New ECMI Publication: Policy Measures for Minority Languages in Europe

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Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:50:27 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: New ECMI Publication: Policy Measures for Minority Languages in Europe

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Original sender: William McKinney <[email protected]>

New ECMI Publication: Policy Measures for Minority Languages
in Europe


ECMI Report No. 6
 
Evaluating Policy Measures for Minority Languages in Europe: Towards
effective, cost-effective and democratic implementation
 
Over the past decade, minority issues have been steadily gaining
attention in a variety of contexts, including international fora,
government policies, or the action programmes of non-governmental
organisations; they now also receive a media visibility that they
probably never enjoyed in the past. The current significance of
minority issues (as well as the general interest in them) plays itself
out at different levels. One of the is the political and legal level,
where questions such as the extent and nature of the rights that
minorities should enjoy are debated. One other (and often overlooked)
level is that of the specific measures that need to be designed and
implemented, once a legal framework for them exists. This raises a
number of questions with an often technical nature, and which ought to
be addressed in the general perspective of "policy analysis" - where
the notion "policy" has to be clearly distinguished from the notion of
"politics." At this time however, there is relatively little
information, whether in terms of analytical tools or practical
experience, on the evaluation of policies addressing minority issues.
This applies in particular to minority language policies. Whereas
there is considerable technical know-how, in a policy analysis
perspective, on other types of issues (for example, in the case of
policies that address economic inequality between groups, making it
possible to apply such knowledge to the reduction of socio-economic
disparities between majorities and minorities), much less is known
about how to evaluate rigorously various language policy options,
including in those cases where the languages concerned are minority
languages. The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) therefore
decided to launch a research project on this set of questions, under
the title "Evaluating policy measures for minority languages in
Europe: towards effective, cost-effective and democratic
implementation." This project received financial support under the
European Commission's programme of support for action to promote and
safeguard regional and minority languages (DG X). One important
milestone in this project was an international conference held in
Flensburg on 23-24 June 2000. This Report is devoted to describing the
general context of the conference, presenting the core analytical
concepts used, reporting on the substance of the debates which took
place during the conference, and disseminating the Recommendations
adopted in the concluding session.
 
ECMI Report #6 may be downloaded or ordered directly from the ECMI
website at http://www.ecmi.de or ordered free of charge from:  
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), 
Schiffbruecke 12, D-24939 Flensburg, Germany; 
Tel: (49-461) 1414 9-0; 
Fax: (49-461) 14149-19; 
e-mail: [email protected]
 
*********************************************
European Centre for Minority Issues
William McKinney
Librarian
Schiffbruecke 12
D-24939 Flensburg, Germany
 
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.ecmi.de

Tel: +49 461 1414970
Fax: +49 461 1414969
*********************************************

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