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What holds together and defines a community?

We often discuss ideals and rules which define groups of people, but without language acting as a binding agent, the different members of communities are not able to communicate ideals and rules.

Linguistic choices play a part in defining communities through phonetic differentiation in dialects, word choice, and varying syntax.  Such is also true of the classroom environment.

In choosing linguistic norms for the classroom, teachers and education policy makers define the language policy of the learning environment.  These norms refer not only to linguistic value but also to underlying political and social goals which the educational community use to influence the behavior of the speech community.  The chosen linguistic norms hold value as the official language of the classroom while perhaps devaluing other linguistic choices.  In breaking the language choices of the classroom versus 'other', the teacher and policy makers create a dichotomous relationship in the wider communities, separating those who are able to conform to the classroom linguistic choices versus those who either do not have access to the classroom or who value their external communities more highly (and may consequently see conforming to classroom language policy as a denial of their culture).

How can the H-language of education and official policy not create cultural conflict?

How can, as Auerbach (1995) discusses, language in the classroom not create tension as a dynamic of power and domination?

Is it true that a common language unifies whereas multiple languages divide?  Or only mostly true?

While I personally see the value in uniting a people through language instruction so that in day-to-day activities we comprehend one another, I do not see official national policy as the place to dictate which languages should be excluded from the classroom.  It is true that common language unifies.  Given this fact, I see the debate moreso as needing community/township discretion.

If in schools the students are regularly introduced, through bilingual education for example, to more than one language, they are bound to become more unified with their peers and the larger community.  When introduced to new community members or visiting relatives, the students will be able to draw on more than one language and linguistic form in order to accommodate for the linguistic characteristics of the new members creating further unification!  If new members are pushed away due to linguistic differences, there will never be the sort of unity which policy seeks to administer.