Book Review: Decolonizing Educational Knowledge. International Perspectives and Contestations.

In this introduction to the special issue on Rights, Language Regimes, and Language Policy: An International Perspective, the guest editors explore how language rights, language regimes, and language policy interact. Noting the increased interest in language rights in recent decades, they start by exploring the different manifestations of language rights at the international, regional, and national levels, before considering the more complex interactions between language rights, language regimes, and language policies within States. The guest editors then discuss how the articles in this special issue explore these complex interactions within particular national (and, in one case, international) contexts. They demonstrate how these articles shed light on the potential—and the limitations—of particular language rights, regimes and policies for managing linguistic diversity and multilingualism, and reveal the difficult balance that must be struck in order to manage linguistic diversity fairly and effectively.

Reviewed by: Language Policy and Planning for Sign Languages Verena Krausneker (bio) Language Policy and Planning for Sign Languages, by Timothy Reagan (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2010, 296 pp., hardcover, $85.00, ISBN 1-56368-462-4, 978-1-56368-462-3) The author of Language Policy and Planning for Sign Languages addresses two audiences: the educated newcomer to the world of signed languages and the member of the Deaf World who is unfamiliar with matters of language planning and policy studies. That is an ambitious goal and will certainly broaden many academic and nonacademic horizons. The academic sign-language person as a potentially interested reader might find the book with its six chapters useful as an introduction to the field. Chapter 1 presents the history, culture, and sociolinguistic characteristics of the world of signed languages, which Reagan calls a "special case." Since this chapter focuses primarily on the Deaf community of North America, most of the examples and in-depth descriptions refer to ASL. The second chapter, "Language Planning and Language Policy," shows the author's true strength: It is a concise yet rich and diverse introduction to the subject. The text integrates many approaches and offers theoretical and applied tools to help readers understand the subject. The chapter is cleverly enriched by an impressive collection of real-world examples from around the globe and since the Greek and Roman empires. The fewest cases, though, are from the Deaf World. Chapter 3 looks at ASL plannning and policy in depth. Reagan criticizes planning decisions that categorize ASL as a "foreign language" as being fundamentally based on deficit views. He also states that access to well-trained interpreters is more important but then [End Page 334] differentiates this claim with respect to the educational situation. Reagan's very short summary of the legal status of ASL in the individual states presents the situation as it was four years prior to the publication date (no source is disclosed) and does not explain which laws in what contexts and which exact formulations secure ASL rights. The author wraps up the chapter with observations on the risks the ASL community faces, mainly biotechnical and educational decisions based on biotechnical developments, but ends with a clear statement of trust in the language community's commitment to continue thriving. Chapter 4 describes the "creation and use of manual sign codes" as a form of language planning. Reagan-as many authors before him-takes a very critical position. Chapter 5, "International Perspectives," gives an overview of the status of various sign languages and a critical analysis of the contexts and discussions surrounding the legal recognitions. The author discusses a resolution passed by the European Parliament in the same paragraph and with the same care as resolutions passed at academic congresses. To the European reader this seems a dubious juxtaposition because there are numerous such academic and NGO-authored resolutions in European countries, and these differ significantly from resolutions passed by the European Parliament. The Official Journal of the European Union and an NGO's document (e.g., the "Brussels Declaration" by the European Union of the Deaf, which was issued just a few months after this book was published) carry completely different weight in the political arena. Reagan apparently decided to not include other supranational activities by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and, most important, the United Nations. In most countries of the world the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) presently receives a great deal of attention. The UNCRPD, with its several explicit paragraphs on sign languages and Deaf culture, is a source of optimism and, especially in the work of the World Federatiojn of the Deaf (WFD) and the European Union of the Deaf (EUD), triggers new planning of activities and readjustments of sign-language policy strategies. The chapter includes a brief discussion of the real threat that ASL poses to many of the world's smaller sign languages and then moves on to corpus planning. A list of all online sign [End Page 335] language dictionaries is provided. Both compounding and borrowing processes are discussed, followed by a description of the infamous unification project in...

