Early Immersion in Minority Language Contexts: Canada and Finland

This chapter discusses early immersion in a minority language in two bilingual countries, Canada and Finland. In Canada, immersion in the minority language, French, has been implemented since the mid-1960s and Finland introduced immersion in Swedish in the mid-1980s. As the core features of immersion education evolve in tandem with second language education theorizing (particularly as it relates to the interdependence and hybridity between and within languages), so too does the need to revisit the relevance of these core features across different contexts. In this vein, this chapter compares how changing socio-political realities in the two contexts have influenced program development in re…