Equity, Access, and Diversity

Though Luxembourg’s trilingual education system was created with the intention of social cohesion and a sense of a unified community, there is much debate on whether this aspect of their system perpetuates educational inequalities amongst locals and foreign nationals. Many in the field have concluded yes. One measure of such inequity are the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores. There is a notable gap between the scores of those children who do not speak either German or French at home (the languages in which the PISA test is offered in Luxembourg) and those who do. The recent 2012 PISA results, published in December, 2013, show the continued marginalization of immigrant children in Luxembourg. (see chart below)

pisa performance and equity chart 2012 copy(Chart retrieved from: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2013). PISA 2012 results in focus. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf)

We can also compare the evolution of PISA achievement gaps based on a students mother tongue. Students who take the PISA assessment are asked various questions including “what language do you speak at home most of the time?”. The responses are categorized as those who speak the language of the test and those who speak another language. See below two data sets

PISA results for 2012, language spoken at home:

PISA 2012 results LUX, languages copy

PISA results 2009, language spoken at home:

PISA 2009 results LUX, languages  copy

Please refer to my 5-minute presentation on the issue of multilingual education and the integration of mother tongues in education, through the lens of the theory of Postmodernism, using Luxembourg as a case study: Postmodernism and Multilingual Education in Luxembourg

Data sets retrieved from:

Programme for International Student Assessment. (2009). 2009: Interactive data selection [Data file]. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://pisa2009.acer.edu.au/interactive_results.php

Programme for International Student Assessment. (2013). 20012: Interactive data selection [Data file]. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://pisa2012.acer.edu.au/interactive_results.php

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