This multidisciplinary text shows how most indigenous and minority education contributes to linguistic genocide according to UN definitions. The author's starting point is that it is normal and desirable for people, groups, countries and schools to be multilingual and multicultural. She brings together a variety of theoretical concerns and research areas: linguistic human rights; minority and multilingual education; language ecology and threatened languages; the impact of linguistic imperialism and unequal power relations on ethnicity, linguistic and cultural competence, and identities. Theory is combined with factual encyclopaedic information and with many examples and vignettes. The examples come from all parts of the world and try to avoid Eurocentrism. Oriented toward theory and practice, facts and evaluations, and reflection and action, the book prompts readers to find information about the world and their local contexts, to reflect and to act. This text should be useful for scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of language and society, language policy and language planning, the sociology of education, critical pedagogy, comparative education, educational linguistics, minority studies, cultural studies, human rights, ethnolinguistics, anthropology and ecological issues.