This paper will introduce the subject of language policies and practices in early childhood education across European migration societies and formulate theoretical and methodological questions. It links perspectives from applied linguistics, most explicitly sociolinguistics, and educational research on language (education) policies and practices, thus contributing to the growing body of research on language in early childhood education. Building on this broad literature review as well as on recent socio-political developments, this introduction will identify key avenues for research in this field, and argue for three essential principles: the need of a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between language policies and language practices within early childhood education; the adoption of a perspective that considers interrelations and interactions between all actors involved (i.e. children, teachers/educators, parents, policymakers, etc.); and the commitment to a critical perspective that asks questions of power, social difference and inequality. Finally, the introduction will present the contributions to the special issue and point out how they approach the identified avenues and principles for research on language policies and practices in early childhood education.

The 72-year nascent history of Pakistan reflects a vacillating picture of language planning, policies and practices (for education) at all levels, that can, in turn, potentially pave the way for viable future (in the current context) only if reformed pragmatically. The present position paper attempts to explore and examines the pestilent plight of dated language planning, policies and practices for education in Pakistan. For that matter, strategies outlined and practices espoused have contributed the least to bring about a transformational change in language for the education system of Pakistan in a futuristic milieu. Thereby, resultantly, creating a language hodgepodge in the Pakistani education system. The existing research recommends the Bilingual Method of Comparative Language Learning and Teaching, in which both of the languages (e.g., Urdu and English) are coped with, creatively, so that both develop equally. Translation and Translation Studies would become integral to such an integrated method and approach. For that to happen, Pakistan largely needs English, to be materialized, as an Instrumental International Language (EIIL), rather than Literature or Linguistics. Thus, the said prospective way out may dissipate the existing dilemma of language policy in the education system of Pakistan—that lacks a workable and practicable means of instruction—for disseminating education as enlightenment. The existing study (while examining the aforesaid issue) pursues The Pakistan Futuristic Foundation and Institute (PFI), Islamabad, as an educational role model and mentor. Since the need and importance of language in education is seminal to the holistic-integrative growth and development of overall education system at all levels, that is why the researchers have probed and examined the current language impasse in education while observing, studying and experiencing it, objectively. In this connection, the current study is qualitative, experiential, holistic-integrative, and characteristically futuristic.

Building upon previous research investigating discourses of legitimation informing restorative justice practices in educational contexts in Canada and the United Kingdom, the current study takes forward the same conceptual and analytic framework to engage a preliminary analysis of legitimation in the narrative of documents and testimonies found within the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015a, 2015b) or TRC. Shared philosophical principles emergent from Indigenous epistemologies are foundational to both restorative justice and truth and reconciliation proceedings and, accordingly, the current study drew upon insights from an original study epistemologically, analytically and methodologically (Clarysse & Moore, 2017). The conceptual framework guiding the analysis is shaped by van Leeuwen’s (2007) framework of four categories for analyzing processes that legitimate social practices in public communication, education, and everyday interaction. Findings indicate unrestricted and extensive use of legitimation within historical discourse related to the residential schooling system disclosed in Canada’s TRC. Subsequent current-day testimonies of the survivors of Canada’s residential schooling system and their ancestors articulate the lived experience and fallout from education related to this historical discourse legitimation. In contrast to text evidence from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a comparative analysis of text samples from contemporary restorative justice policy, law and practice documents found less pointed and more holistic application of discourses of legitimation to convey the merit of restorative justice practices in educational contexts. This study reinforces the important role of educational discourses in shaping critical awareness of discursive patterns of legitimation and the impact of these patterns of communication on notions of holism and community in educational contexts.

This study focuses on one Truku (Indigenous) village in eastern Taiwan and aims to understand the processes and possibilities of bottom-up language policy formation and implementation. In 2012, the first author assisted the villagers to start a community-driven language revitalization initiative. Drawing on scholarship guided by critical Indigenous research methodologies, and critical sociocultural approaches to language policy and planning, this paper continues the conversation about the complex and dynamic processes of collaboration and relationship building in developing bottom-up language revitalization. Affirming the role of relationship in collaboration, the study argues that it is the dialogue of individuals’ intersecting social positions that makes relationship building possible. The newly developed relationship further transforms each other’s position(s) in praxis. As the dichotomy between the researched and the researchers is blurred, the authors further argue that the relationship comes along with responsibility, challenging the silenced dialogue of “exiting” in traditional research ethics. Methodologically, this study contributes to the scholarship of language policy and planning by exploring an alternative, democratic, humanizing way of doing language policy and planning research that prioritizes local knowledge, voice, and engagement. Additionally, drawn from Indigenous epistemology, the recognition of human relationships in praxis critically features the affective dimension of LPP, offering a more holistic and developmental understanding of the process.

