Keynotes and Presentations

Sustaining indigenous language groups in the age of big cultures: a challenge for global socio-cultural diversity - Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin

Promoting and protecting cultural and linguistic diversity is one the most significant socio-cultural challenges facing the world in the 21st century. This paper addresses the threat to global cultural diversity from the perspective of societally non-dominant language groups.

Despite official recognition and various forms of institutional support, the living Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland are at an advanced stage of language shift to English in the last remaining social geographies of the Gaelic vernacular communities (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2020; Ó Giollagáin et al. 2007; Ó Giollagáin and Charlton 2015; Taylor 2016; MacKinnon 2011; Ó Giollagáin and Ó Curnáin 2016; Ó Curnáin 2016; Ó Giollagáin and Caimbeul, forthcoming). Given that the Gaelic languages receive more favourable official attention than most minority languages, this analysis focuses on the most likely outcomes of continuing with the language policy status quo. The paper argues that much of current thinking on language policy is rooted in an aspirational approach to minority-language promotion without sufficient emphasis on language-group protection.

Language promotion may encourage beneficial effects such as the:

• Enhanced civic status of the minority languages
• Symbolic appeal of the minority-language cultural capital among the language majority
• Support for some minority educational provision in various context
• Media and aesthetic outputs in the minority languages.

Language promotion policies without adequate language protection strategies often achieve limited success in addressing the challenges in the following realms:

• Endangered social context of the languages and the social fragility of living vernacular communities and networks
• Strategic misalignment with social challenges of supporting marginal indigenous communities
• Confused diagnostics of measuring provision rather than output and of conflating learners’ and speakers’ needs, i.e. one-size-fits-all thinking
• Constraints in group and official leaderships and a lack of clear policy focus at a time of societal

I contend that much of official language promotion has fostered a symbolic approach to the minority languages at the expense of enabling collective initiatives to address the social disempowerment of the remaining speaker groups. It is a case of asserting civic status for languages which is in contradiction of the disempowered reality of the average speaker.

This paper offers an alternative analysis to the conceptual limitations of promoting minority aspirational bilingualism without regard for societal processes of minority subordination and disempowerment. It suggests a more productive strategic approach to protecting the societal presence of minority-language groups and to sustaining the cultural diversity they contribute to the world.

About Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin 

Conchúr is a Dubliner who lived for many years in various Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions prior to coming to the UHI in 2014. He now lives in Inverness. He is the Gaelic Research Professor in the University of the Highlands and Islands and the director of the UHI Language Sciences Institute. He is also the academic director of Soillse, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research project, based at Scotland’s national college for Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye. In 2015 he was appointed as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Conchúr is a prominent scholar in language planning and minority language culture and sociology. He has written extensively on issues concerning the sustainability of minority cultures, especially the Gaeltacht communities in Ireland and Scotland.

Conchúr previously lectured in the School of Political Science and Sociology in the National University of Ireland Galway on the sociology of language. His teaching and research interests include language planning, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and Gaeltacht biography. Previously, he was the Head of the Language Planning Unit in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge (Ireland’s Irish-medium college in NUI Galway), where he devised and led Ireland’s first MA programme in Language Planning. He also contributed to the development of the Acadamh’s MA in Language Sciences.

He published last year with UHI colleagues the most comprehensive sociolinguistic survey of the societal extent of Gaelic speakers’ use of the language in the remaining vernacular communities in Scotland: The Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community: A Comprehensive Sociolinguistic Survey of Scottish Gaelic. He co-authored the government-commissioned Gaeltacht survey Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht (2007). The update of the study Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: 2006–2011 (An Update of the Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht) was published in 2015. Along with Tamás Péterváry, Brian Ó Curnáin and Jerome Sheahan he published the first major study of bilingual acquisition in Ireland, Iniúchadh ar an gCumas Dátheangach: An sealbhú teanga i measc ghlúin óg na Gaeltachta / Assessment of Bilingual Competence: Language acquisition among people in the Gaeltacht. He co-edited two ground-breaking books, Beartas Úr na nGael: Dálaí na Gaeilge san Iar-Nua-Aoiseachas [A New Deal for the Gaels: Irish in Postmodernity] (2016) and An Chonair Chaoch: an Mionteangachas sa Dátheangachas (2012) examining the minority language condition from the perspective of those whose primary identity is the minority culture.

Alaska Native Resiliency for Place-Based Education - Sean Asiqłuq Topkok, PhD

For time immemorial, Alaska Native people have utilized place-based education (PBE) before any contact. This keynote address presents PBE in Alaska before contact, after contact, and initiatives implemented in the 1990s to complement Indigenous knowledge systems with Western academia.

The Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) was established to share and promote the exchange of cultural resources and knowledge among Indigenous communities throughout Alaska and beyond. In selecting culturally relevant materials for the website and other collections, we sought to reach beyond the surface features of Indigenous cultural practices and illustrate the potential for comparative study of deep knowledge drawn from both the Native and Western knowledge streams. As initiatives evolved and Indigenous communities worldwide shared their successes, the founders of the Center for Cross Cultural Studies developed and implemented a doctoral program to increase the capacity of Alaska Native scholars. In 2009, a joint Ph.D. program in Indigenous Studies began which draws and builds upon long-standing academic and research capabilities at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) to offer a course of advanced graduate study with six thematic areas of emphasis from which students choose a concentration: Indigenous Research, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Indigenous Education, Indigenous Languages, Indigenous Leadership, and Indigenous Sustainability. Doctoral candidates participate in research activities across a variety of academic disciplines and applied fields at UAF. They are encouraged to engage in comparative studies with other Indigenous peoples around the world and to focus their dissertation research on issues of relevance to Alaska and worldwide. Alaska Native scholars continue to emerge to continue the legacy of past pioneers, formalizing Indigenous pedagogies and epistemologies which we have implemented for thousands of years. Alaska Native place-based education continues to be resilient at all levels of education.

About Sean Asiqłuq Topkok, PhD

“Uvaŋa atiġa Asiqłuq. Ataataga Sanguk. Aanaga Aileen-mi. My Iñupiaq name is Asiqłuq. My white-fox name is Sean Topkok. I am Iñupiaq, Sámi, Kven, Irish, and Norwegian.” Topkok is an Associate Professor and Chair for the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the Indigenous Studies graduate programs. His family is from Teller, Alaska, and are Qaviaraġmiut. Dr. Topkok’s research interests include multicultural and Indigenous education, Indigenist methods and methodologies, working with communities to help them document their cultural heritages, and community well-being.

Strategic Partnerships: Education alone cannot address rural-education concerns - Professor John Pegg

Issues associated with the geographical divide in educational outcomes underscores significant challenges in many countries. These issues are widely known and share many similarities across country borders.

Common areas of concern include:

• lower schooling outcomes of students;
• problematic teacher retention;
• employment of mainly young in-experienced teachers; and
• the lack of access to professional development and resources.

While these four areas are interdependent, the underachievement of geographically-isolated students in comparison to their larger-city or metropolitan peers creates the greatest disquiet.

Associated with these areas of concern related to student learning is the acceleration of structural change resulting in a decline in business opportunities in rural areas. In general, countries have moved towards: (i) more open, less protected, national economies through reductions in trade barriers and assistance programs; (ii) deregulation of financial systems and labour markets; and (iii) privatisation of government utilities and services.

There is also a diminution of traditional employment opportunities that typically attract and retain adults in rural communities. National and International corporate rationalisation has led to closures of key forms of infrastructure in many small towns/villages. Furthermore, job options for school leavers have changed in nature and scope, noticeable by an overall steady drift of people and businesses to larger centres. As a result, the complexion of many regional/rural areas has changed.

It is recognised that efforts are being made by governments and/or education authorities to address their nation’s obligation towards socially-just education provision, in which student outcomes are independent of geographic location. However, despite some limited local improvements, over-time, issues continue to persist.

This paper considers reasons and possible answers to the rural issues/concerns expressed above by focussing on a tenet with three interconnecting parts.

Tenet: Rural issues/concerns in education can only be sustainably addressed if countries adopt a nationally coordinated approach, involving strategic partnerships that are holistic, coordinated and integrated:

• across government and non-government education jurisdictions;
• among education stakeholders and relevant groups associated with transport, communication access, health, meaningful employment options, appropriate housing and social activities; and
• by cultural responsiveness through appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to long-term sustainable development.

About Professor John Pegg

John Pegg is Director of the SiMERR National Research Centre based at the University of New England, Australia. He has been the team leader on numerous Australian and International large-scale research projects linked to: underachieving students in literacy and basic Mathematics, diagnostic testing programs in science, developmental-based assessment and instruction, and the validation and implementation of national professional teaching and school leadership standards.

He is known internationally for his contribution to theory-based cognition research linked to the SOLO Model and his advocacy for and research into rural and regional education. He is a Chief Investigator for the brain-based, Australian Science of Learning Research Centre.

Currently, he leads a large-scale project in the Philippines, funded by the Australian Government, concerning the development of the Philippine National Research Centre for Teacher Quality (RCTQ) by promoting national system-wide quality reforms in teacher and school leader education.

In 2015, he was awarded a Doctor of Education (Honoris Causa) by Philippine Normal University for his contribution to Education reform in the Philippines and Internationally.

Aiseag: a presentation from Eilidh Mackenzie and Arthur Cormack from Fèisean nan Gàidheal

Aiseag will tell the story of the Fèis movement in Scotland - a community arts initiative which began in the 1980s when parents in the island of Barra became concerned at how little the formal education system was doing to pass on Gaelic culture to young people.  Fèis Bharraigh was established and has acted as a catalyst for 47 such organisations across Scotland, engaging thousands of young people in Gaelic arts tuition.  Nowadays providing around a third of all traditional music tuition across Scotland, Eilidh Mackenzie and Arthur Cormack from Fèisean nan Gàidheal – the umbrella organisation of the Fèis movement - will explain how culture is embedded in community learning as well as ways in which the Gaelic language is acquired or reinforced through its Fèisgoil service, which helps deliver a variety of educational outcomes in schools.