Introduction [to a special edition of Current Issues in Language Planning]

Abstract

Language policies and corresponding language-in-education policies in the past 50 years have had a major role in the development of nationhood and the formation of national identities. The 21st century has brought new ‘winds of change’ (Lambert, 2000a) to policy makers, with two sharp tendencies as driving forces for policy action: on the one hand, forces of globalisation necessitate intercultural understanding through a common global language or some selected powerful languages; on the other hand, forces of ethnic and grass-roots movements have highlighted the need to shift policy attention to the maintenance of linguistic diversity and pluralism in a rapidly shrinking and homogenising world. In other words, language education policies of the 21st century need to grapple with the challenge that language communities are ‘local and global at the same time’ (Canagarajah, 2005: 17). This volume provides an insight into various language education policy contexts in the world and provides examples of policy responses to these two wider challenges.