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26 - Education, England and Users of Languages Other than English

from Part V - Applied Sociolinguistic Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2024

By
Ben Rampton ,
Constant Leung  and
Melanie Cooke
Edited by
Susan Fox
Susan Fox
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
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Summary

Over c. 50 years, language education has been a significant site of ideological struggle over England’s position in the world, and the last two decades have seen intensification in the assertion of English nationalism in central government. Our analysis of this history starts with the development of multicultural language education in the 1970s and 1980s, highlighting the factors that contributed to this: activist pressure from minority communities, educational philosophies valuing the ‘whole child’, educational decision-making embedded in local democratic structures, and a legislative strategy that promotied good community relations. This started to change in the 1990s, with the curriculum centralisation and the side-lining of LEAs initiated by the Thatcher government. Efforts to regulate increased population movement also made borders and immigration status more of a priority than multiculturalism, and after 2001, security, social cohesion and the suspicion of Muslims started to dominate public discourse. These developments are analysed in six areas of language education policy: standard English, English as an additional language for school students, English for adult speakers of other languages, modern languages, and community languages in mainstream and supplementary schools. Finally, we consider the role of universities in these processes.

Keywords

language educationlanguage policymultilingualismmigrationnationalismEALESOLcommunity languagessociolinguistics
Type
Chapter
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Language in Britain and Ireland , pp. 568 - 594
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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