LANGUAGE POLICY

Volume 21, Issue 3-4, 2022

LANGUAGE POLICY（SSCI一区，2021 IF：2.355）2022年第3-4期共刊文26篇。（2022年已更完）欢迎转发扩散！

2022年第21期第3期主题为Revisiting and (Re)imagining Castañeda v. Pickard (1981): Past, Present and Future，共发文13篇，其中研究性论文8篇，书评4篇；第4期主题为Advocacy Research and Issues in Language Policy，共发文13篇，其中研究性论文6篇，书评5篇。研究论文涉及双语教育，国家语言政策，双语教师教育，多语言学习者，“黑人的命也是命”运动，正字法，语言倡导，移民政策等。

往期推荐：

刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《语言政策》2022年第1-2期

目录

ISSUE 3: Revisiting and (Re)imagining Castañeda v. Pickard (1981): Past, Present and Future

■Editorial introduction: revisiting and (re)imagining Castañeda v. Pickard through critical lenses, by Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, Eugene Garcia & Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica, Pages 295-303.

ARTICLES

■ Is language a ‘right’ in U.S. education?: unpacking Castañeda’s reach across federal, state, and district lines, by Maria R. Coady, Brian Ankeny & Raisa Ankeny, Pages 305-329.

■ Mid-level leaders as key policy interpreters: state and local leaders’ perspectives on leveraging Castañeda to expand equity for English learner students, by Madeline Mavrogordato, Rebecca Callahan, Caroline Bartlett, Pages 331-355.

■ Four decades after Castañeda: a critical analysis of Bilingual/Dual Language Education in Colorado, by Kathy Escamilla, Sheila Shannon, Jorge García, Pages 357-379.

■ Bilingual teacher educators as language policy agents: A critical language policy perspective of the Castañeda v. Pickard case and the bilingual teacher shortage, by Sera J. Hernández, Cristina Alfaro, Melissa A. Navarro Martell, Pages: 381-403.

■ Beyond Castañeda and the “language barrier” ideology: young children and their right to bilingualism, by Dina C. Castro, Shantel Meek, Pages 407-425.

■ Black lives matter versus Castañeda v. Pickard: a utopian vision of who counts as bilingual (and who matters in bilingual education), by Ramón Antonio Martínez, Danny C. Martinez, P. Zitlali Morales, Pages 427-449.

■ After Castañeda: a glotopolítica perspective and educational dignity paradigm to educate racialized bilinguals, by Luis E. Poza, Ofelia García, Óscar Jiménez-Castellanos, Pages 451-474.

■ Clamping down on the Castañeda standard: turning the screws for educational equity, by Peter Roos, Pages 475 - 480.

COMMENTARIES AND BOOK REVIEWS

■ Commentary: Revisiting Castañeda as law, policy, ideology, and critical educational resource, by Terrence G. Wiley, Pages 481-488.

■ Nelson Flores, Amelia Tseng & Nicholas Subtirelu (eds): Bilingualism for All? Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Dual Language Education in the United States, by Reka C. Barton, Pages 491-493.

■ Laurie Olsen: A Legacy of Courage and Activism: Stories from the Movement for Educational Access and Equity for English Learners in California. Californians Together, Long Beach, California, 2021, 241 pp, Hb $34.99, ISBN 978–1-7363484–0-6, by Ester J de Jong, Zijing An, Pages 495-497.

■ Rebecca Blum-Martinez and Mary Jean Habermann López: The Shoulders We Stand on: A History of Bilingual Education in New Mexico, by Susana Ibarra Johnson, Pages 499-501.

ISSUE 4: Advocacy Research and Issues in Language Policy

■ In Memorium: A tribute to Bernard Spolsky, by Elana Shohamy, Pages 503-505.

■ Editorial introduction: Advocacy issues and research in language policy, by Piet Van Avermaet, Elana Shohamy, Pages 507-510.

ARTICLES

■ Individual language advocates and managers, by Bernard Spolsky, Pages 511-525.

■ Typographical advocacy in the age of digital encoding, by Iair G. Or,  Pages 527-543.

■ Language advocacy in times of securitization and neoliberalization: The Network LanguageRights, by Mi-Cha Flubacher, Brigitta Busch, Pages 545-560.

■ Advocacy strategies for a new multilingual educational policy in Israel, by Michal Tannenbaum, Elana Shohamy, Ofra Inbar-Lourie, Pages 561-573.

