The member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development generally provide monolingual basic education, and the imposition of a common language remains one of the political and economic functions of the schools. Multilingual or bilingual education is marginal. The individual states' language policies reflect interests in preserving geographic and economic equilibrium, managing an established national cultural and linguistic community, integrating migration waves, and protecting a fully-formed national culture. The schools themselves are as resistant to the societies' existing multilingualism as are government policies, which is resulting in widespread illiteracy. Hostility toward minority languages parallels the spread of a new scientific culture in the schools. Efforts toward equal education have frequently been sabotaged by the privileged and have served to widen rather than narrow the gaps between social classes. Issues that must be addressed include the risks and difficulties of language planning, finding a balance of equality and uniformity that is not prejudicial to the integration of minorities, and combining equality with diversity. (MSE)