The Council of Europe released a set of guidelines and a toolkit to address linguistic diversity at school. As stated in its foreword, “this document comes as a result of a thoughtful reflection on the importance of enhancing the visibility of the Charter [of Regional or Minority Languages] in particular through the school system. Its main purpose is to provide the educational community with a useful tool to disseminate information about the Charter and minority languages, and in this way raise awareness about language diversity”.
The publication is composed of three parts: Part A is a general presentation of language diversity and a description of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages as a legal instrument; part B includes three prototypical examples of country profiles of states that ratified the Charter, i.e. Poland, Spain and Switzerland, with different administrative structures. Part C contains ten teaching activities on minority language issues.
The publication is an initiative of the Council of Europe, in collaboration with Universidade de Vigo, Université de Fribourg/Universität Freiburg, Wyzsza Szkola Jezyków Obcych in Poznań and NPLD.
You can download the English version of the guidelines here.
The document is currently being translated into other European languages to facilitate its actual utilization.