Introduction

This book foregrounds the adoption of critical sociocultural views of language education in English Medium Instruction (EMI). Critical perspectives, as one side of this epistemological merge, are now established alternative theoretical orientations in the scholarly sphere of applied linguistics and English language education (Crookes, Reference Crookes2022; Pennycook, Reference Pennycook2021). These perspectives problematize the mainstream conception of English as a neutral means of communication and invite us to better understand its essential sociopolitical nature (e.g., Al-Issa & Mirhosseini, Reference Al-Issa and Mirhosseini2020; Block, Reference Block2018; Canagarajah, Reference Canagarajah1999; De Costa, Reference De Costa, Park and Wee2016; Pennycook, Reference Pennycook1998, Reference Pennycook1999, Reference Pennycook2017; Phillipson, Reference Phillipson1992). From a critical view of language education, English carries its own sociocultural loads – that is, history, worldviews, and values – and is particularly associated with neoliberal ideologies (Block, Reference Block2014; Block et al., Reference Block, Gray and Holborow2012; De Costa, Reference De Costa2019; Norton, Reference Norton2013; Wierzbicka, Reference Wierzbicka2014). These loads can be overtly or covertly carried over into processes of teaching and learning English (and through English) as an additional language (Hillman et al., Reference Hillman, Li, Green-Eneix and De Costa2023; Mirhosseini et al., Reference Mirhosseini, Sazvar and Rashed2017; Phillipson, Reference Phillipson1992; Tupas & Tabiola, Reference Tupas and Tabiola2017).

On the other hand, EMI defined as the use of English as the language of teaching and learning in educational settings where it is not the home language (Macaro et al., Reference Macaro, Curle, Pun, An and Dearden2018) also has a long history. In particular, over the past two decades EMI has expanded exponentially in various contexts (Bolton et al., Reference Bolton, Bota and Lin2024; Dimova et al., Reference Dimova, Hultgren and Jensen2015; Lasagabaster, Reference Lasagabaster2022; McKinley & Galloway, Reference McKinley and Galloway2022; Molino et al., Reference Molino, Dimova, Kling and Larsen2022; Pun, Reference Pun2024; Zhao & Dixon, Reference Zhao and Dixon2017). Along with increasing discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of EMI and its practical affordances and challenges, EMI research continues to grow as a vast and vibrant area of inquiry around the world (Griffiths, Reference Griffiths2023), spanning from the broader Asia-Pacific region (e.g., Fenton-Smith et al., Reference Fenton-Smith, Humphreys and Walkinshaw2017; Sah & Fang, Reference Sah and Fang2023) to many countries in mainland Europe (e.g., Dimova et al., Reference Dimova, Hultgren and Jensen2015; Earls, Reference Earls2016), Africa (e.g., Kamwangamalu, Reference Kamwangamalu2013), and South America (e.g., Miranda & Molina-Naar, Reference Miranda, Molina-Naar, Galloway and McKinley2022).

As noted by Tollefson and Tsui (Reference Tollefson and Tsui2004), EMI is characterized by complex “sociopolitical processes” that are related to medium of instruction policies, which themselves often reflect wider sociopolitical contestations that critical approaches have sought to interrogate. In fact, critical discussions and explorations of EMI portray the significance of such contestations in EMI theory, practice, and research beyond linguistic concerns and instructional challenges (e.g., Block & Khan, Reference Block and Khan2021; De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Green-Eneix and Li2021a; Lin, Reference Lin2024; Phyak, Reference Phyak2024; Sah, Reference Sah2022; Sah & Fang, Reference Sah and Fang2023, Reference Sah and Fang2024; Toh, Reference Toh2016) and the wealth of understandings that can be offered by critical views in this realm. While EMI is still an emerging and developing area of professional practice and scholarly inquiry (Gupta & Lin, Reference Gupta, Lin, Sah and Fang2023; Lasagabaster, Reference Lasagabaster2022; Rahman & Singh, Reference Rahman and Singh2022), further deliberate embrace of critical orientations can significantly enrich EMI praxis. In light of this reality, this volume is a collective endeavor to highlight a Critical EMI that underscores critical praxis in this area of inquiry in an explicit, inclusive, and coherent manner (also see Mirhosseini & De Costa, Reference Mirhosseini and De Costa2024). Introducing this endeavor, we first revisit the notion of “critical” in this chapter and then further discuss the significance of Critical EMI as well as some of its implications before providing an overview of the book.

