ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with questions of linguistic equity in education and provides an overview of linguistic barriers to inclusive education. Specifically, it explores mismatches between home and school language. Students from indigenous and migrant backgrounds frequently experience such a discrepancy, which can be attributed to the monolingual habitus of the multilingual school. The most widespread educational model for indigenous and migrant students resulting from the monolingual habitus is submersion education. Submersion education produces the double burden of simultaneous content and language learning, which may negatively affect the academic achievement of multilingual students. Other harms of submersion education include truncated language development, the erasure of language competences in non-dominant languages, failure to challenge discrimination, and the exclusion of parents from engaging with their children’s education. We close with policy implications by outlining linguistically inclusive practices.
