Relinking with ubuntu multilingualism through bilingual science learning at school: parents’ perspectives

Abstract

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on parents’ views on language-in-education policy in Southern Africa. The children of the parents interviewed in this study participated in a bilingual learning intervention in their Grade 4 science class in Cape Town, South Africa. Bilingual isiXhosa/English learning materials were introduced in 2023 by a team of researchers, including the science teacher. The parents’ overwhelmingly positive comments are analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The results revealed that parents believed the bilingual programme connected school and home (co-)learning and language practices and fostered curiosity and confidence. No parents reported concerns about the loss of English proficiency or about the undesirability of mixed language use. Viewed through the lens of decolonial theory, the findings demonstrate the interruption of the coloniality of language and the foregrounding of ubuntu multilingualism (Makalela, L. 2018. “Community Elders’ Narrative Accounts of Ubuntu Translanguaging: Learning and Teaching in African Education.” International Review of Education 64 (6): 823–843), which was enabled by the bilingual programme. Parents strongly supported the departure from a monolingual approach and highlighted the possibilities of a decolonial ‘otherwise’ in language and learning. Re-linking with the practices of polyglotism and community-based learning enabled both parents and children to be positioned as ‘knowers’ and the gap between home and school to be reduced.