Highlighted Session: Actors, activism, and agendas: Pathways to multilingual education policy creation and enactment across contexts

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

Across the globe, language-in-education policies shape access, equity, and learning outcomes for millions of children. Research shows that multilingual education programs building on students’ L1s yield stronger learning outcomes and help close achievement gaps (Collier & Thomas, 2017). Yet in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), submersion language-in-education policies still dominate, with instruction delivered exclusively in a dominant L2—often a foreign language for most learners. According to the World Bank (2021), 37% of students in LMICs are taught in a language they do not understand, with the problem most acute in sub-Saharan Africa.

In response, a growing number of countries have introduced policies promoting L1-based multilingual education (MLE), enabling children to begin schooling in their mother tongue while progressively acquiring additional languages. Yet reforms have been uneven. Some governments have prioritized L1-based MLE, others have reversed earlier reforms, and many have yet to act. This raises key questions: How does political priority for multilingual education emerge? Which actors drive or resist reform? And how do ideas, expertise, and community mobilization interact to shape education policy change toward L1-based MLE?

This panel brings together four papers exploring these questions across multiple contexts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Collectively, they all draw on Kosonen and Benson’s (2021) “above, side, below” framework, which examines the interplay of top-down decision-makers (above), grassroots communities (below), and the “side actors”—academics, NGOs, donors, teacher trainers, and consultants—who mediate between them.

The first paper focuses on the “below” level, highlighting community activism for mother-tongue education in Nepal. It examines how the Indigenous Yaakthungs reclaim their right to obtain education in their mother tongue. Drawing on the case of Kirat Yaakthung Chumung, the paper focuses on how a community organisation takes an activist position to create a space for the Yaakthung language in local schools. Through grassroots activism, communities have pressured local governments to recognise the value of children’s home languages and to support multilingual education policies by implementing mother-tongue education in schools. These efforts are situated within broader struggles for cultural and linguistic rights, illustrating how bottom-up activism can reshape national policy debates and create political space for educational reform.

The second paper analyzes the role of “side actors” who bridge the gap between political commitments and implementation. Drawing on 12 case studies across Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, it examines how local NGOs, linguists, donors, and technical consultants design pilot programs, develop learning materials, train teachers, and generate data on program outcomes. Side actors often translate global discourses on multilingual education into locally relevant initiatives while facilitating communication between policymakers and communities who rarely interact directly. The paper argues that the active and sustained involvement of side actors is essential for institutionalizing the use of non-dominant languages in education systems, especially where technical capacity and resources are limited.

Complementing this analysis, the third paper investigates how research-based concepts in multilingual education circulate across contexts. Focusing on the influential scholarship of Jim Cummins—particularly his theories of linguistic interdependence, Common Underlying Proficiency, and the BICS/CALP distinction—the paper examines how side actors discover, interpret, and apply these ideas in LMIC settings. Drawing on survey responses from 150 practitioners worldwide, document analyses, and the author’s own experiences as technical advisors, the study reveals that Cummins’s work has been widely used to challenge monolingual ideologies, oppose early-exit models, and advocate additive approaches to bilingualism. Yet it also uncovers local reinterpretations of these theories that are adapted to diverse linguistic, cultural, and political realities.

Finally, the fourth paper expands Kosonen and Benson’s (2021) analytical framework by examining factors both within and beyond actor power that influence political priority for L1-based MLE. Drawing on a six-country cross-national analysis (Senegal, Mozambique, Mali, Kenya, Rwanda, and the Philippines), it uses causal process tracing and Shiffman and Smith’s (2007) policy prioritization framework to explore how political priority for MLE emerges, stagnates, or reverses on national agendas. The paper identifies factors that consistently enable reform, including strong actor coalitions inside and outside government—echoing Kosonen and Benson’s (2021) framework—the accumulation of successful pilot programs demonstrating feasibility (“proofs of concept”), and strategic framing linking MLE to broader education and development goals. Conversely, reforms stall where elites perceive MLE as politically or technically intractable, where dominant second-language acquisition is prioritized for geopolitical or economic reasons, or where implementation challenges dominate policy debates. By synthesizing cross-country findings, the paper illuminates the political and institutional dynamics that open—or close—policy windows for multilingual education.

Altogether, the four papers illuminate the multi-layered processes through which multilingual education reforms emerge, evolve, and endure. Political will at the national level often depends on the demonstration effects of successful pilots and strategic framing by reform coalitions. Side actors play indispensable roles as knowledge brokers, technical experts, and intermediaries linking global research, national policymakers, and local communities. Meanwhile, grassroots activism can generate bottom-up pressure that forces governments to confront multilingual realities, linguistic inequities, and expand educational access.

By analyzing cases across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this panel highlights both common patterns and context-specific dynamics shaping language-in-education policy change. It contributes to comparative and international education scholarship by bridging political science theories of agenda-setting, sociolinguistic research on language policy, and practical insights from multilingual education reform efforts. For policymakers, practitioners, and researchers, the panel underscores that sustainable change requires aligning political priorities, technical capacities, and community aspirations—a lesson with relevance far beyond the cases examined here.

Sub Unit

• Language Issues SIG

Chair

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

Individual Presentations

• Community agency and activism for mother tongue education: The case of the Yaakthung language in Nepal - Prem Phyak, Teachers College, Columbia University

• ”Actors from the side” in language-in-education policy change towards increased use of non-dominant languages - Kimmo Kosonen, FiBS

• How “side” actors provide access to research-based concepts in multilingual education - Carolyn J Benson, MLE International

• Understanding language in education policy change and the generation of political priority for L1-based multilingual education: A six country cross-national analysis - Erina Iwasaki, University of Notre Dame-Pulte Institute of Global Development; TJ D'Agostino, University of Notre Dame

Discussant

• TJ D'Agostino, University of Notre Dame