What Do We Mean by Critical?

Perhaps the first question about the notion of Critical EMI would be what we mean by critical. It is not easy to delineate criticality as a clearly demarcated theoretical construct, as there are diverse conceptions and different understandings of what is and what is not critical (Kubota & Miller, Reference Kubota and Miller2017; Luckett & Bhatt, Reference Luckett and Bhatt2024; Yazan & Rudolph, Reference Yazan, Rudolph, Yazan and Rudolph2018). However, working on the assumption that the scholarly community of applied linguists and English language educators – though not necessarily including all frontline practitioners – now has a broad idea of criticality, we highlight some focal concerns related to critical views that can be adopted in EMI. In electing not to offer a precise definition, we are in alignment with Pennycook (Reference Pennycook2021) and Crookes (Reference Crookes2021), who posit that it is important to understand criticality not as a solid frame but as a dynamic arena of problematizing sociopolitical underpinnings of people’s engagements (in language and education). In fact, Pennycook (Reference Pennycook2021) offers a set of key notions of criticality that encompass issues of power and decolonization, as well as a problematization of praxis.

Therefore, criticality in Critical EMI may be understood as foregrounding such foci, which entails necessarily stepping beyond technical instructional considerations and an obsession with the use of English as a mere instrument of content teaching; rather, a critical approach may be viewed as a sociohistorical and sociopolitical site of cultural and material dominance (Dafouz & Smit, Reference Dafouz and Smit2023; Mirhosseini & Babu, Reference Mirhosseini, Babu, Al-Issa and Mirhosseini2020; Pennycook, Reference Pennycook, Makoni and Pennycook2007; Phillipson, Reference Phillipson1992; Toh, Reference Toh2016). This idea of criticality as sociopolitical awareness thus invites contextual interpretations and realizations in diverse ways – even diverging positions and clashing criticalities – that pursue the common thread of sociopolitical sensitivity (Abednia et al., Reference Abednia, Mirhosseini, Nazari, Pandya, Mora, Alford, Golden and de Roock2022; Crookes, Reference Crookes2021; Selvi et al., Reference Selvi, Rudolph and Yazan2022). In the next section we highlight three aspects of such awareness and sensitivity: namely, ideology and policy, identity and justice, and the sociopolitics of English.

Why Critical EMI?

As stated, critical research and discussions of EMI have examined the sociocultural (e.g., Huang & Fang, Reference Huang and Fang2023; Milligan, Reference Milligan2022; Song, Reference Song2020) and political/economic (e.g., De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Green-Eneix and Li2022; Kedzierski, Reference Kedzierski2016) aspects of EMI. This strand of research has explored EMI in universities and K-12 education in postcolonial settings as well as other non-Anglophone contexts (e.g., Bhattacharya, Reference Bhattacharya2013; R’boul, Reference R’boul2022; Shirahata & Lahti, Reference Shirahata and Lahti2023; Sung, Reference Sung2021; Toh, Reference Toh2016). However, an invitation to a more deliberately supported Critical EMI is still worthwhile within the broader landscape of “critical applied linguistics” (Pennycook, Reference Pennycook2021). When the notion of critical applied linguistics was proposed in the 1990s (Pennycook, Reference Pennycook1990a, Reference Pennycook2001), critical approaches to language, education, and English language teaching already existed (e.g., Canagarajah, Reference Canagarajah1999; Crookes & Lehner, Reference Crookes and Lehner1998; Freire, Reference Freire1970; Graman, Reference Graman1988; Kress & Hodge, Reference Kress and Hodge1979; Pennycook, Reference Pennycook1994, Reference Pennycook1999). Still, the invitation to engage in critical applied linguistics became a turning point for a more serious (explicit, inclusive, and coherent) adoption of critical approaches and in turn spurred calls for new intellectual initiatives such as “critical language testing” (Shohamy, Reference Shohamy1998), “critical English for academic purposes” (Benesch, Reference Benesch2001), and “critical language teacher education” (Hawkins & Norton, Reference Hawkins, Norton, Burns and Richards2009).