This study utilizes Cobarrubias’ (1983. Ethical issues in status planning. In: Progress in language planning: international perspectives. pp. 41–85) taxonomy of language ideologies as the framework to uncover the ideologies underlying language policy and planning (LPP) in the Philippines. We discuss the different language ideologies, including linguistic assimilation, vernacularization, linguistic pluralism, and internationalization, through a historical analysis of the mandated LPP in the Philippines and how they have influenced the country’s LPP. Our findings reveal that legislation and administrative measures have played a crucial role in the process of linguistic assimilation, which has historically been the dominant ideology underlying LPP in the Philippines. Furthermore, we highlight that various language ideologies can coexist and be present simultaneously within a language policy or society. We also posit that Cobarrubias’ (1983. Ethical issues in status planning. In: Progress in language planning: international perspectives. pp. 41–85) framework has the potential to aid in the analysis and enhancement of LPP in other countries facing similar linguistic scenarios. Additionally, multilingual and multicultural countries must continually adapt their LPP to emphasize inclusive language policies, language maintenance initiatives, and national identity construction that values and respects linguistic diversity, empowers local communities, and strives for social inclusivity and cohesion within the context of neocolonialism and globalization.

This paper is concerned to develop the notion of transfer science to take account of what is perceived to be the emergence of a new mode of knowledge production. The new mode which is characterised by the production of knowledge in the context of application, by transdisciplinarity, by homogeneity and organisational diversity, by enhanced social accountability and reflexivity, and by new forms of quality control. The thrust of the new mode of knowledge production is to call into question conventional notions of knowledge transfer and focuses instead on the organisational and managerial implications of the emergence of a socially distributed knowledge production system. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the policy implications of the emergence of the new mode of production. Needed in the new mode are science and technology policies which promote institutional permeability and policies which enable governments, acting through their civil service to act as “brokers” in the new knowledge production process. Such brokerage is necessary to enhance permeability between institutions within a particular country but also to increase co-operation and collaboration between institutions across countries.

Objectives To ascertain current practice and provision of EBP education across healthcare professions at undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development programme levels for the purpose of making key recommendations to healthcare educators and policy makers in relation to ‘best practice’ for EBP education. Method Three distinct but interlinked phases of research were conducted. In phase 1, a desktop rapid review was undertaken to provide a contextualised succinct synthesis of literature relating to the competencies and programme components associated with EBP education. In phase 2, interviews with experts (n=5) in evidence based practice education were conducted to ascertain current and nuanced information on EBP education from an international perspective (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom). In Phase 3,a descriptive, cross-sectional, national, online survey was undertaken to capture and describe baseline data relating to the current provision and practice of EBP education to healthcare professionals at third level institutions and professional training/regulatory bodies in Ireland. Results A narrative synthesis of 83 empirical studies revealed that participation in any form of EBP education has beneficial effects across all EBP competencies with the most apparent positive trend derived from multi-modal teaching and learning interventions. Analysis of EBp expert interview data provided definitive advice in relation to: (i) EBP curriculum considerations; (ii) Teaching EBP and (iii) Stakeholder engagement in EBP education. Representation from 11 healthcare professions across academic levels was obtained from the national survey conducted in Phase 3. A considerable amount of EBP activity throughout health profession education was apparent, with strong recognition of the need for EBP principles and processes within curricula to achieve core professional competencies. However, effectively embedding EBP throughout health education curricula requires further strategic development. Conclusions Despite positive attitudes towards EBP and a predominant recognition of its necessity for the delivery of quality and safe healthcare, its consistent translation at the point of care remains elusive. An examination of current discourse between academic and clinical educators across healthcare professions is required to progress a ‘real world’ pragmatic approach to the integration of EBP education which has meaningful relevance to students and engenders active engagement from educators, clinicians and policy-makers alike.

