This article offers a critical comparative analysis of language-in-education policies and practices in two postcolonial countries (Ghana and Pakistan) and one non-colonial context (Nepal), examining how these policies sustain or challenge social (in)justice. Drawing on a comparative education policy framework and Nancy Fraser’s multidimensional model of social justice – encompassing redistribution, recognition, and representation – we analyse multilingual and English language education policies across the three national contexts, attending to both historical legacies and contemporary political-economic forces. Despite formal commitments to mother-tongue-based multilingual education, our analysis reveals enduring tensions between symbolic policy goals and the material realities of implementation. Across contexts, structural and ideological barriers continue to reproduce inequalities of multilingualism. We argue that meaningful linguistic justice in education requires more than policy-level recognition of Indigenous and local languages; it necessitates deeper structural and ideological transformations that disrupt entrenched hierarchies privileging dominant languages, particularly English.
Sah et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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