Advancing Greek Heritage Language Education in Canada: The Hellenic Relay – A Community Action Study” (Springer, 2026), edited by professor of Modern Hellenic Language and Culture Themistoklis Aravossitas and professor of Linguistics and Language Education, Marianthi Oikonomakou.
A newly presented volume on Greek heritage language education in Canada has brought renewed attention to the future of the language across the diaspora, framing it not simply as a cultural question but as one of institutional design, educational adaptation, and generational continuity. “Advancing Greek Heritage Language Education in Canada: The Hellenic Relay – A Community Action Study,” published this year by Springer, and edited by Themistoklis Aravossitas and Marianthi Oikonomakou, was presented at the Center for European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto as both the outcome of a broad community-based inquiry and a strategic reference point for Greek-language education in Canada.
The book was framed during the event as a strategic document as much as a research volume. Aravossitas described it as “a roadmap for the development of modern Greek language programs at all levels of education,” placing particular emphasis on an underlying challenge within the field itself, namely the question of how a heritage language is to be carried forward, not merely preserved, into the third and fourth generations. In that respect, the discussion moved well beyond questions of curriculum and into the more difficult terrain of institutional continuity, demographic change, and educational adaptation.
The project behind the volume, Hellenic Relay, was funded by the Hellenic Heritage Foundation and carried out from 2022 to 2024 after a two-year planning period. Its research team includes scholars from the University of Toronto, York University, McGill University, Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta, the University of Crete, and the University of the Aegean. Oikonomakou, an associate professor of linguistics and Greek language pedagogy, underscored the importance of bringing Canadian and Greek educational realities into closer conversation, a point that appears to shape both the book’s methodology and its broader ambition.
That methodology rests on community action research, with the study structured around the participation of those directly implicated in heritage language education rather than relying on detached observation. The volume moves from theory on heritage languages, diasporic identities, and multilingualism to methodology, then to the analysis of data drawn from students, parents, teachers, and education administrators, before turning to critical synthesis and an action plan. Its sample of five hundred participants from Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba gives the project a reach wide enough to capture regional variation without losing sight of the common pressures facing the sector.
Those pressures emerged with some clarity in the contrast drawn between Montreal and Toronto. In Montreal, Greek schools were presented as benefiting from a stronger institutional footing – supported in part by Quebec’s educational and language policy framework – and from a model that allows students to build competence in Greek alongside French and English. In Toronto, the burden remains concentrated in supplementary education, particularly evening and Saturday programs. The discussion pointed toward more flexible programming, greater emphasis on oral communication and interactivity, and a more creative use of digital tools. It also acknowledged the more difficult constraints of limited public support, uneven resources, declining participation, and the growing demands placed on teachers.
The event was introduced by Jim Cummins, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto and a globally distinguished scholar whose work has significantly advanced research on bilingualism, linguistic diversity, and language policy, who spoke about the historical development of heritage language instruction in Canada and its contemporary prospects for integration into the broader education system. Robert Austin, director of the Center for European and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, also underscored the significance of the volume and of the university’s notably popular Greek studies program. The presentation was attended by representatives of Greek community organizations and the Greek state, including Greece’s consul general in Toronto, Ioannis Hatzantonakis, and cultural counselor Marilena Griva.
