For over two decades, emergent bilingual students in Arizona have languished under the state's English-only Structured English Immersion policies. Using Theo Van Leeuwan's (2007) legitimation in discourse framework, this study longitudinally tracks shifts in legitimation tactics across the four iterations of the policy--its inception with…

Recent studies in the field of language education policy (LEP) have emphasized the agency of educators in language policy implementation, which considerably influences the policy outcome. These studies, however, often focus on LEP measures for newcomers or ethnic minority students, and on the language used for instruction as the main LEP…

South Africa immediately springs to mind as the epitome of multilingual language policies. In fact, its Constitution granted official status to 11 languages in 1996, and the Language Policy in Higher Education passed by the Ministry of Education in 2002 required universities to develop and use the indigenous official languages as academic…

While language education programs were created with an equity stance in mind--with the goals of increasing access and facilitating academic success for ethnically and linguistically marginalized students--the larger educational context has compromised access for multiply marginalized students. Recognizing a need for more complex understandings of…

Much recent research examines how teachers navigate language policy in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) classrooms (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017; Palmer & Martínez, 2013). While previous work has illustrated that teachers' language use is varied and related to identity, little research has considered the role of emotions in this setting…

This article explores the linguistic tension resulting from the English-medium instruction policy at a state university in the UAE. The article is informed by a critical theoretical approach that views language policy from the vantage point of both Arabic and English. It argues that, contrary to the stated national and institutional goals, the…

The Chinese of Chinatown, San Francisco largely opposed the city-wide racial integration plan that would bus their children across the city beginning in 1971. Claiming that it was a violation of their language rights, a need for cultural preservation and continued autonomy from the San Francisco that had long excluded them, Chinatown instituted…

This article investigates mother tongue instruction (MTI) in Sweden and Denmark in a historical, comparative perspective, with a view to accounting for key differences in language policy enacted in educational fields. Whereas in Sweden, MTI is offered to linguistic minority children irrespective of their linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, in…

This study examined how three champion principals of Asian language dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs--Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin--in California have navigated the oscillating language-in-education policies after the Lau decision. We explored principals' various roles through a lens of agency in a social justice leadership…

This article makes the case for conducting ethnographic research of a multi-scalar nature that links language policy processes and ideologies of language with everyday practices, on the ground, in local schools and classrooms. As with other researchers engaged in the ethnography of language policy (e.g. McCarty, 2011; Johnson, 2013), my concern is…

Cameroon, host to around 280 local languages, two European official languages (English and French) and Pidgin English, has been struggling since the 1960s to achieve official bilingualism for national unity and integration. This policy implies that each citizen should learn and use both official languages. The greatest means to implement this…

Choosing which additional language to include in national curricula and when to begin teaching it are important educational policy decisions. The current study aims to provide a contextually embedded picture of such policymaking process in the Iranian context. More specifically, the study is intended to explain the agency mechanism of different…

Focusing on developments in research on language education policy, this introduction to the thematic special issue begins with a sketch of the new problem space emerging at the intersection of intensified transnational mobility, expanding economic neo-liberalisation and institutionalised of multilingualism. It then identifies situated practice,…

Attitudes towards language and language education policy (LEP) interact with groups' identities, internal dynamics and intergroup relations. Combining quantitative and qualitative measures, we focused on the Habad community--a Jewish ultra-Orthodox (UO) minority in Israel--exploring its LEP and community attitudes toward languages meaningful to…

This article explores India's linguistic diversity from a language policy perspective, emphasizing policies relevant to linguistic minorities. The Kumaun region of Utterakhand provides a local, minority-language perspective on national-level language planning. A look at the complexity of counting India's languages reveals language planning…