These subareas of applied linguistics and language education had existed for decades before these critical overtures, but we posit that EMI is still emerging. Apart from postcolonial spaces that have hosted EMI for a long time, its vigorous expansion worldwide only started around two decades ago (Bradford, Reference Bradford2019; Chang, Reference Chang2021; Coleman, Reference Coleman2006; Lasagabaster, Reference Lasagabaster2022). In many contexts it “is still in its infancy” (Gupta & Lin, Reference Gupta, Lin, Sah and Fang2023, p. 63); “still a growing phenomenon that is being defined and redefined” (Rahman & Singh, Reference Rahman and Singh2022, p. 2435). Therefore, evolving critical considerations of EMI can expand more strongly in terms of theory and practice as well as offer alternative routes of action to open up spaces for resistance and change (see the Afterword by Graham Crookes). Central to this vision of a Critical EMI is shaping an educational and scholarly praxis with three major features: an explicit advocacy of critical understandings of EMI anywhere in the world; an inclusive critical view of all aspects of EMI theory, policy, practice, and research involving students, teachers, policy makers, and the society at large; and a coherent endeavor at creating an area of educational, scholarly, and social engagement that synergically aims to improve social life (also see Mirhosseini & De Costa, Reference Mirhosseini and De Costa2024).

Critical EMI Awareness (beyond Universities)

In addition to academic research and theory development, Critical EMI needs to be adopted in policy and practice as part of broader critical awareness raising in language teaching and learning (De Costa & Van Gorp, Reference De Costa and Van Gorp2023). At the instructional level, critical attitudes about the historical and sociocultural situatedness of the English language should become embedded in the pedagogical practices of EMI teachers and students. Both teachers and students need to be able to own the English language within their multilingual world and independently of its colonial and neoliberal associations (Canagarajah, Reference Canagarajah2024; Doecke & Mirhosseini, Reference Doecke and Mirhosseini2023; García & Li, Reference García and Li2014). At the institutional level, Critical EMI awareness needs to be part of decisions about the very adoption of English as the medium of instruction and the possible pitfalls of EMI within the broader trends of Englishization and marketization of higher education (De Costa et al., Reference De Costa, Green-Eneix and Li2022; Lanvers & Hultgren, Reference Lanvers and Hultgren2018; Pan & Block, Reference Pan and Block2011). Critical EMI awareness can also be seen as part of the broader critical awareness of the history, status, and dominance of English and its sociocultural associations, as argued by proponents of critical language education (e.g., Crookes, Reference Crookes2021; Pennycook, Reference Pennycook1990b, Reference Pennycook1999; Sah & Fang, Reference Sah and Fang2024).

This broad critical awareness of English and its teaching, learning, and use interconnects EMI in higher education with K–12 education in significant ways. A crucial aspect of this interconnection – what we would call the ebb tide effect of higher education EMI – is reflected in how (prospects of) university EMI can accelerate the further spread and dominance of English language education (and possibly EMI endeavors) at the school level. Apart from the allure of the possible pursuit of higher education in English-speaking countries, the prospect of EMI university education in their home countries can encourage parents and students in non-Anglophone contexts to invest in EMI school education. This investment can itself become an impetus to foster school-level EMI in such educational contexts. In other words, an increasingly larger number of students are going through school (i.e., K-12) EMI programs, hoping to prepare for university EMI education, and this educational vision in turn fuels the continued neocolonial expansion of English in the domain of education. The scope of this ebb tide can extend even further if school and university EMI students choose to immerse themselves in more English language learning activities beyond formal education (Mirhosseini & De Costa, Reference Mirhosseini and De Costa2024).

Book Structure

As stated, in lieu of a clearcut definition of criticality, we conceptualize critical perspectives of EMI as those addressing cluster issues of ideology and policy, identity and justice, as well as the sociopolitics of English within the historical, cultural, political, and economic atmosphere of education and society. Therefore, the contributions to this book are organized in three parts around those three clusters of EMI concerns.