-funded or funded from other sources, but not the state budget.
The MoES has been involved in the ‘Argonauti’ Students’ Exchange Programme.
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Acknowledgements
This research was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science in Georgia with the support of the High Commissioner on National Minorities/Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The author wishes to thank everybody who was involved in the research.
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Wigglesworth-Baker, T. Multilingual education reforms in Georgia in the post-Soviet period: discourses of ethnic minority integration. Lang Policy 17, 285–306 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9426-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9426-y