29.3315, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Flubacher, Del Percio (2017)

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Subject: 29.3315, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Flubacher, Del Percio (2017)

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Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 15:07:36
From: Andrew Jocuns [jocunsa at gmail.com]
Subject: Language, Education and Neoliberalism

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-4070.html

EDITOR: Mi-Cha  Flubacher
EDITOR: Alfonso  Del Percio
TITLE: Language, Education and Neoliberalism
SUBTITLE: Critical Studies in Sociolinguistics
SERIES TITLE: Critical Language and Literacy Studies
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Andrew Jocuns

SUMMARY  

As the editors of this volume of case studies on neoliberalism’s emergence in
language and education note, the topic has been of interest in social science
for the past twenty years. The book is divided into twelve chapters including
an introduction by the editors and a synthesis chapter by Mary McGroarty. The
focus of the volume is a series of case studies which emphasize how
neoliberalism has become a pervasive force in education and language
education.

Chapter 1 by Alonso Deo Percio and Mi-Cha Flubacher discusses how
neoliberalism has emerged in language education and has been resignified in
terms of: ability to make money, how efficient they are, and their
competitiveness to other educational settings. Languages are marketable and as
such some are more marketable than others. Language and communication in
multilingual settings are competitive. Relatedly then if languages are
competitive and marketable then by extension their instruction is as well.
Lastly neoliberalism has resignified the self and for this volume the emphasis
would be the linguistic self. Hence, individuals through their acquisition,
study, and investment in language(s) are now marketable, commodifiable, and
entrepreneurial. The language identities of individuals makes them neoliberal
commodities on a marketplace.

English and Mandarin are the subject of Shuang Gao’s discussion in Chapter 2.
Noting that both English and Mandarin represent and index different statuses
on the global stage, or market, Gao emphasizes that neoliberalism thus emerges
differently for each language. Gao notes that the forces that brought about
the marketization of these two languages occurred at different times, and as a
result the ways the study of these two languages have emerged in terms of
neoliberal ideology are different as well. English language education in China
has been developed in a privatized industrial market focusing upon the
neoliberal stance of an individual’s competitiveness being linked to
self-improvement. Mandarin has developed on the global stage as China has
exerted itself as an economic world power most notably through Confucius
Institutes. In terms of the authenticity of language teaching materials, Gao
emphasizes that marketization has played a role in this as far as how Mandarin
has been localized. Notably what has emerged is the acceptance of the
“loosening of linguistic standards” (p. 32) due to the popularity of Mandarin,
which in effect privileges an ideology of the mass consumption of language
learning that has positive effects for neoliberal economics. In conclusion Gao
notes that English has been commodified as a form of human capital in China
tied to the shift to a neoliberal ideology. Mandarin language teaching has
developed more so in terms of neoliberal globalization.

Isthmus Zapotec, or Diidxazá, is the focus of Haley De Korne’s ethnographic
analysis of informal and formal educational settings of the language’s use
(Ch. 3). Diidxazá is spoken along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and maintains
approximately 85,000 speakers. Diidxazá has a literary tradition as well as a
popular alphabet which can be used in formal writing, but the majority of
speakers do not know it. The majority of speakers of this region of Mexico are
Spanish speakers;  most schooling is conducted in Spanish and a small minority
are exposed to Isthmus Zapotec at bilingual schools where it is taught for one
hour a week. De Korne draws on Bourdieu’s notions of a market of linguistic
exchanges and symbolic capital noting that in schooling in Mexico Spanish has
a high symbolic capital whereas indigenous languages have a low value.  The
symbolic capital of speakers of indigenous languages in Mexico declined
significantly beginning in the colonial period. Many of the indigenous
languages in Mexico were dubbed dialectos, a term which indexes a lower status
of such languages. De Korne notes that part of neoliberal multiculturalism in
Latin America proper has been discrepancies between cultural rights on the one
hand and access to or the actualization of those rights on the other. As such
the value placed upon indigenous languages by both their speakers and
outsiders has shifted and is in at state of negotiation and revaluation.

