It is increasingly recognized that agency plays an essential role in shaping language-in-education policy (LEP) and influencing the learning process. Research on agency has not yet adequately engaged with the field of heritage education and maintenance in diasporas. Drawing on Shohamy's and Bonacina-Pugh's conceptualization of declared, perceived,…

This commentary foregrounds factors and tensions involved in intergenerational language socialization in Chinese-speaking communities and homes. Of particular interest is the manner in which younger generations in homes in which other Chinese dialects ("fangyans") are spoken almost invariably seem to be shifting to Mandarin, and some of…

This paper discusses Singapore's bilingual policy and looks at how the government's top-down and structured language policy has transformed the country into an English-knowing society. Education and language-in-education planning in Singapore are linked closely to the country's economic development and nation-building process. This pair of…

Singapore's annual Speak Mandarin Campaign has been largely successful in shifting the language patterns of its Chinese citizens from Chinese dialects to Mandarin in all sectors. However, there has been a notable exception: the effort to have Chinese Singaporeans give their children Mandarin names, rather than dialect ones. In this paper, we…

Singapore's leading literacy policy is affected by a tension between the ideologies associated with English and those attached to Singapore's mother tongues. Singaporeans must safeguard their heritages, keeping themselves open to the places where their ancestors came from by learning their designated mother tongues. At the same time, Singaporeans…