Knowing what we see: Research and evaluation in mother tongue-based multilingual education programs in ethnolinguistic minority communities

Research and evaluation studies of mother tongue-based multilingual education (MT-Based MLE) programs in North America and Europe have provided considerable evidence that such programs benefit students who do not speak the official school language when they begin their education. These studies also demonstrate convincingly that the benefits of MT-Based MLE are cumulative and become most apparent only after five or more years of mother tongue instruction. The studies have underscored the need for research and evaluation with a longitudinal perspective -- one that looks beyond the immediate results of 1-3 year MT interventions for ethnic minority learners. For multiple reasons, credible long-term studies of MT-Based MLE programs are still rare in countries of the South (parts of Africa, Asia, South America and the Pacific). The lack of research evidence that such close-to-home programs "work" is frequently given as a reason for resisting consideration of MT-based MLE programs. Without credible research and evaluation studies in these areas, the likelihood of serious experimentation with MT-Based MLE diminishes. This paper focuses on several of the situations in which MT-Based MLE programs have been established in Asia and Africa and the Pacific. I describe both the opportunities these programs provide and the obstacles that must be overcome for good quality, credible longitudinal studies of MT-Based MLE programs to be done. Traditional approaches to quantitative and qualitative studies are examined for insights they might provide in overcoming obstacles to quality research in the often remote, sparsely-resourced areas where the ethnolinguistic minority communities live. In addition, more recent approaches to research and evaluation are summarized for participants' consideration.