The subject of neoliberal multiculturalism is also taken up in Nelson Flores’
discussion of what he refers to as the “coke-ification” of bilingual
education. That educational efforts, such as bilingual education programs,
have been offered as a resource to fight racism, while at the same time doing
absolutely nothing to oppose white supremacism, or institutional racism, are
both powerful and timely takeaways from this chapter. Coke-ification is a
reference to the 1971 Coca-Cola hilltop commercial which effectively
commercialized diversity in neoliberal fashion by suggesting that buying and
sharing a Coke will solve the United States’ racial inequality. The fact that
diversity is commodified in such a neoliberal manner is how Flores defines
coke-ification – superficial explorations of diversity which do not attempt to
take on the roots of racial inequality.  Flores situates the discussion of
coke-ifcation and bilingual education in terms of Ruiz’s orientations towards
language policy: language-as-problem, language-as-right, and
language-as-resource. Flores argues that part of the coke-fication of
bilingual education has been through the neoliberal commodification of it
through the language-as-resource orientation. Linguistic resources of minority
communities are commodified as resources for the majority population through
such processes as creating bilingual Spanish programs that are for “gifted and
talented” majority white students. Flores concludes this discussion by
introducing a language policy orientation, language-as-struggle which includes
four principles: embedding language proficiency within the context of racial
inequality, situating contexts for bilingual education within contexts that
require social transformation, making connections with community organizations
that are opposing racial inequalities, and lastly bringing
language-as-struggle into the classroom (pp. 77-79). 

In Chapter 5, Joseph Sung-Yul Park situates the discussion of neoliberalism in
language education within the rise of English as a medium of  instruction
universities in South Korea. Park notes the ideological stances that speakers
can have of themselves noting that Korean speakers of English take on a
subjectivity of illegitimate speakers of English. This ideological stance is
rooted in English anxiety which Park refers to as an ideology of
self-deprecation. The rise of English as a medium instruction in Korean higher
education, Park argues, is intimately linked to neoliberalism and at the same
time neoliberalism perpetuates Korean subjectivities of English, i.e. the
ideology of self-deprecation. English is related to these efforts in two ways:
one is the internationalization of Korean universities which imparted
neoliberal based competition where English is given a higher status in such
efforts; second the shifting job market has recreated the ideal employee as
someone who is flexible and can learn new skills such as English. The ideal
employee is someone who works on their own self-development without the
resources of the employer, where English is an index for such an “ideal
neoliberal subject” in Korea (p. 89). In conclusion he argues that a broader
understanding of both repertoires and competence may enable Korean speakers of
English, and perhaps university administrators, to overcome ideological
positions which delegitimize speakers of English and create new broader
ideological stances of who is a legitimate speaker.

Luke’s ethnographic case study of a STEM program, Science Without Borders, for
Brazilian students to study STEM in Canada offers yet another perspective on
the neoliberalization of language education the world over. This chapter
illustrates the different expectations that both students and educators have
with regard to such international programs, where a program that was meant to
educate Brazilian students in their respective STEM fields instead became an
English language program that focused on scores not competence. Luke notes
that neoliberal discourses of competition and entrepreneurship emerged in this
program as a result of sending Brazilian students to some of the best
universities in the world where neoliberal discourses have already persisted.
Students noted that language learning emerged as an expected requirement and
the goal of the program in Canada . English was expected to be the outcome of
the program, not STEM education. Hence a program that was meant to enable
Brazilian students to be competitive in terms of STEM fields globally
(neoliberal globalism), shifted into a program that fostered individual
competition (neoliberal competition).

Chapter 7 draws our attention to the neoliberalization of English in the
Philippines under the guise of a development project rooted in the US’s
neocolonial stance towards the Philippines. The JEEP project was meant to help
Philippine students who graduate from universities in Mindanao to be
successful in acquiring employment in positions which require high proficiency
in English. Mindanao has been positioned as a backwater composed of indigenous
peoples as well as a Muslim minority, the latter of which are engaged in an
insurgency. The JEEP project was meant to enhance students’ marketability via
their English skills, for example working in a call-center in the Philippines.
The authors use the term speculative capital to refer to the sense of
investment that Philippine students in Mindanao maintain towards their English
skills, speculative not just in monetary gain but also in terms of students’
human, or symbolic, capital. This speculative capital has several features:
the investment in English is not just an investment towards monetary gain but
also human capital increasing the value of the human subject, English skill is
tied to a presumed increase in one’s marketability/employability which is
difficult to discern in terms of actual English skill and actual investment,
and lastly that there is no actual guarantee on one’s investment in the
English skillset; this investment is highly speculative. Applied linguists
should contest such neoliberal stances towards language learning in terms of
their potential for creating inequality as opposed to creating neoliberal
subjects who invest in language skills.

