How States Promote Global English: Shifting Priorities in Education Policy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 53
  In Roundtable Session: Imperial Tongues, Colonized Students

Abstract

This study intervenes in scholarly debates over the relative importance of the state in language education policy-making. Two positions tend to dominate: either that the global spread of English is due to linguistic imperialism; or that developing societies are clambering for English in response to fundamental shifts in the world economy in hopes that greater English proficiency leads to upward social mobility. In both cases, the state is at best a passive player. This project creates a database of English language education policies for each of the world’s 206 nation-states. From this macro perspective, we assess more empirically, and less by assertion, what the relative importance of the state is in the global spread of English.

Authors

• Jeff Bale, University of Toronto - OISE

• Peter Ives, University of Winnipeg

• Eve Haque, York University