VET researchers and policy-makers have historically displayed a keen interest in the future. Two assumptions link VET to the future. The first is that there is a singular object called VET and, secondly, that it can influence a forthcoming state of reality. This relationship is investigated through a rarely utilised post-structuralist discourse…

This article responds to recent calls to investigate the role of agents and the connections between layers of agency in the development and implementation of language policy and planning (LPP). Using a corpus linguistic and discursive approach to language policy, we identify interventions made in plenary sessions by Secretary-Generals and Member…

This article discusses new philanthropy participation in public education in the context of the broader transnational policymaking landscape. Drawing on data published by the Lemann Foundation on its official Twitter, now known as X, along with previous research from the authors, this article examines how policy problems are framed for the general…

In this article, the researchers interrogate the media discourse on the national students financial aid scheme (NSFAS) crisis, as well as how the language used by politicians and students, shaped the decision-making of stakeholders. A qualitative approach was employed to analyse online media articles. Content analysis was used to organise the…

Intermediary organizations play an increasingly important role in public policy related to higher education, particularly related to the completion agenda. This study addresses strategies employed by intermediary organizations to communicate to policymakers regarding college completion. Using rhetorical analysis, we examine 72 documents to…

How are processes of language policy formation carried out? Besides, how does one negotiate competing discourses in a policy process to ensure its legitimacy? Such questions sparked the interest for this study, which examines legitimization processes involved in the development of language policy guidelines at a higher education institution in…

A recent manifest content analysis of manuscripts in leading U.S. adult education journals found a discrepancy between how often academics used meaning making language and how often practitioners and policy makers did. It was suggested this was due to the language being unhelpful to practitioner and policy makers' work. A follow up latent content…

The study detailed in this paper examines the role of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in the transnational policy-making landscape in relation to African fragile and conflict-affected states. Data collection was based on content analysis of a corpus of documents -- Education Sector Plans (ESPs)/Transitional Sector Plans -- examining to…

Research on translanguaging practices of Deaf people have shown their creative multimodal resources to communicate (Kusters 2017; Holmström and Schönström 2017; Moriarty Harrelson 2017). These findings have enlightened disciplines like sociolinguistics and bilingual education and can be equally important for policy makers who make decisions that…

The study focuses on defining specifics of the language policy and planning in the Russian Federation, the USA, and China within the modern political discourse of the 21st century by means of exploring materials from Russian, American and Chinese media. The empirical base of the study included statistical and sociological data describing the…

Slogan has a sound mass base in China for thousands of years, functioning as guidelines for civic practice. Even today, Chinese slogans are often employed by the government to promote policies and socio-cultural values. This paper, adopting an ecolinguistic approach, explores the development of Chinese slogans during the four economic stages since…

This article examines the language used to discuss transgender people on university campuses. This study asks how, despite seemingly benefitting transgender people, the discourses carried by the documents that discuss trans people may actually undermine the intended goals of policy initiatives. For example, a report on the status of transgender…

The current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of…

This article examines how state-level policy discourse articulates a category of knowledge about immigrants in South Carolina that governs the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants. In the analysis of proposed and enacted immigration legislation from 2005 to the present, we use a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis to better…

Purpose: The overarching purpose of this paper is to explore the transformation of intercultural education in Cyprus in the context of European integration. More specifically, it indicates the ways in which intercultural policy has been formed by complex and often counteractive influences. The analysis draws upon policy documents collected from…