Language Education Policy Unlimited: Global Perspective and Local Practices

Title

Language Education Policy Unlimited: Global Perspective and Local Practices

Author ORCID Identifier

Djuraeva - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7414-1426

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Description

This book is a first. Language Education Policy is a new field of study that establishes a cross section between educational policy and language policy studies. It inherits from an abundance of intellectual and methodological traditions while opening new perspectives that focus on the interface between policymaking and its enactment in a classroom or an educational setting. The study of the interface between the macro-policy level of the political stage and the micro-policies of education in practice implies a focus on how policy decisions are translated into regulations that affect the lives of people. 21 authors have contributed to this outstanding volume that situates the stakes in the new field of inquiry with examples in 14 countries.

The picture on the cover page of this book represents figuratively what numerous activists with a pitch of humor might think should be a good thing: a young dynamic guy taking the responsibility for repairing the planet and straightening the state of affairs, such that it could bring a form of flourishing and peace. The idealistic view of the possibility for humanity to fix its future is not without problem, though. Firstly, notice the activist on the cover picture is a white male. It is difficult not to recognize that the mayhem the planet is in comes in large part precisely from the worldwide action of a certain type of white male. Any categorization has its limits. Financial globalists may not be that representative of all the white males, and this remark does not imply that non-white might not have collaborated and contributed as well to the disaster we are living around this planet, not to speak of white females. Notwithstanding an in-depth analysis of the picture symbolically may raise doubt as to whether a white male, moreover alone, might be the right person to solve issues that evidently have been perpetrated by people with a similar mindset: fixing the world in a proactive and authoritative fashion, with a smile.

This reminds me of two quotes, one from Albert Einstein who suggested that we cannot solve a problem from the level of understanding which created it, meaning a new mindset is in order. The second quote is from Ivan Illich who advised young do-gooders from America not to travel to Mexico to fix local houses and thus destabilize the social ecology of villages, but rather stay home and work within their neighborhoods to improve their own communities. Obviously both Einstein and Illich were white males. Yet the guy on the cover page has a saw to fix the world. He may cut things straight his own way, maybe by the rule of law, which brings us to the topic of this book.

ISBN

978-1939755063

Publication Date

2-16-2015

Publisher

Deep University Press

Comments

University of Nebraska at Omaha's Dr. Madina Djuraeva wrote chapter 4: Language in Education Policy in Uzbekistan: Formation of Uzbek National Identity.

Language Education Policy Unlimited: Global Perspective and Local Practices

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