Creese, A., & Martin, P. (Eds.) (2003). Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 142 pp.

MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOM ECOLOGIES: INTER-RELATIONSHIPS, INTERACTIONS AND IDEOLOGIES Lastly, Claudia Ordónez compares the level of spoken production among students aged 15. Her subjects are divided into three groups of 18 students from a bilingual school (English and Spanish), a monolingual one (Spanish), and a monolingual school in the USA. One invaluable contribution of this publication is the clarity with which the subject matter is handled. The authors offer sound arguments to justify the right to bilingual education, and provide solid evidence of the progress that has been made over the years, bringing to light the challenges that are still to be met so that students can develop their academic and communicative competences to the full. The contents of this book are accessible to all members of the educational community interested in the role of bilingual education in students’ linguistic, academic and cultural development. Jeannette Valencia Robles Universidad de Alcalá Creese, A., & Martin, P. (Eds.) (2003). Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 142 pp. T his work is comprised of a set of eight papers presented at the Third International Symposium on Bilingualism at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, in April 2001, preceded by a Foreword by the editors, and closed by an Afterword by Nancy H. Hornberger. All the studies within this work shed light on an issue that has not been very well documented so far: the ecology of multilingual classrooms in very varied places (USA, UK, Brunei, Corsica, Sweden), revolving around how ideology can shape the inter-relationships and interactions between individuals and languages (language evolution), depending on geographical, socio-economic and cultural factors (language environment), and revealing the power relationships inherent in the use of any given language, which might hinder its natural use (language endangerment). Ellen Skilton-Sylvester’s paper makes the point that teachers’ ideology of multilingualism is the last instance to support (a position she defends) or devalue linguistic diversity in their class policy (micro level), regardless of state laws on this issue (macro level). To illustrate her point, the author studies the case of ten different ESL teachers in the USA (a country with an officially monolingual tradition), who work with young and adult Cambodian students. She divides the teachers ESTUDIOS SOBRE EDUCACIÓN / VOL. 31 / 2016 / 201-204 201 CREESE, A. / MARTIN, P. in her study into four categories, according to more or less introduction in their classes of Khmer language and culture, ranging from a teacher who uses Khmer as literary practice and compares it with English, to a teacher who urges students to use only English, even when they are at home. The paper by Peter W. Martin studies one lesson in a remote rural classroom in Brunei in grade four of elementary school, in which students are introduced to bilingual schooling incorporating English to instruction where Malay is already used. In this lesson, seven students come from minority groups (Iban, Dusum and Penan) and use Iban for inter-group communication. These students have not had contact with the official and well-considered languages (Malay and English), and they struggle when they have to confront a text in English. The teacher uses Malay to clarify doubts and mediate with the text, and allows his students to do the same, but as long as they do not use Iban. This teacher’s class policy complies with the official laws that seek to assimilate the existing multiple minorities, but results in ineffective instruction. Alexandra Jaffe centers her research on the bilingual reality of Corsican classrooms. She explores how the use of Corsican as a language of power since the 1990s, when the educational authorities tried to revitalize it and counterbalance the dominance of French by teaching subject matter through this language, can have effects on learners’ cultural identification with it. This is achieved by introducing a thorough process of collaborative textual production in the classroom, resulting in a collective authorship of learning materials. She also compares this with the way French literacy is usually achieved. The two main differences are that Corsican lacks individual work and written texts, and also that there is less attention to form, resulting in a reality where Corsican learners are under less pressure to demonstrate their own knowledge. Angela Creese’s research focues on an incident at a girls-only high school located in a poor area of London where 90% of students are of non-English origin. The incident consisted of a protest made by some Turkish-speaking students of Kurdish origin who accused the school and some teachers of being racist. The author studies how two teachers who share the same language as the demonstrators but not the same cultural origin (they come from a Cypriot background) tried to mediate among families and students in the aftermath of the protest. The school made use of a minority language (Turkish) to spread the official message of the institution about equal opportunities, but it ignored the cultural difference between the two groups, resulting in the students’ refusal to communicate in Turkish with the two teachers (alienating them from their reality). Deirdre Martin, for her part, studies whether primary bilingual children from a Panjabi community located in a poor area of the West Midlands challenge the 202 ESTUDIOS SOBRE EDUCACIÓN / VOL. 31 / 2016 / 201-204 MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOM ECOLOGIES: INTER-RELATIONSHIPS, INTERACTIONS AND IDEOLOGIES official legitimacy of English in the UK with their discursive practices in two different contexts: home and school. Within the Panjabi community, both English and Panjabi are legitimized, since students use both languages to communicate with relatives. In school, students do dispute the legitimacy of English, as they use Panjabi, a minority language, to communicate to each other. This use is different according to gender: boys solve problems and use their mother tongue in a subversive way to criticize non-Panjabi speakers (peers and teachers); girls are more cautious about this type of use. Jo Arthur’s research focuses on the particular learning in a community school in Liverpool where Somali literacy is taught to ten students aged 11 and 12 in a pilot project self-initiated by their own community members to counterbalance a cultural shift that means that young members of the community are not practicing their parents’ culture and language. Although the two teachers involved in the project, in an inclusive practice, make use of English to clarify doubts, Somali literacy awakens a sense of cultural attachment that is not based on instrumental motives. The author of the paper goes on to ask whether a school system which valued minority languages and identities would result in (...truncated)