■ Advocating an empirically-founded university admission policy, by Bart Deygers, Marieke Vanbuel, Pages 575-596.

■ Language test activism, by Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen, Lorenzo Rocca, Pages 597-616.

REVIEWS

■ Jie Zhang: Language Policy and Planning for the Modern Olympic Games, by Bing Zhang, Bahram Kazemian, Pages 617-619.

■ Bernard Spolsky: Rethinking Language Policy, by Yalan Wang, Pages 621-623.

■ Thomas Ricento: Refugees in Canada. On the loss of Social and Cultural Capital Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, 2021, xiii + 300 pp. ISBN 978-3-030-76452-4 ISBN 978-3-030-76453-1 (ebook), by Lorena Córdova-Hernández, Pages 625-627.

■ Fornasiero, J., Reed, S. M., Amery, R., Bouvet, E., Enomoto, K., & Xu, H. L. (eds): Intersections in Language Planning and Policy, by Haiyan Li, Pages 629-631.

■ El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed: Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, by Gregory Paul Glasgow, Pages 633-635.

摘要

Is language a ‘right’ in U.S. education?: unpacking Castañeda’s reach across federal, state, and district lines

Maria R. Coady, University of Florida, PO Box 117048, Gainesville, FL, USA

Brian Ankeny, Zimmerman, Kiser, & Sutcliffe, Orlando, FL, USA

Raisa Ankeny, Stetson University, DeLand, FL, USA

Abstract Castañeda v. Pickard (648 F.2d 989, [5th Cir. 1981]) was a significant legal case in the history of educational policy for non-native English-speaking students in the United States. The case established a three prong ‘test’ for programs for those students, including the right for students to have an educational program based on sound educational theory; resources and personnel to properly implement the program; and evaluation of the effectiveness of the program. After 40 years of interpretation of the Castañeda case, the issue of language rights for non-native English speakers in United States public schools continues to be debated by scholars and interpreted through various legal statutes and case holdings. This article examines the Castañeda case and its recent interpretations in the literature as applied to non-native English-speaking students. We use a theoretical lens of orientations in language planning (Ruíz 1984) and language policy text as reported by Lo Bianco and Aliani (Language planning and student experiences: Intention, rhetoric, and implementation, Multilingual Matters, 2013). We then discuss the socio-historical context of the case and position it with respect to the 1974 seminal case of Lau v. Nichols. Using the state of Florida as an example, we next describe the complex language ecology of local and state language policies and how those relate to Castañeda and inhibit progress for bilingual students in Florida. We conclude with caution to academics and advocates who work on behalf of language minoritized students in the United States, with implications for international scholars.

Key words: Legal rights · English language learners · Bilingual education · State language policy · Federal language policy

Mid-level leaders as key policy interpreters: state and local leaders’ perspectives on leveraging Castañeda to expand equity for English learner students

Madeline Mavrogordato, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA 

Rebecca Callahan, Department of Education, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

Caroline Bartlett, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA 

Abstract With the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Castañeda v. Pickard, for the first time, educators and advocates saw the potential to ensure educational equity for EL students. In spirit, Castañeda offered federal oversight in the provision of educa- tional services for EL-identified students. Castañeda’s three prongs attended to the importance of EL educational inputs i.e., program quality and implementation and outputs, i.e., EL student achievement. In the present study, we highlight the impor- tance of understanding the perspectives of those most closely charged with interpret- ing Castañeda for implementation, the state and local educational agency (SEA and LEA, respectively) leaders who oversee EL educational programs and services. We used a qualitative multiple case study design and collected interview data from 17 SEA and LEA EL leaders in three states. Discussions focused on how EL leaders draw upon Castañeda to inform their efforts to serve EL students, what these leaders see as its affordances and constraints, and how future leaders might better leverage Castañeda to improve educational equity for EL students. Insights suggest that these leaders—and their states—have adopted the principles of Castañeda into their EL guidance policies and documents, that they leverage Castañeda’s legal grounding to motivate and guide school site educators to engage in equitable practices for EL students, and that they employ its three-pronged approach to create a roadmap for EL guidance. We close with recommendations and guiding questions for EL leaders in other contexts.

