Conference Agenda

In 2007, the Colombian government presented Democracy and Peace competencies to engage the academic community in a participatory process that responds to three pillars: peaceful coexistence, democratic participation and responsibility, and plurality, identity, and enrichment with differences. These guidelines have informed curriculum policies and syllabus design in Social studies, Spanish, and English as a foreign language (EFL). In EFL, the Colombian Ministry of Education has developed the National Suggested Curriculum and widely used textbooks (i.e., Way to Go series) that include Democracy and Peace as a core module and set of competencies.

Recent scholarship has analyzed language textbooks in the light of diversity and social justice issues thus shedding light on the pervasiveness of neoliberal ideologies and values (Babaai & Sheihki 2018), unbalanced gender representations in professional, recreational, and domestic spaces (Keles et al., 2021), and the perpetuation of stereotypes that obscure women’s professions and academic roles (Lee, 2018). We aim to expand existing research by exploring how the textbook Way To Go represents female diversity, plurality, and identities for peaceful coexistence in a post-conflict country like Colombia. Our critical multimodal analysis of a textbook unit revealed that 1) women are not represented with clear roles to contribute to democracy, 2) women are presented as a minoritized group that is vulnerable to violence and social injustice, and 3) stereotypical gender representations prevail and neglect alternatives to challenge violence and social injustice against women.

We propose alternatives for planning and designing language teaching materials and policy that challenges the gender misrepresentations that persist in language textbooks in Colombia. This study contributes to equitizing language policy and planning to better serve diverse and minoritized groups as low-income, women of color who face different types of marginalization in the Global South.

The socio-economic integration of immigrants, especially skilled workers in the economic class, is one of the top priorities of Canada (GC, 2020). However, a disconnect can be observed between the top-down policies informing the current integration model that mandates the use of one of Canada’s official languages (English or French) for settlement, and the social multilingualism where multiple languages are spoken by various indigenous peoples and immigrant populations (Lopez, 2007; Raza & Chua, 2022).

Building upon existing research on the effects of Canadian official bilingualism (English and French) on immigrant languages in Canada (e.g., Ricento, 2013; 2021), and drawing on findings from a study of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi skilled immigrants, we conclude that the current integration policy seems to be problematic in three ways. First, the requirement for proficiency in one of the two official languages of Canada as a pre-requisite to integrate into the Canadian society and economy undervalues proficiency in other languages and the human capital developed in those languages (Raza & Chua, 2022; Ricento, 2021). Secondly, since newcomers, especially those who do not possess sufficient proficiency in English (in Alberta and most other Canadian provinces) rely upon help from ethnic communities to integrate into Canadian society, such reliance seems to create, reinforce and strengthen ethnic enclaves in provinces like Alberta, fostering over-representation of selective ethnicities in different economic sectors, isolation from the mainstream Albertan community, and creation of isolated ethnic and political groups. Unless and until these language programs recognize, value, and utilize the acquired linguistic, social and cultural capital of immigrants through fundamental changes in curricula and pedagogy, large numbers of newcomers will continue to be ghettoized in low-skilled jobs, with substantial reduction in wages and opportunities for upward socio-economic mobility, with negative consequences for the Canadian economy and political stability.

There is no explicit protection against language discrimination in EU private law. However, there is protection against discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin by Directive 2000/43/EC (Racial Equality Directive). The research question of the paper is: Can discrimination on grounds of language be understood as discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin? The established case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) denies this question. According to the ECJ, the Racial Equality Directive only applies if there is discrimination on the basis of a particular ethnicity characterized by a set of common characteristics like shared nationality, religion and language. In the judgment Land Oberösterreich (10 June 2021 – C-94/20), the ECJ applied this concept to a case concerning language. It does not find discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin when foreign nationals with long-term resident status are denied housing assistance in Austria because they do not have basic knowledge of the German language. The ECJ argues that the relevant Austrian provision is applicable to all third-country nationals without distinction and does not discriminate against persons of a particular ethnicity. The paper criticizes this interpretation as it neither follows from the wording of the Directive nor corresponds to its purpose, which is to combat xenophobia and racism. It also seems problematic to clearly demarcate supposedly homogeneous ethnic groups from one another. The paper proposes a broader concept: It is discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin if it is based on one characteristic related to a person's ethnic origin, such as language. The existence of discrimination is to be determined subjectively from the perspective of the discriminating person who intends to discriminate against another person because, for example, that person speaks another language. The paper shows that the issue is particularly relevant when exaggerated language skills are required from migrant workers.

The proposed presentation would outline preliminary findings of a study exploring to which extent language policy in selected multilingual regions in Europe (i.e. Northern Ireland, Catalonia and South Tyrol) is effective in reducing language barriers in the public healthcare sector, as experienced both by allochthonous and autochthonous linguistic minorities.

Extensive medical research confirms the detrimental consequences of communication issues in healthcare contexts and supports the employment of bilingual healthcare staff and/or the provision of professional translation and interpreting services.

Starting from an epistemological framework of a public policy approach to language policy (Gazzola, 2022), this paper aims at evaluating the design of relevant public measures. The goal of the policies examined is here conceptualized in terms of a reduction of the patients’ “linguistic unease”. This term refers to “a situation in which speakers feel that their pragmatic linguistic competence is not fitting the communicative requirements of the linguistic act they are about to perform – or even that the symbolic value of their speech acts is perceived as misplaced” (Iannàccaro et al., 2018: 367). Reducing speakers' linguistic unease should therefore lead to a higher level of sociolinguistic justice.
The inclusion of both the symbolic and communicative aspects has the potential to allow for the consideration of the diverse linguistic needs of different groups of patients.

References

Gazzola, M. (2022) Language policy as public policy. In: Gazzola, M., Gobbo, F., Johnson, D. C. & Leoni de León, J. A. (eds.). Epistemological and Theoretical Foundations in Language Policy and Planning, 41-71. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.

Iannàccaro, G., Dell’Aquila, V. & Gobbo, F. (2018) The assessment of sociolinguistic justice: parameters and models of analysis. In: Gazzola M., Wickström, B.-A. & Templin, T. (eds.) Language Policy and Linguistic Justice: Economic, Philosophical and Sociolinguistic Approaches, 363-391. Berlin / New York: Springer.