6 December 2017
Speaker: Eva Codó (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Title: Englishization policies and contemporary regimes of precarization: What educational ethnographies reveal
Venue and Time: room 3.58 (John Percival Building), 12.10
Abstract:
My presentation will discuss how the large-scale introduction of English as a vehicular language in schools in Catalonia (in the northeast of Spain) is effecting a process of precarization of the teaching profession. I will draw on a body of ethnographic data gathered in two different educational institutions (one primary and semi-private; one secondary and state-funded) located in the Barcelona metropolitan area. Although the dynamics of precarization are distinct in each of the two schools owing to key differences in hiring procedures and job stability, some common trends can be identified: in both cases, English has transformed the institutional order of the school, introduced tensions amongst staff members, and symbolically and practically undermined non-language teachers’ professional competences and career development chances. We shall see that, while Englishization brings benefits to schools in the form of growing/non-declining enrolment rates, this language policy is at high personal costs to teachers, as they are “forced” to engage in self-training to the expense of their personal lives, or else, run the risk of experiencing the worsening of their labour conditions in the form of lower wages or less attractive courses or timetables. Teachers are caught in a tension between meeting their students’ needs, asserting their professionalism and commitment to innovation and quality education, and defending their rights as workers (Robertson, 2008). This presentation will advocate a historically, institutionally and economically-situated approach to language policy research (Tollefson and Pérez-Milans, 2017).
Dr. Eva Codó is Senior Lecturer in English and Linguistics at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Her research engages with the study of multilingual practice, policy and ideology from a sociolinguistic perspective which places social inequality center stage. She has carried out institutional ethnographies in public, private and non-governmental organizations. Her most recent project focuses on the investigation of language policy design and implementation in educational contexts in Catalonia, with special attention to the recent introduction of English as a language of instruction. Amongst her most recent publications is the chapter “Language policy and planning, institutions and neoliberalization” for the Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning (2017), J. Tollefson & M. Pérez-Milans (Eds.) and the article “CLIL, unequal working conditions and neoliberal subjectivities in a state secondary school” (with A. Patiño-Santos) to appear in Language Policy (2018).