Imagining language policy enactment in a context of secrecy: SDG4 and ethnic minorities in Laos

ABSTRACT

This article explores policy enactment processes in relation to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), particularly its emphasis upon ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Specifically, as part of SDG4 in Laos, the research reveals how medium-of-instruction policy was enacted in relation to ethnic minorities, focusing upon three groups of policy actors in the Lao context – policymakers involved in developing education language policy; donor agencies that provided funds to support education reform in Laos, and; school teachers in an ethnic minority boarding school who were charged with enacting the policy. The findings, informed by relevant theorising about imagined communities and secrecy, including in the Lao context, revealed the central role of secrecy in this enactment process. The findings showed three types of secrecy at play which influenced policy actors’ imaginations and enactments of ethnic minority education in response to SDG4 in Laos: secrecy to create the image of national unity; secrecy arising from fear of reprisal, and; secrecy to safely resist dominant policy discourses. The research has implications for how global policy reforms, such as SDG4, are actually made sense of in low-income country contexts where such reforms are enacted.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity/social justice
• qualitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Interviews involved personnel from a South Korean donor agency.

2. Community Child Development Group

3. Multi-Age Teaching

4. Community Awareness Campaign

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Daeul Jeong

Dr Daeul Jeong is a former-NGO worker who previously coordinated an ethnic minority teacher training project in Laos. She recently completed her PhD in Education at The University of Queensland. Her research focuses on how global education frameworks influence education for ethnic minorities and global education frameworks’ enactment in low-income countries.

Ian Hardy

Ian Hardy is Associate Professor of Education at the School of Education, The University of Queensland. Dr Hardy’s research focuses on the nature of education policy and practice under current conditions, including the nature and effects of data in educational settings and systems; his research is increasingly international and comparative in orientation.