Re-examining Educational Policies and Peace in Multilingual Contexts: Insights Across the Global North and South

• In Event: Language, multilingualism, and literacy in global contexts

Proposal

Rationale
This study examines how language education policies serve as contemporary instruments of colonial power in both the Global North and the Global South. We interrogate the impact of colonialism on language hierarchies, educational access, and identity formation through a critical examination of policies in Ghana, Jamaica, the United States, and the UK. The following questions guide our inquiry:

How do colonial legacies shape language and education policies in Ghana, the UK, Jamaica, and the U.S.?

How do these policies influence language, identity, and belonging for Black and Brown boys across contexts?

How is English privileged over local languages in curricula and assessments, and what does this mean for students’ identities and outcomes?

Language has long been a site of struggle for epistemic justice. Educational language policies are not neutral tools but political constructs that determine whose knowledge, identities, and voices are validated or marginalized (de Sousa Santos, 2014). Policies often promote English as a means of advancement while stigmatizing non-dominant languages, echoing Said’s (1978) analysis of imperial discourse and Anzaldúa’s (1987) concept of linguistic borderlands. Through critical discourse analysis, this study reveals how policy texts encode racialized and gendered ideologies that discipline linguistic difference and legitimize the continued hegemony of colonial languages under the guise of neoliberal reform.

Theoretical Framework
Language policies are powerful mechanisms of governance, regulating whose epistemic identities are valued while producing mental colonization that mirrors structural domination. Such policies disproportionately harm racially and linguistically marginalized populations, often framing them through deficit perspectives (Crenshaw, 1991). When students’ home languages are treated as obstacles to success, their full personhood is constrained (Ladson-Billings, 1995/2007). This constitutes not just pedagogical failure but symbolic violence. Paris’ (2012) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy urges schools to sustain rather than erase students’ cultural and linguistic practices, embracing multilingualism as a strength.
Said’s (1978) Orientalism illustrates how cultural superiority is maintained through discourse. In education, language policy naturalizes English dominance while casting other languages as less academic. Even when local languages are acknowledged, they are often reduced to transitional tools rather than recognized as languages of instruction or resistance. Thiong’o (1986) reminds us that decolonization begins with language, requiring a reimagining of what counts as knowledge and whose voices are centered. This study takes up that call by examining how policy operates at the nexus of language, identity, and power.

Methodology
The study employs three interconnected qualitative methods: content analysis, thematic analysis, and critical discourse analysis (CDA). Primary data sources include national curriculum frameworks, policy white papers, strategic education plans, and legislative acts from Jamaica, Ghana, the UK, and the U.S. Documents were selected for their national relevance and discursive significance in shaping educational policy. In Ghana, we supplement this with published research tracing historical fluctuations in language-of-education policy (Agbozo & ResCue, 2021; Klu & Ansre, 2018; Owu-Ewie, 2006). For the UK, we analyzed the House of Commons Library report Language Teaching in Schools (England) (Long & Danechi, 2024).
The central analytical framework is CDA, particularly as developed by Fairclough (1995) and Van Dijk (2001), which situates language as a social practice shaped by historical structures and capable of reproducing or resisting power.

Findings
Language education policies in Jamaica and the U.S. reveal enduring colonial ideologies where English is framed as superior and non-dominant languages as obstacles. Jamaica’s curriculum asserts that Jamaican Creole has “traditionally had little status” (p. 3), while U.S. policy describes non-English-speaking students as “educationally disadvantaged” (Sec. 701). This hierarchy echoes Thiong’o’s (1986) “cultural bomb” and Mignolo’s (2011) “coloniality of power”—language becomes a gatekeeper of mobility. Deficit perspectives dominate: Creole speakers are linked to “low literacy levels, particularly among male students” (p. 48), while U.S. policies persist with English-only remediation, culminating in Executive Order 14224 (2025) to establish English as the official language. Assimilation is masked as inclusion, erasing multilingual realities.
Black and Brown boys are disproportionately penalized. In Jamaica, the system fails to support their “oral language learning needs” (p. 9). In the U.S., the framing of “limited English-speaking ability” ignores how race and gender mediate access. Bryan (2000) calls this a “language of surveillance,” while Baker-Bell (2020) describes “anti-Black linguistic violence,” where Black boys’ speech is marked as deviant. This constitutes epistemicide (de Sousa Santos, 2014)—the systematic invalidation of non-dominant knowledge systems. Though both contexts propose surface-level solutions such as literacy initiatives or grants, they fail to decolonize language education. As Devonish (2007) argues, “linguistic apartheid” persists without institutional support for Creole, and as Canagarajah (2013, 2020) insists, translingual, student-centered approaches are necessary to resist linguistic violence.
The analysis of Ghana’s policy shows how historical and political forces entrenched English as the dominant medium of instruction. Despite independence, English remains the language of authority, reflecting colonial values. Scholars note that this dominance is neither reflective of Ghana’s multilingual reality nor supportive of equitable learning (Agbozo & ResCue, 2020). Identity misrecognition persists as learners’ cultural and linguistic identities are sidelined. Boys from rural and low-income backgrounds, in particular, face disproportionate challenges due to unequal access to English proficiency.
In the UK, policy recognizes some community languages, such as Arabic and Polish, yet their inclusion remains fragile and vulnerable to shifts in curriculum policy (Long & Danechi, 2024). Pupils who speak languages other than English at home often find their linguistic heritage undervalued in schooling. Demographic inequalities compound this, as boys, disadvantaged students, and those with special educational needs engage less with language learning beyond Key Stage 3. While policy gestures toward diversification, colonial legacies and socio-economic inequalities continue to shape access.

Significance
This study demonstrates how language policies in both the Global North and South reproduce colonial hierarchies that structure access, identity, and belonging. By exposing how dominant ideologies privilege English, we argue for reimagining language as a site of resistance, power, and cultural survival. Centering the linguistic and cultural epistemologies of minoritized students is essential for advancing justice, inclusion, and peace in a divided world.

Authors

• Giovanni E Whyte, University of North Dakota

• ELVIS RESCUE, University of Essex, UK