Key words: Policy implementation · Policy interpreters · English learner · Equity · State educational agency · Local educational agency · EL leader

Four decades after Castañeda: a critical analysis of Bilingual/Dual Language Education in Colorado

Kathy Escamilla, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States

Sheila Shannon, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, United States

Jorge García, Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, Thorton, CO, United States

Abstract The Castañeda Standard was handed down in 1981. We use this Standard along with Latino Critical Race Theory (Solorzano & Yosso, 2001) and Ruiz’s Language Orientations (1984) to conduct a historical analysis of bilingual education in Colo- rado from 1976 to 2019 to examine the availability of bilingual/dual language edu- cation for Latinx students over four decades. Our historical analysis resulted in di- viding Colorado’s bilingual history into four time periods (1976–1981; 1981–2000, 2000–2018 and 2019-present). Findings indicated that other than a brief period (1976–1981) the history of bilingual education and all other program types in Colo- rado has been oriented toward language as a problem and toward systemic racism with regard to language policies and practices. However, the community also de- veloped resistant capital to maintain bilingual education despite formidable odds. This is particularly true for Spanish speaking Mexican origin children and families. Moreover, we demonstrate that while Castañeda had some influence on bilingual education over the past 40 years, it could have had much more if the Standard had been updated over time especially regarding Prongs 1 and 3. We conclude that Castañeda needs to be updated and strengthened especially in states such as Colo- rado with weak oversight and monitoring of programs for EB students.

Keywords: Castañeda Standards · History of Bilingual Education in Colorado · Systemic racism · Language as a Problem · Colorado ELD Programs

Bilingual teacher educators as language policy agents: A critical language policy perspective of the Castañeda v. Pickard case and the bilingual teacher shortage

Sera J. Hernández, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA

Cristina Alfaro, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA

Melissa A. Navarro Martell, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA

Abstract Drawing on decades of lessons from a Bilingual Teacher Education Program (BTEP) in California that has persevered both restrictive and additive federal and state edu- cational language policies, this manuscript provides an ethnographic snapshot of how this BTEP has strategically navigated through and around anti-immigrant ide- ologies and policies to survive incessant attacks on bilingual education and educa- tional equity for multilingual learners. Utilizing a critical language policy frame- work, the authors analyze how the Castañeda v. Pickard case and other educational language policies shape the work of bilingual teacher educators as language policy agents. They rely on autoethnographic accounts to illustrate how they navigate the complex relationship between policy and practice and offer a critical analysis of the bilingual teacher shortage. The authors propose that developing critically conscious bilingual educators with ideological clarity may mitigate this larger systemic issue.

Keywords: Bilingual teacher education · Multilingual learners · Critical language policy · Teacher shortage

Beyond Castañeda and the “language barrier” ideology: young children and their right to bilingualism

Dina C. Castro, BU Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being, Wheelock College of Education and Human

Shantel Meek, The Children’s Equity Project, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA 

Abstract Forty years ago, the Castañeda v. Pickard landmark case marked an important mile- stone in the fight for equitable education for English learners1 in law, and for the first time linked theory, resources, and outcomes. Notwithstanding the important pro- gress it marked in advocating for greater resources for English learners and account- ability for education systems, the central goal of the Castañeda Standard, to “over- come language barriers that impede equal participation in educational programs” is fundamentally flawed. Language, in its essence, is not a barrier but a human charac- teristic and a strength, and knowledge of the English language, specifically, should not be the exclusive route to attain equal participation in education programs. In this article, we discuss the importance of the Castaňeda Standard and importantly, how we can build from its foundation toward more equitable learning systems, with a central focus on the early care and education system, which has thus far, been left out of formal standards and accountability for bilingual children, with some exceptions. We ground our discussion in the central tenet that improving standards must move away from the “language barrier ideology” to perceiving language as a strength to build on, and to include bilingualism and biliteracy as a central goal of learning systems, shifting away from an exclusive English learning focus. We dis- cuss the importance of bringing a larger degree of objectivity, grounded in current science, to guide implementation. We track the same three pillars established by the Castaňeda Standard 40 years ago and further develop how these could apply to the early care and education systems that serve the youngest bilingual learners.

