Whos Afraid of Multilingual Education?

This book examines the arguments for rejecting multilingual education in Iran, as four academic experts counter these arguments with evidence that mother tongue-based education has resulted in positive outcomes in other countries. The book aims to shine a light on the debate in Iran and show how multilingual education could benefit the country.

Amir Kalan is a researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests include multilingual education, multiliteracies, second language writing and multilingual text generation.

Amir Kalan is a researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests include multilingual education, multiliteracies, second language writing and multilingual text generation.

A unique and compelling book, offering an impassioned plea by Iranian scholar Kalan for multilingual education in his own country. In conversation with four international lifetime warriors for the rights of children to education in their own language, the author probes the gamut of contentious political, historical, linguistic, cultural, pedagogical, and practical arguments against mother-tongue-based multilingual education, demolishing them one by one.

Colin Baker, Bangor University, UK:

Multilingual education has become an important topic of this and the next decade. Amir Kalan has created a book that advances debates and universal ideas about multilingual education. Contextualised in the political, religious and linguistic complexity of Iran, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the importance of multilingual education, in Iran itself, and in listening to four exceptional scholars.