This article examines how political discourse, language ideologies, recent Chinese curriculum reforms, and their representations in the media are inextricably related. Using the "Speak Mandarin Campaign" as background for the inquiry, I focus on textual features of the various media sources, TV advertisements, campaign slogans, official…

The media in general and newspapers in particular have a powerful influence on the formation of public attitudes in society. This study aimed at identifying and analyzing the ideologies of two newspapers in Arizona in regard to English language learners. Using discourse analysis, 90 texts published by "The Arizona Republic" and the…

This study asks questions and elicits answers about the importance of English language teaching (ELT) instruction time on the national curriculum in the Sultanate of Oman from an ideological perspective. It triangulates data from semi-structured interviews made with different agents involved in the Omani ELT system and representing different…

Informed by Foucault's analytics of power, this critical discourse analysis focuses upon the discursive construction of minority and low-income family identities, primarily using text from interviews of Texas school leaders within the neoliberal context of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Qualitative content analysis was used to discover whether the…

This article presents the language policy and sociolinguistic realities of Hmong people in Lao Cai province, Vietnam. Minority children, who have their own mother tongue, are educated in Vietnamese, a language that few understand. In response to this situation, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam in collaboration with UNICEF,…

This article examines teachers' relationships with foreign students during eras marked by large waves of immigration to the United States and by policies that shifted from cultural assimilation (1900-1920) to present-day accountability. We compare teachers' understandings of and instructional practices regarding foreign-born English language…

In light of the ongoing attention to standards-based education in U.S. schools and the concern over how to effectively develop literacy skills in a first, let alone a second, language, this article reports on the drafting of the K-16 Student Standards for Learning Esperanto in the United States. Esperanto is ideally suited to aid children in the…

Cultural difference is an important topic of discussion in second language education. Yet cultural difference is often conceptualized as fixed, objective, and apolitical based on an essentialist and normative understanding of culture. This article challenges such conceptualizations by examining and politicizing multiple and conflicting meanings of…

In a period of declining state support for education, we argue S/FL teachers and teacher educators would do well to become oriented to language program preservation and advancement. We discuss three areas such an orientation could take, namely organizing, direct action, and fundraising, so that teachers and students can become more involved in…