voXmi – Towards Cognitive Justice

Multilingualism in many aspects is a chance for globalized societies. It is certainly contributing to sharing world knowledge.

Am 11.-15. November 2019 fand in Amsterdam eine große Tagung der International Association for Intercultural Education (IAIE) statt. Jim Cummins, Professor Emeritus der Universität von Toronto und häufig zitiert zu seinen Forschungserkenntnissen zu Mehrsprachigkeit, hielt eine Keynote Speech zum Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit an Schulstandorten. Die IAIE begründete anlässlich dieser Tagung ein internationales Zertifikat für sprachenfreundliche Schulen. voXmi wurde im Rahmen einer Vortragsreihe zu Bilingualism and Multilingual Education mit einem Beitrag von Katharina Grubesic,  Susana Landgrebe und Ursula Mauric vorgestellt. Hier geht´s zur Präsentation Towards cognitive justice 

Ein Auszug aus dem Vortrag zu voXmi im Rahmen der Tagung:

Multilingualism in many aspects is a chance for globalized societies. It is certainly contributing to sharing world knowledge.

Since the 17^th century “all knowledge that have not been cast in some of the modern European imperial languages […], grounded in Greek and Latin, were not and are not sustainable knowledges” (Mignolo, 2007, p. 388). De Sousa Santos (2007), is warning against the consequences of cognitive injustice that along with the languages is excluding different kinds of knowledges. In a globalized society where multilingual people represent the overwhelming majority, it is needed to widen the perspective on languages (Khan-Svik et al., 2019).

The school network voXmi, supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, was initiated in 2009 with the concern for strengthening multilingualism in Austrian schools as an important measure to prevent violence and to build a peaceful, democratic and fair society (Maurič, 2015). The idea was to give a place to alllanguages that students bring to school, as well as in the wider school community. This concept includes family languages as well as foreign languages and minority languages. Following the trends of the 21^st century education, a particular emphasis was given to digital media as an important resource for the development of teaching and learning and beyond, networking and teacher training.

Literature

De Sousa Santos, B. (2007). Introduction. In B. De Sousa Santos (Ed.), Cognitive Justice in a Global World. Prudent Knowledges for a Decent Life (pp. 1–12). Lanham et al.: Lexington Books.

Khan-Svik, G., Stefan, F., Furch, E., Amberg, I. & Maurič, U. (Eds.). (2019). Mehrsprachigkeit im Fokus. Sprachenprofile der Pädagogischen Hochschulen. Innsbruck: Studienverlag.

Maurič, U. (2015). Mehrsprachigkeit als Schwerpunkt für Schulentwicklung. Das Schulnetzwerk voXmi. Ide, 39(4), 80–89.

Mignolo, W. D. (2007). The Splendors and Miseries of “Science”: Coloniality, Geopolitics of Knowledge, and Epistemic Pluriversality. In B. De Sousa Santos (Ed.), Cognitive Justice in a Global World. Prudent Knowledges for a Decent Life (pp. 375–395). Lanham et al.: Lexington Books.