Language, Globalisation, and National Identity : A Study of English-Medium Policy and Practice in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper uses a study of the withdrawal of English as a medium of instruction in Indonesian schools to examine the role of language in nation-building using the sociological concept of imaginary signification. The main reason for the withdrawal is located in the tension between two main imaginary significations of the nation’s identity. The government saw Indonesia in terms of its economic ambitions. Indonesia was to enter the global knowledge economy, and the education system was to provide the human resources to do so. The teachers understood the use of Bahasa Indonesia in the education system as the means to reproduce children into the nation. We argue that the withdrawal of English as the medium of instruction policy was the result of the tension between these two different representations of national identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural identities
• English as a medium of instruction
• Indonesia
• language policy
• nationalism

Notes

1. We thank one of the reviewers of this paper for reminding us that there are other possible reasons for the withdrawal of the school EMI policy. These include the policy’s role in the creation of elite state schools, abandoned as a result of parental complaints that it was discriminatory and redirected resources away from the poorer sectors. Our focus on the implementation difficulties experienced by the teachers should not be taken as excluding these other reasons.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sri Wuli Fitriati

Sri Wuli Fitriati, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Central Java, Indonesia. At present she is the coordinator of the Master’s degree programme of English language education. Her research interests include discourse studies in relation to the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Elizabeth Rata

Professor Elizabeth Rata is the Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit (KERU) in the School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. Her most recent publication is “Knowledge-Rich Teaching: A Model of Curriculum Design Coherence,” in British Educational Research Journal (2019).