ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns education in multiple languages, an issue of growing importance around the world. It provides an overview of the varied definitions and purposes of bilingual and multilingual education. The chapter presents three frameworks for understanding the subject: language-based, concentrating on how the languages are used in schools; content-based, where the emphasis is on what the languages are used to teach; and context-based, in which national and local conditions are the key factors. It draws the three frames together before highlighting key characteristics of effective programmes. The chapter describes three conceptual areas that are changing the ways bilingual/multilingual education is studied and practised: modality, mobility and mixing languages. The applied linguists need to understand programmes of bilingual and multilingual education from the multiple and overlapping perspectives of language, content and context, with special attention to global and local situations.
