Multilingual Education: Rhetoric and Realities

Multilingual education is an umbrella term encompassing a vast array of curricula, practices, contexts, cultures, and linguistic practices. When researching multilingual education, it is necessary to both acknowledge this complexity, and to establish the parameters and characteristics of the particular situations we are investigating. This chapter explores some of the rhetoric and realities at play in shaping multilingual education. Multilingualism and multilingual education are framed through the multilingual turn, and the nexus of policy, beliefs and practices is highlighted. Fundamentally, the need to avoid universalising approaches to multilingual education is argued. The chapter frames the volume, which showcases a tapestry of complex, overlapping and dynamic ideas and practices concerning how we teach and learn (through) languages.