A site for debate, negotiation and contest of national identity: language policy in Australia. Guide for the development of language education policies in Europe from linguistic diversity to plurilingual education

In this text, Stacy Churchill discusses the complex relationships between identities and languages – and language education policies – in Canada. As a federal state, with language education policies developed within its constituent states rather than at Federal level, and with a range of ethnic and national majority and minority groups, the relationship between language education policies and identities, and in particular the evolution of a Canadian civic identity, offers a possible analogy with the evolution of states and their relationships in Europe. In the Guide, the question of the impact of developing plurilingualism on the sense of belonging to the European political and cultural space is considered as part of the analysis of Council of Europe policies on plurilingualism. Churchill’s study shows above all how the impact of policies is a long-term process, of thirty or more years in the case of the policies promoting bilingualism. His study thus provides a perspective on the ways in which European policies promoting plurilingualism may develop, and the time needed for them to do so.