Keywords: Bilingual children · Dual language learners · English learners · Early childhood · Early care and education · Castañeda · Language Standard

Black lives matter versus Castañeda v. Pickard: a utopian vision of who counts as bilingual (and who matters in bilingual education)

Ramón Antonio Martínez, School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Danny C. Martinez, School of Education, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA 

P. Zitlali Morales, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Abstract Castañeda v. Pickard established a precedent for evaluating bilingual programs in relation to the soundness of the educational theory on which they are based. How- ever, this notion of theoretical soundness was grounded in an underlying logic that ultimately framed emergent multilingual students as a protected class—or vulner- able population in need of Federal protection. Given the particular demographic context in which the Castañeda case emerged, this population of students was also imagined to be primarily Latinx, a category which, in turn, was imagined to exclude Black students. In this article, we interrogate this underlying logic, and we propose an expanded definition of what counts as sound theory in relation to bilingual edu- cation. In light of recent international attention to the Black Lives Matter move- ment, we explore the role of bilingual education in the lives of Black and Latinx students who attend schools with one another throughout the U.S. We argue that the Castañeda discourse that framed Latinx children’s emergent multilingualism as “language barriers” was—and continues to be—informed by the same logic that frames Black kids as not being bilingual (and as not belonging in bilingual educa- tion). Further, we argue that this logic has profoundly shaped a history of language policies that are primarily remedial and compensatory in nature, and that systemati- cally exclude and/or marginalize Black students. Through an interrogation and reim- agining of “sound educational theory,” we point to ways that bilingual education can encompass a more expansive view of multilingual learners that promotes linguistic solidarity between Black, Latinx, and other racialized students.

Keywords: Castaneda v. Pickard · Bilingual education · Black Lives Matter · Solidarity · Anti-blackness · Bilingualism · Black Language · Black students · Latinx students

After Castañeda: a glotopolítica perspective and educational dignity paradigm to educate racialized bilinguals

Luis E. Poza, San José State University, San Jose, USA

Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA

Óscar Jiménez-Castellanos, USC Rossier School of Education, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

Abstract In the U.S., programming for students classified as English Learners must adhere to the framework outlined in Castañeda v. Pickard (1981), which demands a basis in “legitimate educational theory,” implementation with “adequate techniques,” and regular evaluation (p. 1010), while remaining explicitly agnostic about which theoretical orientations should guide “language remediation” (p. 1009). Unsurpris- ingly, such minimal thresholds and deficit orientations still countenance assimila- tionist ideologies and practices that devalue students’ bi/multilingualism (García and Sung in Bilingu Res J 41(4):318–333, 2018). Even in bilingual programming, colonialist approaches reinforce norms of language standardization that perpetuate linguistic racialization and marginalization (Grinberg and Saavedra in Rev Educ Res 70(4):419–441, 2000). Thus, Castañeda exemplifies the limitations of political victories subject to multitudinous interpretations and enactments. In this theoretical article, we harken to the calls for justice for minoritized communities that included demands for bilingual education during the civil rights movement (Flores and García in Ann Rev Appl Linguist 37:14–29, 2017) to imagine criteria beyond ade- quacy and remediation. With a glotopolítica lens rooted in the work of Latin Amer- ican sociolinguists (Arnoux in Lengua y política en América Latina: perspectivas actuales, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Olomouc, Czech Republic, pp 19–43, 2014; Blanco in Cuad Sur Letr 35–36(11):26, 2005), we conduct a genealogical analysis of language education policy for racialized bilinguals in the U.S. Linked to other decolonial projects, we propose a framework of educational dignity (Espinoza et al. in Mind Cult Act, 2020) that engages scholars, advocates, and educators in the U.S. and internationally in constructing language education policies according to racialized bilingual students’ own dignified logic rather than that of the nation-state, enabling racialized bilinguals to develop into historical actors (Gutiérrez et al. in Mind Cult Act 26(4):291–308, 2019) emancipated from the logic of regulations that offer inclusion in colonialist paradigms rather than true liberation (de Sousa Santos, in Epistemologies of the South: justice against epistemicide, Paradigm Publishers, London, 2014).

Keywords: Glotopolítica/glottopolitics · Bilingual education · Educational dignity · Humanizing pedagogies

Clamping down on the Castañeda standard: turning the screws for educational equity

Peter Roos, San Francisco, USA

Abstract In 1981, 40 years ago, a United States Court of Appeals established an outline for Judicial oversight of 42 USC 1703(F); that provision provides that a school district must take “appropriate action” to remedy the language barriers that English language students bring to school. Castañeda v. Pickard 648 F2 989 (5th Cir., 1981) was a multifaceted challenge to the delivery of education to Mexican American students in Raymondville, Texas. In addition to challenging the responses to the limited English proficiency of Raymondville’s English Language Learner (ELL) students, it alleged intentional segregation, teacher discrimination, and unlawful ability grouping. But the challenge to the delivery of language services pursuant to 1703(F) provided the precedent-setting outline developed by the court.

