Inequality and Class in Language Policy and Planning

Abstract

In recent years, critical language policy and planning (LPP) researchers have increasingly turned to political economy as a source discipline, and neoliberalism has come to be a baseline concept. Nevertheless, political economy in LPP research is often underdeveloped; neoliberalism remains ill-defined and under-theorised; and inequality and class are virtually erased from analysis. This chapter elaborates on the value of these concepts for LPP research. It begins with a brief discussion of LPP and then discusses political economy as a field of inquiry, neoliberalism as a master frame for a growing body of LPP research, and finally, inequality and class as key constructs for understanding the effects of neoliberalism on contemporary societies. This theoretical background is followed by a section examining how inequality and class have emerged as constructs in recent LPP research, and the chapter closes with considerations about further research.