Bilingualism and Multilingualism - An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Bilingualism and Multilingualism – An Interdisciplinary Perspective offers a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary exploration of how multilingual experience shapes the human mind, educational practice, and social life in our globalized world. Bringing together leading international scholars, this edited volume moves beyond simplistic debates about the “bilingual advantage” to embrace the full complexity of multilingual lived experiences, spanning cognitive development, language acquisition, emotional functioning, educational equity, and sociopolitical justice. With empirical research spanning diverse global contexts—from Europe and Asia to Africa—and integrating insights from psychology, linguistics, education, and critical policy studies, the book addresses both foundational theoretical questions and urgent applied challenges. It examines how multilingualism reshapes cognitive trajectories across the lifespan, how multilingual pedagogies can advance educational access, how university institutions can support multilingual learners, and how colonial linguistic legacies shape social cohesion in multilingual nations. Ideal for researchers, educators, higher education administrators, policymakers, and students in linguistics, education, psychology, and sociology, this volume provides a holistic, state-of-the-art overview of contemporary research on bilingualism, offering both theoretical innovation and practical, actionable insights for the field.