Making space for multilingualism in Australian schooling

In this article we introduce the special issue: Language(s) across the
curriculum in Australian schools. The special issue includes a focus
on English as an additional language in mainstream classes,
Indigenous education, heritage languages and foreign languages,
and we give background to these different though frequently
overlapping contexts. By considering context, we seek to
demonstrate the timeliness and importance both of the special
issue and of a focus on the experiences of students, teachers,
parents and members of the community in bilingual and
multilingual initiatives. Despite the empirical focus being Australian
schools, we understand that the findings may resonate with other
setting where monolingual ways of thinking are dominant. We
conclude this introductory article by providing the structure and
overview of the special issue.