ABSTRACT
One of the consequences of the shift to objectives of pluralism and equality has been the need to alter the organizational arrangements so as to meet altogether different conceptions about how schools should respond to children from different linguistic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Teachers are increasingly considering how they can react positively to the linguistic skills children bringing with them to school. Schools are developing approaches which enable the richer linguistic diversity present in multi-ethnic classrooms to be made a positive feature in teaching the class as a whole. 'Whole-school' policies for developing language across the curriculum are being developed, requiring and eliciting greater linguistic awareness among teachers generally. The new approaches to language constitute practical ways of combating racism and developing equality in education. New approaches are being developed in the context of whole-school policies which are adopting positive attitudes towards the language variation of all pupils.
