This paper presents findings from a systematic literature review into concepts related to social cohesion, such as social capital (Field, 2003; Robert Putnam, 2004), community relations (Rose, 2000, Mitchell,1999), intergroup... [ view full abstract ]
This paper presents findings from a systematic literature review into concepts related to social cohesion, such as social capital (Field, 2003; Robert Putnam, 2004), community relations (Rose, 2000, Mitchell,1999), intergroup contact (Allport, 1954;, Pettigrew, 1998; Stringer et al. 2009) and multiculturalism or interculturalism (Cantle, 2006, 2012), and languages. We applied a number of search terms related to languages, such as ‘lingu’ (in bilingualism, multilingualism, plurilingualism). Our theoretical starting point was a perceived lack of research into languages as a potential factor that might affect social cohesion. Questions around the role of multilingualism as part of social cohesion and societal superdiversity can often be found in the various fields of languages education (EAL, MFL, heritage languages, minority languages and so on) and bilingual education ( see for example the focus on the multilingual turn in May, 2014 and Conteh & Meier, 2014). We postulated that these questions are less often raised by sociologists and wanted to establish in which fields related to social cohesion, research into the role of languages had been conducted . Our observations indicated the need for a systematic literature review guided by the following research question: How does research from different fields (education, sociolinguistics, sociology, political science) make claims about any association between languages, including bi/multi/plurilingualism, and social-cohesion related concepts/outcomes? Based on a sophisticated methodology following the PRISMA statement (Moher et al, 2009), we identified 1799 potentially relevant articles and are presenting here a first analysis. Emerging themes foster a complex picture for the relationship between social cohesion and languages, and the socially cohesive in-group and intergroup relations through weak and strong ties via language use in a variety of contexts.
