Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network: CRiCLE-Net

About Us

Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network: CRiCLE-Net was established in 2013 and is hosted by the Second Language Education Group (SLEG) in the Faculty of Education. It provides a research forum where policy makers, academics, practitioners and research students in Cambridge, and more broadly at national and international levels, can engage in critical debates on language, education and migration.

‘Community languages’ refers to a wide range of minority languages that exist alongside the dominant or national language(s) in society, and are in use mainly at home, among cultural/religious groups and/or within diaspora communities. In the UK context, community languages include, for example, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Yoruba, among many others. Research in this field emerges in response to the global trend of transnational migration and the increasing needs of immigrant communities to preserve their languages and cultures. Relevant research has been conducted under different names, for example, 'asset language' in England, ‘community language’ in Australasia, ‘heritage language’ in North America, and 'migration language' in Europe. In the UK, community language education has become an important field of research in recent years and there is a need for a dedicated research initiative that looks at how bilingual migrant children are educated in the home, school and community.

Aims and Mission

The CRiCLE-Net has an international focus and pursues an interdisciplinary approach to policy, theory and practice of community language education. It also seeks to address some of the related issues in bilingualism and multilingualism, migration and refugee studies, English as an Additional Language, second / modern foreign languages education. The aims of the CRiCLE-Net are:

• To provide a research forum where policy makers, academics, practitioners and research students can exchange ideas and expertise in community language education;

• To collaborate with local, national and international institutions to identify critical issues in community language education and engage in theoretical and methodological debate on these issues;

• To develop a corpus of research evidence that can advise the development of community language education policy and practice;

• To build connections and create grounds for cross-fertilisation between Applied Linguistics, Modern Foreign Language Education, Community/Heritage Language Education and Teaching English as a Second/Foreign/Additional Language;

• To establish a regional University-School-Community partnership to promote social cohension in the local community and the wider soceity.

Collaboration and Governance

Members of the CRiCLE network are well connected to the University's interdisciplinary research initiatives in Migration, Language Sciences and Public Policy and are available for research collaboration and consultancy.

Cambridge Migration Research Network
Cambridge Language Sciences Strategic Research Initiative
Cambridge Public Policy Strategic Research Initiative

The governance of the network is supported by an executive committee, an international advisory panel, a school research advisory board and a working group. The network also plays an active role in supporting local schools and communities and serves as a research and resource centre for community language education in the East of England.

Research Domains

Community languages in the home
Community languages in the school
Community languages in the community

Research Dimensions

Community language policy
Community language teaching
Community language learning
Community language teacher development
Community language maintenance in families

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