That court, in reality, a single judge of a three-judge court, was confronted with the dilemma of evaluating whether the school district was acting “appropriate(ly)” in responding to these children. In short, imagining - without any direction - what Con- gress might have considered to be legally appropriate/inappropriate. The decision rendered amounts to thoughtful speculation about how Congress might wish a court to evaluate a school system. Importantly, the court felt it was prohibited from making an express substantive determination of the correct educational approach required. However, as I will argue, this outline infers that a native language component is the surest way for a school district to meet its obligations.

Individual language advocates and managers

Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

Abstract In a theory of language policy, managers are individuals or institutions with author- ity to require others to change their language practices or beliefs. Advocates are indi- viduals or institutions who want the same result, but lacking any power to enforce, can only try to persuade. Language academies can be managers or advocates. Stand- ardization is often the work of individual language reformers and missionaries, including those who develop writing systems. Advocates can persuade governments to implement language policy: examples are Hebrew, Irish and Māori. Examples of strong language managers are powerful leaders like Atatürk, Lenin, Stalin, and Lee Kuan Yew. But even powerful leaders find it hard to deal with the existence of poli- cies at other levels and to implement unpopular policies.

Keywords: Policy · Manager · Advocate · Academy · Totalitarian

Typographical advocacy in the age of digital encoding

Iair G. Or, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, POB 20559, IL-6120402 Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract This paper contemplates the concept of typographical advocacy, defined here as a variety of activities, strategies, and policies designed to increase or enhance lan- guage support in computing systems, facilitating typing and displaying texts in local languages. Focusing on the cases of Spanish and Paraguayan Guarani, the paper traces some existing efforts in the domain of typographical advocacy and strives to explain their dynamics. An attempt is made to examine both situations in which typographical advocacy is visible and explicit (as in the case of Spanish) and cases in which advocacy seems negligible (as in the case of Guarani). A wide range of enabling and hindering factors are examined, such as the relations between tech companies, nation-state institutions, consumers, and the habitus created by the use of technology. Through these examples, the rationale for advocacy is explored as well as alternative courses of action in cases where advocacy is not desired or fails to achieve its goals. A case will be made for raising the awareness of typographi- cal issues in language planning and policy (LPP) both as part of broader multilin- gual awareness and as a tool for solving practical language problems in times of increased dependency on computing and mobile devices.

Keywords: Typographical advocacy · Digital encoding · Spanish · Guarani · Orthography · Language planning · Language and technology · Unicode · Center vs. periphery

Language advocacy in times of securitization and neoliberalization: The Network LanguageRights

Mi-Cha Flubacher, Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Brigitta Busch, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Abstract In this contribution, we aim to address the following questions: What does it mean to do language advocacy in 2022? Under which conditions does it operate? What are the fights, aims, and challenges? On the one hand, answering these questions heavily depends on the political, social, cultural and linguistic context, as well as on the interests, stakes and positions of the advocacy actors. On the other, we argue that recent political economic transformations are conditioning language advocacy more than ever. In the following, we will outline two transformations we consider particularly prevalent, i.e. neoliberalization and securitization, discuss what lan- guage advocacy actually means, and exemplify this with the case of the Network LanguageRights (NLR), a language advocacy group based in Vienna, dedicated to language rights of minorities and minoritized speakers in the Austrian context, and with a focus on language policies. We will further zoom into one particular discus- sion occurring at the heart of the NLR, which will lead us to a concluding dis- cussion of possible ways of rethinking language advocacy, in particular in paying attention to the notion of linguistic citizenship.

Keywords: Language advocacy · Securitization · Neoliberalism · Austria · Linguistic citizenship · Multilingualism

