Cogent Education

Reimagining “Quality” in Multilingual Education: Ecologies, Practices and Possibilities

Cogent Education is pleased to welcome you to submit your research to the Article Collection "Reimagining “Quality” in Multilingual Education: Ecologies, Practices and Possibilities".

Across the globe, multilingualism has become an increasingly defining feature of contemporary society and educational systems through migration, cultural and linguistic diversity, Indigenous language revitalisation, transnational mobility, and growing recognition of its educational and social benefits. Consequently, multilingualism is frequently promoted in educational policy and scholarly discourse as a pathway towards inclusion, equity, linguistic justice, and social cohesion. Yet multilingualism is often embraced only superficially, reduced to symbolic recognition or aspirational policy statements, while monolingual, colonialingual, and market-driven norms continue to shape curriculum, policy, assessment, and classroom practice. This disconnect raises fundamental questions about what constitutes quality multilingual education. While the language of "quality" is frequently invoked in educational policy, it is often left undefined or reduced to narrow indicators such as academic achievement, language proficiency, or standardised assessment. This framing can overlook the complex ecological, sociocultural, ideological, and political conditions that shape multilingual teaching and learning, as well as the diverse aspirations, identities, languages, lands, and knowledges that multilingual education should nurture. Thus, “quality” often conceptualized through neoliberal frameworks reinforced by colonial and bureaucratic academic structures must be reconsidered through a lens that connects it to the multilingual ecological realities of learners and teachers in diverse colonized, Indigenous and Southern contexts.

The need to theorise quality in multilingual education is pressing because definitions of “quality” shape educational priorities, policies, pedagogies, assessment practices, and the experiences of multilingual learners and educators. Definitions of quality are never neutral; they reflect assumptions about language, learning, knowledge, and whose linguistic and cultural resources are considered legitimate. Transformative approaches to multilingual education—including translanguaging, decolonial, humanising, culturally sustaining, raciolinguistic, Indigenous, Southern, and social justice-oriented perspectives—have significantly reshaped understandings of language, learning, teaching, assessment, identity, and equity. Yet these contributions often remain parallel rather than connected. A more expansive conceptualisation of quality has the potential to bring these transformative perspectives into dialogue or what scholars describe as “strategic allyship” for epistemological humility. This will help in foregrounding linguistic and epistemic justice, recognising multilingualism as an asset for learning and participation, and supporting educational environments that foster belonging, equity, and meaningful engagement. Developing such a theoretical understanding is therefore essential not only for advancing scholarship, but also for informing educational policies and practices that are responsive to the linguistic and epistemic realities of increasingly diverse and transnational societies.

This Collection invites empirical, theoretical, conceptual, and practice-oriented contributions that critically examine how quality multilingual education is imagined, negotiated, and enacted across diverse educational contexts. We welcome submissions on multilingual pedagogies, translanguaging and plurilingual approaches, Indigenous language revitalisation, heritage and community language education, language policy, teacher education, curriculum, assessment, family and community engagement, and digital or ecological approaches to multilingual learning. We are especially interested in contributions that examine how power, coloniality, racialisation, migration, language ideologies, epistemic injustice, and community agency shape what counts as quality in multilingual education. The Collection welcomes original research articles, review articles, conceptual papers, and theoretically informed practice-based contributions that offer new ways of understanding multilingual education as equitable, situated, and socially transformative. We particularly encourage submissions that “decentre” the notion of “quality” as constructed and appropriated within colonial and neoliberal frameworks in academia and society.

Authors interested in contributing to this Collection are invited to submit an abstract of 250–300 words, together with a 50–70 word author biography, to Leonardo Veliz at lveliz@une.edu.au. Abstracts should clearly outline the purpose of the paper, theoretical or conceptual framing, methodology (where applicable), and its contribution to advancing understandings of quality in multilingual education. The deadline for abstracts is 15 October 2026.

Meet the Guest Advisors

Dr. Leonardo Veliz is an Associate Professor in Language and Literacy at the University of New England, Australia. He is a qualified secondary school teacher with more than 20 years of experience across highly diverse educational contexts in Australia, the United Kingdom, and South America. His academic career spans over two decades and encompasses teaching, leadership, research, and service in schools and higher education institutions.

Dr. Paul Meighan is a Gael sociolinguist and Senior Research Associate at the University of Guelph, Canada. His research explores relationships among language, land, identity, and power through Indigenous language revitalisation, multilingual pedagogies, Indigenous knowledge systems. He is the originator of the concept “colonialingualism” and has published on Indigenous language revitalisation, colonialingualism, transepistemic language education, and language education policy. His work foregrounds linguistic and epistemic justice, community-led language reclamation, and the role of decolonial education in countering colonialingualism.

Dr. Waqar Ali Shah is a full-time Assistant Professor at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research interests include applied linguistics, critical discourse studies (CDS), and critical multilingual education. His work has been published in internationally peer-reviewed journals. He has recently co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Race and Equity in Applied Linguistics and Decolonizing English Language Textbooks: Engaging in a South–North Inter-epistemic Dialogue (Routledge). He currently serves as a Series Editor for Critical Multilingualism in Education (Springer).

The Guest Advisors declare no conflict of interest regarding this work.