Re: CHAT: A slightly less forbidden experiment?

> Date:         Tue, 7 Dec 1999 23:04:00 +0100
> From: taliesin the storyteller <taliesin@...>
> Norway sides with the Netherlands here, kids are supposed to have their
> mother tongue in school, as well as Norwegian of course. It's not always
> feasible though, with lack of teachers and materials etc., so the
> quality of teaching varies a lot. And of course there are right-wingers
> and liberalists etc. that wants to take that opportunity away.
I seem to remember that there is a sort of UN-sponsored extended human
rights convention that inter alia says that people should not be
prevented from access to their own culture. And not giving them the
opportunity to learn to read their own language, or understand its
higher registers, is preventing such access.

Not all countries have adopted that convention (by far), and fewer try
to implement this part of it --- and those who do are often hampered
by lack of suitable teaching material and teachers. (And sometimes
social processes within the immigrant communities cause the relatively
well paid teaching jobs to go to high-status members of the group,
regardless of their teaching qualifications --- which fuels the right
wing objections when it's discovered).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)