Italian is the language focused on in Del Percio and Van Hoof’s contribution
(Ch. 8); the chapter considers migrants in Italy who are enrolled in an
activation program to enhance their entrepreneurial spirit. The program was to
provide migrants with education in agricultural practices, entrepreneurial
practices, and Italian language skills to fill a void of employment in the
agricultural sector of the economy. Activation schemes are used to move people
from the category of unemployed to employed, thereby removing these
individuals from the support of the state. The neoliberal discourses of
marketability, entrepreneur-ship and commodification are important features of
the activation scheme presented in this chapter.  The ethnographic case study
in this chapter focused on an NGO named Legame which supported migrants and
refugees through professional integration into the Italian job market. Legame
attempted to shift the focus of employment among migrants from low-wage jobs
that were precarious and were considered low skill, to entrepreneurial skills
that would enable migrants to engage in social mobility. Entrepreneurship
poses unique linguistic issues for migrants because it requires literacy
skills that range from administrative tasks, knowledge of law, developing
business related documents (a business plan or mission statement), accounting,
ethics, and many other literacy practices. Despite migrants’ efforts through
the program, banks were reluctant to grant loans to perceptively high-risk
applicants, and the government also failed in its promise to provide public
land for cultivation.

Jill Koyama focuses upon an English as a second language program in upstate
New York; the chapter draws our attention to the neoliberal focus on
quantification with regard to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in the
United States (Ch. 9). In this case the migrant children at a secondary school
were labelled as the problem because of  low testing scores. Because the NCLB
equates success with high scores, schools are placed in with the difficult
choice to make immediate changes or face intervention. Koyama discusses how
ESL teachers in this school resisted the intervention imposed by the principal
who had hired the services of a for-profit education services company. Using
Latour’s actor network theory Koyama notes that teachers resisted this program
and would not concede their expertise to a for-profit education service.
Because the program was not able to meet its obligations, the teachers were
able to make their own supplementary materials to assist the students. This
case study emphasized the effects of neoliberal ideology on language policy.
One of the issues with language policy is that it is often perceived as free
of context but Koyama emphasizes how language policy has histories which
include a complex network of relationships, and with the NCLB’s neoliberal
ideology we can see the unfortunate effects of the for-profit education sector
on language policy.

Chapter 10 focuses on Gregory Hadley’s study of English for academic purposes
programs which have emerged the world over as profit making enterprises in
higher education. Hadley utilizes grounded theory to analyze his data noting
also that teachers of English for academic purposes (TEAPs) are no longer just
teachers in the neoliberal university; their skills also include roles such as
administrators, managers, entrepreneurs and other skills that are outside of
the traditional role of teaching. The image of the new English for academic
purposes professional is blended to the degree that TEAPs assume and must
maintain a number of non-traditional teaching roles; for this reason Hadley
introduces the tongue-in-cheek term BLEAP (Blended English for Academic
Purposes Professionals). Resource leaching is a term which is introduced to
emphasize how BLEAPs manipulate and maneuver resources to their advantage and
in some cases promotion. This behavior of free-riding is a tool that BLEAPs
use to navigate the demands of the neoliberal university, where resources and
funding have become scarce. Hadley distinguishes between internal resource
leaching (which occurs within a university) and external resource leaching
(which uses members of the community or prestigious institutions); in both
cases there are services provided for effectively no cost to the institution.
As the neoliberal university becomes more and more a salient feature of higher
education, entrepreneurial minded practices such as resource leeching become
more integral to the survival of academics such as BLEAPs and to institutions
of higher education themselves.

Chapter 11 provides another example of how it is that language competence is
perceived as a marketable resource that can be described to one’s potential
employers. Martina Zimmerman and Mi-Cha Flubacher offer the case of
universities in Switzerland where French, German and Italian are spoken and
are in competition. As far as the labor market in Switzerland is concerned,
German is considered the most important language, with French and English
being two other important languages. Italian, and the Italian speaking region
of Switzerland, take a back seat to these other languages and institutions.
This lack of preference for Italian is rooted in the size of the Italian
language group in Switzerland, which makes up approximately 8.1% of the
population. The authors focus their attention on a university in the German
speaking portion of the country, which they refer to as UCS founded in 2001.
Ethnographically Zimmermann and Flubacher draw attention to the marketization
practices of this university and its attraction to Italian speaking students,
where the students were said to have access to the faculty. However the
presence of an Italian speaking student association became an important part
of their respective educations. Where the university marketed an
Italian-speaking staff, students were often sent to the Italian student
association to seek assistance in understanding course content. In sum the
authors offer yet another example of how neoliberal ideologies and subsequent
policies have an effect upon students in terms of a mismatch of expectations
based upon the university’s own marketing strategies, and what actually occurs
in practice at the university. 

