The Book

This book focuses on data drawn from an ethnographic study of discursive practices in two primary bilingual schools in Mozambique, fictionally called Escola Primária Completa de Gwambewni and Escola Primária Completa de Bikwani. The book also draws on insights from my previous and current involvement with bilingual education in Mozambique, where I have been working together with government and non-government organisations as teacher trainer, consultant and researcher.

Combining discourse analysis and ethnography, my main concern in the study was to explore how different views about the purpose and value of bilingual education in Mozambique are manifested in bilingual classroom discourse practices and how these practices relate to local, institutional and societal discourses.

By ‘value’ of bilingual education I mean the significance that stakeholders attach to the resources acquired through this educational provision and their evaluation of how well it allows access to those resources. These resources include proficiency and literacy skills in an African language and in Portuguese (which is a second/foreign language for most Mozambican citizens), academic achievement in both languages, as well as the symbolic and material rewards associated with those resources.

This study comes after a language-in-education policy shift that has extended over several years and after widespread curriculum innovation in Mozambique, involving a move away from a Portuguese-only system of education to a situation in which local African languages have also been accorded a space in formal education through the gradual introduction of a bilingual programme. Unlike many other African countries, however, Mozambique does not have any prior tradition of bilingual education. It is therefore currently facing many challenges in the implementation of the programme, including in defining the appropriate role and place of African languages and associated local cultures in the classroom. Within this scenario, this study provides empirically grounded insights for diagnosing as well as informing policy and implementation of this innovative programme in the country and beyond.