Suchergebnisse

This dissertation is a study of English language and literacy in the multilingual Indian context, unfolding along two analytic planes: the first examines institutional discourses about English learning across India and how they are motivated and informed by the dominant theme of "globalization," and the second investigates how local language ideologies and literacy practices correspond to these discourses. An ethnographic case study, it spans across four years. The setting is a microcosm of India's own complex multilingualism. The focal children speak Bengali or Bihari as a first language; Hindi as a second language; attend an English-medium village school; and participate daily in Sanskrit prayers. Within this context, I show how the institutional discursive framing of English as a prerequisite for socio-economic mobility, helps produce, reproduce, and exacerbate inequalities within the world's second largest educational system. The notion of globalization, further, is deeply woven into these discourses. I begin by showing that while top-level discourses about English accept globalization as doxa, little attention is paid to its differential intervention along socio-economic lines. My study complicates the commonly liberatory rhetoric of globalization by illuminating how such discourses employ multiple strategies to mobilize institutional voices in order to control and restrict access to linguistic, symbolic and economic capital. Further, fine-grained analyses of the children's linguistic practices and interview data reveal how local language ideologies counter, resist, and contest these discourses and voice enduring anxieties about English. Because these discourses have fueled the proliferation of private English-medium schools in India, catering mostly to the poor, the classroom forms another locus of investigation. Its analysis entails the close examination of literacy practices, curricula, and pedagogy at the children's school. The study reveals that factors such as multigrade classrooms; teacher-centered pedagogy; level-inappropriate textbooks; emphasis on rote memorization; and the difficulty of teaching and learning in a language in which neither the instructor nor the student has proficiency result in limited and superficial English acquisition and also limit children's access to educational content. In light of my findings, I argue that such English-medium schools not only widen the English-vernacular gap, they also reinforce the role of English in elite formation. The significance of my study lies in underscoring the ways in which institutional notions around English and globalization flatten out difference and enact erasure of local voices, with serious consequences for educational equity. This is not merely an Indian story; the role of English in an era of globalization is the high-stakes language politics story of our time.

Abstract
While the broader ambition of the Indian government's Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act (2009) has been lauded, scholars have expressed reservations with the universal education measure. One area that has not been adequately addressed within these debates is the instructional medium. While RTE (2009) recognizes children who are "disadvantaged" as linguistic minorities, and stipulates that the "medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in child's mother tongue", it offers little further direction. India is home to more than 1,652 languages, but only 43 languages function as instructional media. Therefore, the majority of children learn in a tongue that is not their home language, experiencing serious educational disadvantages. How this issue complicates the intent of the RTE (2009) Act remains to be explored. This article examines this gap using the theoretical lens of dis-citizenship, which is conceptualized in terms of exclusions experienced by marginalized groups. Here, we focus on those marginalized by the language of instruction. We investigate questions about language access, inclusion, equity, and rights arising from RTE (2009), within the narrative of India's complex, hierarchical multilingualism.

"Spanning scholarly contributions from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, this edited volume seeks to capture and elucidate the distinct challenges, approaches and possible solutions associated with interpreting, adapting and applying language-in-education policies in a range of linguistically complex teaching and learning environments across South Asia. Centring on-the-ground perspectives of scholars, practitioners, pupils, parents and the larger community, the volume offers new insights into one of the most complex, populous, and diverse multilingual educational contexts in the world. Language-in-education policies and practices within this setting represent particularly high stakes issues, playing a pivotal role in determining access to literacy, thereby forming a critical pivot in the reproduction of educational inequality. The broad aim of the collection is thus to highlight the pedagogical, practical, ideological and identity-related implications arising from current language-in-education policies in this region, with the aim of illustrating how systemic inequality is intertwined with such policies and their associated interpretations. Aimed at both academics and practitioners - whether researchers and students in the fields of education, linguistics, sociology, anthropology or South Asian studies, on the one hand, or language policy advisors, curriculum developers, teacher educators, teachers, and members of funding bodies, aid providers or NGOs, on the other - it is anticipated that the accounts in this volume will offer their readership opportunities to consider their wider implications and applications across other rich multilingual settings - be these local, regional, national or global"--