McGroarty’s discussion in the final chapter identifies a number of trends that
have been addressed through the research in this volume. Three trends were
noted: language is a recruiting tool for educational institutions; language
education is also the object of deregulation and privatization practices; and
lastly language learning itself has become related to goal-directedness for an
individual’s professional and/or employment interests. Language as a
recruiting tool emphasizes how institutions have used language education and
language as medium of instruction to increase enrollment. This practice is
tied to neoliberal ideology and practice where numbers must be increased or
maintained: the number of applicants, the number of enrollees, the number of
graduates within programs, and the number retained in a program. Language here
plays the role of attracting students or retaining students who after they
graduate can also perform the role of recruiter. A few of the contributions to
the volume addressed the privatization/deregulation of language education in
which non-state education providers often become assigned the role of
specialist/expert. Neoliberal ideology emphasizes the importance of private
contractors in providing services normally offered by the state, such as
curriculum, perceived to be better and more efficient than what the state has
to offer. Lastly language learning and acquisition can be perceived as
marketable to the degree that some languages become activated in terms of
their importance economically. 

EVALUATION

This volume presents extensive research on the relationship between neoliberal
ideology, language and education. One of the many strengths of this volume is
in how a variety of methods and analytical approaches are deployed to address
neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideology and policy practices emerge differently the
world over; as an object of research then it should be handled with a variety
of methods that represent how neoliberalism has emerged in a particular
context, and this volume has offered case studies that explore a variety of
methods. The use of ethnographic methods in a majority of the studies here
illustrates the importance of approaching neoliberalism holistically as it
emerges in educational settings. Hadley’s use of grounded theory to organize
and emphasize the complex network of relationships present within resource
leeching emphasizes how this practice is situated in a number of neoliberal
ideas. Regardless of method(s) employed to approach the problem of
neoliberalism in education each of the contributors to the volume has fostered
a sense that neoliberal ideology and practice is not a uniform set of
practices but rather a set of practices that emerge differently. Another
worthy methodology that is often found in education research can be found
Koyama’s chapter which implements Latour’s actor-network theory. The actors
involved in this complex array included: the principle, teachers, students,
parents, the for-profit educational services company, the NCLB, the
standardized tests, among others. Actor-network theory offers an angle on
research into neoliberalism that may often be ignored, i.e., the role of
non-human actors that can have an influence on a network of relationships. In
sum, it was a pleasure to read about the variety of methods and theory that
the contributors used to handle the problem of neoliberalism.

It is hard to find a criticism of the work within this volume. Neoliberalism
is a difficult concept that has many faces and often it seems an intangible
topic to handle, if only because its practices are considered positive by
administrators as well as politicians. The contributors here do excellent work
at critically analyzing each of the topics presented. One criticism of the
volume is that not all of the case studies presented here offer solutions to
the problems that neoliberalism has brought into education. Flores’ chapter
offers an excellent suggestion that goes beyond the scope of bilingual
education policy in the United States; conceiving language-as-struggle as a
language policy orientation is one way that educators at all levels of
education can i thwart the efforts of the neoliberal establishment to take
over education. The idea also that language education programs such as
bilingual education or multilingual language policies are susceptible to being
taken over by neoliberal ideologies and practices is alarming. Neoliberal
multiculturalism is certainly a problem, and to this I would add some aspects
of intercultural communication research and education. Raising the awareness
of students concerning diversity, as Flores notes, does nothing to contest the
institutionalization of racism and white supremacy in the United States, or
however it emerges the world over. Another contribution which offers a
potential solution was raised within Koyama’s chapter where teachers acted in
response to the introduction of a private contractor to change the curriculum.
Yet this case is rare; not all teachers may be willing to take the risk of
acting on their own to combat neoliberal educational practices.

This volume would be most suitable for graduate students, professional
researchers, and teachers who are interested in implementing a research
program that examines neoliberalism. Researchers in sociolinguistics,
discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, education, and others will find
this volume of particular relevance. While the volume is not a solely a
methods volume, a lot can be learned from how the individual contributors
handled research methods and theory in each case. There were a number of
themes that emerged throughout the volume that are worthy of mention here
especially if a researcher wishes to embark on a language and neoliberalism
research program. Such themes as:  commodification, entrepreneurialism,
marketability, and linguistic capital.  Unfortunately the problem of
neoliberal ideology in language and education is not going to go away anytime
soon. In the coming years I would expect to see some more studies of how
neoliberal liberal policies and practices impact language and education, and
the present volume offers some excellent examples that can act as a starting
point of how to implement a research program that analyzes neoliberalism’s
effects upon language and education.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Andrew Jocuns PhD, is a sociolinguist at Thammasat University in Bangkok,
Thailand who has conducted research on discourse and learning in the United
States and Southeast Asia with a particular focus on Indonesia. He is
presently conducting research on intercultural communication, narratives of
intercultural encounters, linguistic landscapes, and Thai English.





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