Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: John Edwards (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)
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Volume: 22 Number: 2 Page: 134–151
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Social, Political, Educational, Linguistic and Cultural (Dis-)Incentives for Languages Education in Australia
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Leo Papademetre and Stephen Routoulas
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The issues related to language and culture teaching and learning in Australia across all levels of state-funded education have continuously centred around the sociocultural and linguistic aspirations for
maintenance of primarily immigrant parents and their children. However, the equally important aspirations of the Australian-born parents for their own children, the grandchildren of immigrant grandparents,
are seldom examined by researchers and education specialists. In this study, parents of Hellenic background, born and educated in Australia, share their current self-defined, bilingual and bicultural aspirations
for the cultural and linguistic future of their children. Their views and opinions reflect their personal interactions and negotiations with the ever-changing sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic
contexts of the funding state that constantly regulates all opportunities for languages/cultures education in schools within the continuously evolving federal agenda on 'multicultural' policy. Excerpts
from interviews with these parents are presented and the discussion is focused on the ambivalence characterising their perspectives on educational opportunities for their children. This study argues that
this ambivalence is influenced by the dis-incentives advocated through the ideological discourse on languages education in official government documents that, in turn, reflect the shifting ideology on what
it means to be bicultural and bilingual in present-day Australia .
© Multilingual Matters 2001
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