Language-in-education policy change: Should we pay more attention to grassroots actors and actions on behalf of non-dominant languages?

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This panel draws from a forthcoming (2025) book edited by Kosonen & Benson entitled, “Including Non-Dominant Languages in Educational Policy Change: Key Actors and Agency.” All of the contributors to the volume interact critically with Kosonen and Benson’s (2021) language-in-education policy change framework, applying their data and experiences from specific national or sub-national contexts to examine the role of key actors in bringing non-dominant languages into formal public schooling. Sub-national contexts described in the volume include speakers of Mapuche in Argentina, Patani Malay in Thailand, Warlpiri in Australia, and Yughur in China. The national-level discussions include Cambodia, Ecuador, Morocco, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Senegal, and Timor-Leste.

In this panel, the editors present their analytical framework as originally proposed in 2021 and highlight aspects of the analysis that have been developed since then by the authors as well as by contributors to the new volume. In particular, it was noted that earlier there was insufficient documentation of the grassroots actors and actions that may have been instrumental in generating and sustaining policy change. Recent political threats to multilingual education policies in countries such as the Philippines suggest that popular support and coalition-building may be a key to weathering challenges. There is a need to more closely examine the role of teachers as implementers and advocates of language-in-education policy as well as respected members of the ethnolinguistic communities served by that policy.

The first paper of the panel describes the framework and recent developments, providing examples of different models of policy change and demonstrating how the framework is intended to support effective analysis. The next paper provides an analysis of Tamazight language education in Morocco that expands on the framework to examine teacher perspectives on policy change. The third paper takes a meta-level view of the roles, experiences, and attitudes of chapter authors as contributors to language policy change in their specific contexts. The fourth and final paper presents a synthesis of the contributions made by chapter authors in critiquing and developing the framework and in analyzing language-in-education policy change toward using non-dominant languages.

Sub Unit

• Language Issues SIG

Organizer

• Carolyn J Benson, MLE International

Chair

• Kimmo Kosonen, FiBS

Individual Presentations

• Introduction: Non-dominant languages in educational policy change: Key actors and agency - Kimmo Kosonen, FiBS

• Tamazight language education in Morocco: The importance of teacher perspectives - Obi Eneh

• Language policy scholars as change agents: How do we analyze our own roles? - Carolyn J Benson, MLE International

• Reflections and discussion: Tying it all together - Kara Diane Brown, University of South Carolina

Discussants

• Erina Iwasaki, University of Notre Dame-Pulte Institute of Global Development

• TJ D'Agostino, University of Notre Dame