Language ideologies and local languages as the medium-of-instruction policy: a critical ethnography of a multilingual school in Nepal

This paper analyzes the ideologies and practices of local languages as the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in a multilingual school in Nepal. Grounded on the notion of language policy as a locally situated social practice, this critical ethnographic study investigates challenges – both ideological and implementational – that local languages MOI policies face in a socio-politically stratified multilingual country, Nepal. This study shows that a well-intended language policy aiming at promoting linguistic diversity and addressing linguistic minority children's learning difficulties may face ideological and implementational resistance. As cultural and linguistic capital of linguistic minorities are not recognized in the wider educational market, indigenous communities are found ambivalent with regard to the relevance of their own languages in school. The fragile socio-economic, political, and educational position of the minority groups due to long history of monolingual top-down policy and the covert or implicit language policy that promotes teaching of English from the early grades are the major intransigent forces affecting the use of local languages in school. I argue that it is important to look at the ideological and implementational challenges of local languages as the MOI from the local actors’ perspectives to understand the gap between policy and practice.