Aruba’s education system is trapped in a sociolinguistic tension: Papiamento thrives as the dominant language of the community, while Dutch remains the dominant language of primary and secondary instruction. This dynamic comprises a mismatch between the linguistic backgrounds of pupils and desired language use in the classroom. In this multilingual, creole-speaking island setting, a critical analysis of language-in-education policies was conducted, with attention to Aruba’s ties to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the European Union .This study explores the implications of Aruba’s language-in-education policies and practices for language acquisition, linguistic justice and educational decolonization.

The research combines an analysis of two policy documents with qualitative data from in-depth interviews with teachers and focus groups with pupils across secondary and vocational schools. The goal was to examine not only what policies prescribe but also how teachers adopt, adapt, or disregard them, and how these choices affect students’ language acquisition and perceptions of linguistic justice.

Methodologically, the study employs a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative analysis assesses policy documents and interview responses with closed questions to deduce underlying ideologies, and the qualitative analysis follows a thematic, inductive, and intertextual approach to uncovering the same. This integration reveals context-specific insights while identifying broader patterns.

Findings highlight a disconnect between policy intentions and classroom realities. Teachers in Aruba navigate the challenge of honoring students’ linguistic diversity while adhering to a system prioritizing Dutch, and thus zooms in on the voices of teachers and students, as experiential experts. With this context-rich approach, this research offers lessons applicable to other multilingual and Creole-speaking contexts. It recommends policies that reflect the lived experiences of educators and learners, contributing to a foundation for reimagining inclusive language-in-education frameworks. This study is part of the Horizon Europe Pluridentities project, see https://www.pluridentities.com/.

While Arabic is the official language of Arab Gulf countries, the region has witnessed a surge in teaching English over the past two decades. Examples include Emirates shifting provision of higher education to English and Saudi Arabia switching higher education into English-medium instruction across several programs. This study examines a private K-12 school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that is renowned for its Arabic-English bilingual program, and which offers a distinctive model within the evolving language ideologies landscape of the Arabian Peninsula. Amid regional shifts favoring English-medium instruction, this study explores the school's approach to language education within its specific context and building on its nearly five decades of experience. Through analysis of school policy documents focused on language; interviews with school leaders (6), “academic coaches” (9), teachers (13), and parents (7); plus on-site observations, the study investigates the school's language policy, including the school’s structural design, pedagogical strategies, and communicative approaches.

The findings reveal that the school functions as a proactive “language manager” (Spolsky, 2019), actively shaping language ideologies in its community—both within and outside the school—rather than merely adapting to them. Additionally, they reveal that the school implements a dual-focus language policy that integrates curriculum and pedagogy with the strategic management of language status among students, teachers, and parents. This research contributes valuable insights to our understanding of both maintenance and enrichment bilingual education in settings where mother tongue education is socially challenged, while also offering insights into Arabic-English bilingual schooling, which is underrepresented in the language education policy and planning field.

References:

Spolsky, B. (2019). A modified and enriched theory of language policy (and management). Language Policy, 18(3), 323–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9489-z

The increasing complexity of multilingual and multicultural language learning communities has refocused language education on issues of identity and subjectivities. Policy documents such as the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC, CoE, 2020) highlight education’s key role in preserving democratic societies and preparing active citizens by promoting values such as respect for human rights, cultural diversity, and self-efficacy through critical self- and social awareness.Learners’ identities are shaped by diverse life experiences, educational backgrounds, and personal stories (Baxter, 2016). Such heterogeneous contexts call for pedagogical approaches that foster a sense of belonging for all members of the learning community, grounded in the values and competences described by the RFCDC. Language classrooms offer fertile spaces for identity construction and negotiation through language(s), social participation, and multiliteracies development (Ayres-Bennett & Fisher, 2022; Block, 2022; Davis & Norton, 2016; Garcia, 2022; Haukås et al., 2021; Cope & Kalantzis, 2023, 2024; Luke, 2018).This presentation examines how learners in a multilingual post-secondary Italian language classroom, who come from diverse backgrounds, actively position themselves (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; Kay-Ayard, 2019) and redesign the perceptions of their multilingual identity through a pedagogical awareness-raising itinerary starting from a digital oral pluri-biography shared in the classroom with their peers (Spinelli, 2025).The results of this case study show that such recursive reflection fosters dynamic positioning (Harré et al., 2009; Spinelli, 2025), both interpersonally and intrapersonally. They also identify key variables that influence positioning, including institutional and family language policies (Skutnabb-Kangas et al., 2009), dominant ideologies (Kramsch, 2021; Lo Bianco, 2008), social status, migration experiences, and self-reflective practices.Moreover, findings suggest that renegotiating multilingual identities can challenge predetermined social categorizations (Barakos & Selleck, 2019) while nurturing the democratic competences outlined in the RFCDC: valuing diversity, exercising critical understanding, and developing a stronger sense of agency within multilingual learning communities.