Advocacy strategies for a new multilingual educational policy in Israel

Michal Tannenbaum, Multilingual Education Program, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Elana Shohamy, Multilingual Education Program, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Ofra Inbar-Lourie, Multilingual Education Program, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract Advocacy strategies are characterized by collaborations amongst various stakehold‐ ers working together to create changes and reforms. In language education policy, this refers to various types of initiatives and activities intended to create language policy reforms on local and/or national levels. In this paper such activities are traced, analyzed and evaluated in relation to language education policies in Israel spanning over 20 years in two points in time, in 1996 and 2016. In 1996 the advocacy acts resulted in the first national educational policy to be introduced in Israel, and in the second led to a call for proposals by the Ministry of Education for research and sub‐ sequently the development of a new expanded multilingual educational policy. The call addressed the need to expand the language repertoire of school students to learn additional languages, beyond Hebrew, throughout their school years, viewing immi‐ grant languages as significant resources and encouraging their maintenance, expos‐ ing students to various world and community languages, as well as improving the ways Arabs and Jews learn the languages of the other (e.g., Hebrew and Arabic). The paper describes the various advocacy strategies that preceded the acceptance of both policies, dwelling specifically on the creation and impact of a policy document submitted by a collaborative consortium of language policy experts to the Minis‐ try of Education. The paper concludes with analysis of the relative and cumulative impact of advocacy strategies and ends with a call to broaden the perspective of advocacy and advocacy literacy, and recognize a much wider group of bodies, roles, and individuals as possible ‘advocates’.

Keywords: Advocacy · Israel · Language policy · Multilingual education policy · Hebrew · Engaged language policy

Advocating an empirically-founded university admission policy

Bart Deygers, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Marieke Vanbuel, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Abstract Few studies have yet described concrete efforts by researchers in applied linguis- tics to systematically impact language policy. In linguistics, there is a general lack of published work on interactions between research and policy, and authors have decried a general dearth of policy literacy among applied linguists. The goal of the current paper is to describe how applied linguistics research can bring about policy impact by presenting a narrative account of one approach aimed at impacting university admission language policies. The first part of the paper presents research- based recommendations regarding language requirements for international students, the second focuses on mechanisms to communicate these recommendations to pol- icy makers. The case study presented in this paper serves to argue that applied lin- guistic research and policy impact can go hand in hand, on the condition that policy recommendations are concrete, timely, seen as relevant, and researchers have a fun- damental understanding of the policy-making context.

Keywords: University admission · Language test · International students · Policy evaluation · Policy literacy

Language test activism

Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen, Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics, and Interpreting, Western Norway, University of Applied Sciences, Inndalsveien 28, 5063 Bergen, Norway

Lorenzo Rocca, Società Dante Alighieri, Piazza di Firenze 27, 00186 Rome, Italy

Abstract During the past decades, migration policies in Western societies have grown stricter by the day. As part of this retrenchment, migrants are required to pass language tests to gain access to human and democratic rights such as residency, family reunifica- tion, and citizenship, as well as to enter the labour market or higher education. The use of language tests to control migration and integration is not value neutral. The question discussed in this paper is whether those who develop language tests should strive to remain neutral, or, on the contrary, whether they have a moral and pro- fessional responsibility to take action when their tests are misused. In this paper, a case is made for the latter: arguing along the lines of critical language testing, we encourage professional language testers to take on a more active role in order to pre- vent harmful consequences of their tests. The paper introduces the concept language test activism (LTA) to underscore the importance of scholars taking a more active role for social justice, following the pathway of proponents of intellectual activism in related fields like sociology and linguistics. We argue that language testers have a special responsibility for justice and consequences, as these are integrated in the very concept of validity upon which modern language testing is based. A model of language test activism is presented and illustrated by real-life examples of language test activism in Norway and Italy showing that language test activism may need to take on different forms to be successful, depending on the context in which it takes place.

Keywords: Language test activism · Intellectual activism · Critical language testing · Migration policy · Validity · Values

期刊简介

Language Policy is highly relevant to scholars, students, specialists and policy-makers working in the fields of applied linguistics, language policy, sociolinguistics, and language teaching and learning. The journal aims to contribute to the field by publishing high-quality studies that build a sound theoretical understanding of the field of language policy and cover a range of cases, situations and regions worldwide.  

《语言政策》与在应用语言学、语言政策、社会语言学和语言教学领域工作的学者、学生、专家和决策者高度相关。该期刊旨在通过发表高质量的研究为该领域做出贡献，这些研究建立了对语言政策领域的良好理论理解，并涵盖了全球范围内的案例、情况和地区。

A distinguishing feature of this journal is its focus on various dimensions of language educational policy. Language education policy includes decisions about which languages are to be used as a medium of instruction and/or taught in schools, as well as analysis of these policies within their social, ethnic, religious, political, cultural and economic contexts.  

该期刊的一个显着特点是它关注语言教育政策的各个方面。语言教育政策包括关于将哪些语言用作教学语言和/或在学校教授的语言，以及在其社会、种族、宗教、政治、文化和经济背景下对这些政策的分析。

官网地址：

https://www.springer.com/journal/10993/