This paper examines how China’s language policy, dictated by its ethnic minorities policy, has influenced reforms of writing systems for minority languages since 1949. Measured by the landmark publication of the Plan for the Phonetic Spelling of Chinese in 1957, reforms of minority writing systems can be divided into three stages. The pre-Plan stage featured efforts to match written and oral languages, and Russian influence including introduction of the Cyrillic script. During the Plan-oriented stage, romanization ruled not only the creation of new writing systems for oral languages, but also the reform of existing non-roman systems. The relatively Plan-independent stage, ushered in by standardization of the Yi writing system in a Siniform script, has opened the door, though only narrowly, to “native” writing systems. Examined from an international perspective, China’s language policy has undergone the same waxing and waning of assimilation and accommodation as those of industrialized and developing countries; but the Chinese experience demonstrates both the advantages and disadvantages of direct government involvement in minority language maintenance and development.

This paper seeks to situate Estonian language use and policy within the emerging field of critical language policy and planning (CLPP) by investigating the discourses that frame linguistic behaviour. This done by way of an analysis of a series of interviews carried out with key actors in language policy in Estonia. The discourses framing language use in Estonia are then related to the practices, or repeated activities, that maintain everyday language use. The aim is to uncover taken-for-granted categories framing social life, in particular those that maintain forms of inequality, and to investigate ways that these might be reshaped in order to bring about outcomes that take into account the everyday needs and realities of a greater proportion of Estonian society. The 2011 Estonian high school reform is a case in point regarding the importance of macro–micro dialogue and coordination in language policy and planning. As this paper argues, more is needed to engage local Russian-speakers in the process of learning and using Estonian and playing a bigger part in wider Estonian society, particularly in the case of the north-eastern county of Ida-Virumaa. This paper considers the ways discourses and practices in education could become more inclusive of Estonia's Russian-speakers while still furthering the key twin goals of the period of renewed independence: normalisation of the use of Estonian and societal integration.

Reviewed by: Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies ed. by Yuan Shu et al. Yiwen Liu (bio) Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies, edited by Yuan Shu, Otto Heim, and Kendall Johnson. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2019. Ix + 295 pp. $72.00. Hardback. ISBN 978-988-8455-77-5. While transpacific studies has primarily focused on the cultural-historical and socio-political relationship between Asia and North America, ensuing scholarship—like Catherine Ceniza Choy and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu's Gendering the Trans-Pacific World (2017), Josephine Lee's Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture (2019), and Rachel C. Lee's The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature (2014)—has gradually expanded the field by including works of Pacific Islanders to further critique the ongoing aftermath of multiple colonialisms in the transpacific world. The volume Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies, edited by Yuan Shu, Otto Heim, and Kendall Johnson, continues this expansion of the field by emphasizing frameworks and contexts from inter-Asia cultural studies, decoloniality (via Walter Mignolo), and Oceania (via Epeli Hau'ofa). Born out of an international conference held in Hong Kong in 2011, this collection has twelve contributors from various academic fields, including English, Asia Pacific studies, history, Indigenous literary studies, and cultural studies. One major purpose of this interdisciplinary collection, as the editor, Yuan Shu, writes in the introduction, is to investigate "how to move beyond a simple negation of American exceptionalism and how to engage the Asia Pacific and Pacific islands in a productive way that would generate … new systems of knowledge production and dissemination" (1). Put differently, the editors find it inadequate to focus critique solely on US militarism itself; instead, this collection complicates our understanding of global power dynamics by foregrounding alternative relations in transpacific regions and enriching our imagination of a future oceanic community through Indigenous epistemologies. [End Page 512] The collection broadens transpacific studies through coverage of the non-hegemonic connections, flows, and memories across the Asia Pacific. Early scholarship in transpacific studies, such as Hoskins and Nguyen's Transpacific Studies (2014), was devoted to decentering nation-states by focusing on the movements of people, materials, and cultures, yet much of its discussion was primarily in response to the ways in which major powers (i.e., the United States, China, and Japan) have shaped the transpacific. While this was a crucial step for an emerging field, scholars have long been aware of the absent attention to the lateral relationships among minor places in the Asia Pacific. This collection answers this call partially by integrating Asian American studies and inter-Asia cultural studies. Viet Thanh Nguyen's chapter, "Memories of Murder: The Other Korean War (in Viet Nam)," for instance, analyzes how Korean cultural representations remember and forget Korea's involvement in the Vietnam War—a reinvestigation of America's military project from perspectives within Asia. While demonstrating that US imperialism is the originator of the unjust wars across Asia, Nguyen's chapter reminds us that contemporary memory politics in South Korea is inseparable from the country's sub-imperial position during and after the Vietnam War. Speaking to the collection's overall advocacy of reconceptualizing the notion of transpacific relations, Nguyen writes that "the oceanic is not only the space between the United States and elsewhere, but between Korea and its own elsewhere in Viet Nam" (192). The collection further expands transpacific studies by drawing attention to Latin America. Evelyn Hu-DeHart's chapter, entitled "Spanish Manila: A Transpacific Maritime Enterprise and America's First Chinatown," traces Latin America's long history in making the transpacific world by revealing that the history of commerce (sixteenth–nineteenth centuries) between Spanish colonized Mexico and south China is an indispensable but often neglected part of the later establishment of the US empire. Repositioning Manila's first Chinatown in the triangulation of Spanish Latin America, Chinese feudal regime, and Anglo North America, Hu-DeHart's chapter inspires scholars of borderlands, like myself, to nuance the roles played by port cities in the negotiation and transformation between multiple empires. This chapter is representative of the collection's consistent practice of decolonizing...

