Soft Coloniality of English: Linguistic Justice and Epistemic Pluralism in Comparative and International Education

This article examines how English-language dominance shapes epistemic hierarchies in Comparative and International Education (CIE), focusing on ‘semi-peripheral’ European higher education. It asks how internationalization policies and English-medium instruction (EMI) affect whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate and what this means for linguistic justice and epistemic pluralism. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative document analysis of national and institutional policy texts with a small-scale qualitative questionnaire among university instructors teaching in English at Polish higher education institutions, with particular attention to the University of Warsaw. Policy documents are read for how English is discursively linked to quality, prestige, and competitiveness, while instructor narratives illuminate everyday experiences of EMI and internationalization. Findings show that English operates as a gatekeeper to academic legitimacy not through overt exclusion, but via subtle forms of epistemic filtering embedded in rankings, publishing expectations, and EMI policies. Instructors report institutional ambiguity, limited pedagogical support, and tensions between local linguistic commitments and Anglophone performance demands. The article argues that these dynamics constitute a ‘soft coloniality’ of English, which risks marginalizing local languages and intellectual traditions while reproducing global prestige economies. It calls for reimagining internationalization through plurilingual, context-sensitive practices that treat linguistic justice as integral to epistemic justice. By foregrounding a Central and Eastern European case, the study extends CIE debates on coloniality beyond a simple North–South binary and speaks directly to NJCIE’s focus on critical, context-aware analyses of education, language, and power in and beyond the Nordic and European regions.