Linguistic Discordance
What is Linguistic Discordance?
Linguistic discordance refers to the mismatch between a student's home language (L1) and the language of instruction (LOI) used at school, where LOI refers to the language through which curricular content is taught across several subjects, rather than a language taught as a subject. The term was introduced by Maya Alkateb-Chami (2024) to provide a concise way of describing and drawing attention to a phenomenon that has long concerned researchers, educators, and policymakers across diverse linguistic contexts.
The concept draws attention to a critical dimension of education globally, which is often overlooked in mainstream discussions of educational improvement: whether children are taught in a language that builds on the linguistic knowledge and broader understanding of the world they have already developed through their home language.
"Linguistic discordance" is not intended to imply that languages are discrete or pure. Rather, it serves as an analytical construct for identifying an educational phenomenon that warrants greater research and policy attention, while inviting further examination of its forms, causes, and consequences across contexts.
Education is a fundamental human right, yet a substantial proportion of children around the world are taught in a language they do not speak or understand best (Walter & Benson, 2012). This includes many children educated in the languages of their countries’ historic colonizers, members of linguistically minoritized communities, immigrants, refugees, and others whose home language differs from the language of instruction used at school.
Linguistic discordance matters because literacy development builds on children’s prior knowledge. When children learn to read in a language they understand, they can draw on their oral language skills as well as their background knowledge of the world—acquired through language—to support reading development in that language; and later in a second language. It also matters because it impacts the conditions of teaching and learning, including instructional effectiveness and student motivation, alongside other factors.
In Alkateb-Chami (2024), linguistic discordance was operationalized using country-level data curated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The underlying UIS indicator measures the percentage of students in early primary grades whose first or home language matches the language of instruction used at school. The measure draws on data from international learning assessments, including TIMSS and PASEC, where students were asked about the language they speak at home more than “sometimes” or “never”, and these responses were compared with the language used for school tests as a proxy for language of instruction. The resulting student-level data were aggregated to the national level and reported by UIS as the percentage of students whose home language aligns with the language of instruction.
To capture the extent of mismatch between home and school languages, Alkateb-Chami (2024) inverted the UIS indicator to create the Rate of Linguistic Discordance (RLD) in the early primary grades: the percentage of students in a country whose home language does not align with the language of instruction in the early primary education years. The resulting measure provides a country-level estimate that is grounded in individual student responses, and is based on nationally representative datasets.
A Note on Interpretation
Linguistic Discordance is an approximation rather than a direct measure of students' linguistic knowledge or the language of instruction at school. The indicator relies on students' self-reports and uses the language of assessment as a proxy for the language of instruction. Additionally, both multilingualism and use of one or another language often exist on continua rather than as discrete categories. The measure therefore should be understood as an indicator of broad patterns of alignment and misalignment between the mother tongue and the language of instruction at school rather than as a precise representation of an individual’s linguistic knowledge or of language of instruction practices.
Research Findings
Drawing on data from 56 countries, Alkateb-Chami (2024) examined the relationship between linguistic discordance and “Learning Poverty”—the percentage of children per country who are unable to read and understand a simple text by age ten (World Bank, 2019).
The study identified a strong positive correlation between linguistic discordance and Learning Poverty. Countries with higher rates of linguistic discordance tended to exhibit lower literacy outcomes, while countries with greater alignment between students' home language and language of instruction tended to demonstrate lower rates of Learning Poverty. The association was evident across low-, middle-, and high-income countries, but it was most pronounced in middle-income countries. This finding suggests that language of instruction policies may represent a particularly important lever for improving foundational literacy outcomes in these settings.
Comparative study across 56 countries identifies robust positive correlation between the rate of linguistic discordance in early primary grades and Learning Poverty, a country-level basic literacy measure (Alkateb-Chami, 2024).
- Language-of-instruction policies deserve greater attention within discussions of educational quality and equity.
- Improving alignment between learners' home languages and the language of instruction can contribute to stronger literacy outcomes.
- Middle-income countries may represent particularly important sites for policy intervention.
- Better data on language of instruction are needed to inform educational planning and evaluation.
Linguistic discordance is not only a question of educational effectiveness. It is also a question of educational justice, literacy rights, and the conditions under which children develop the linguistic resources necessary for meaningful participation in social, cultural, economic, and political life.
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