In this article I examine Nepal’s language policy with particular reference to Nepal National Education Planning Commission (NNEPC known as Wood Commission) Report of 1956. In this essay I analyze how the Wood Commission Report was employed as a means of importing values introduced by the British India’s Macaulay Minutes of 1835. I explore how the post independence Education Commission had an overarching effect on the educational language policy discourse in the country. I investigate the effects of the NNEPC language policy on the educational practices in Nepal. First, I consider how the independent Nepal responded to the aspirations of the people for change in its educational language planning and policy.

Over the past two decades, heightened migration has increased linguistic diversity in schools. For schools to cope with this multilingualism, many governments impose a monolingual policy where only the language of instruction is allowed. Although many schools adopt such a policy, the classroom practices may differ since multilingual students often revert to translanguaging-as-practice. Drawing on three key conceptual language policy (LP) models (Bonacina-Pugh, 2012. Researching ‘practiced language policies’: Insights from conversation analysis. Language Policy, 11(3), 213–234; Johnson & Johnson, 2015. Power and agency in language policy appropriation. Language Policy, 14(3), 221–243; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996. Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 401–427), this study explores LP formation across macro (government), meso (school), and micro (classroom) educational levels in Flanders, Belgium. Macro-level analysis involves scrutinizing policy documents from the Educational Department of Flanders. Meso-level investigation includes policy documents from three secondary schools, compared with insights from interviews with the schools' principals and language coaches. Semi-structured interviews with teachers (n = 18) and classroom observations (n = 138 hours) provide nuanced perspectives at the micro-level. Triangulating data reveals declared, perceived, and practiced language policies at various levels. The study underscores LP's intricate nature within a multilingual educational context. Results highlight the contrast between macro-level policy straightforwardness and the complexity faced at meso- and micro-levels, where context-specific challenges arise. As schools navigate linguistic diversity, the role of language coaches becomes pivotal in creating inclusive and effective educational settings.

This study explains the importance of shifting to digital. It is essential to understand the nature of online learning and its reflection to the practices. In this study, international perspective is examined by underlying the merits of online learning community. In this respect, adding value of online learning, research outcomes and applications and constraints are discussed in relation to the international perspective within the shifting to digital. It is revealed that shift to digital in education practices require international and effective perspective to propose continuous development on learning and skills. In this study, critical thinking skills and critical friendship of learners can be aimed to be developed for personal and professional development in networking. Team work spirit of heuristic evaluation models can be collaborated with other institutions. Heuristic framework is a base for learners and educators that gives insights on social interaction and communication in online learning. Further to this, it is seen that iRemix is used for online learning support as student driven spaces for exploratory media work in media production skills. In this respect, brainstorming, interactive stories, sharing ideas foster the learning development of youth. Different evaluation tools such as diaries, portfolio, reflective tasks and self-evaluation can be used to put emphasis on shifting to digital in education based on international standards.