Linguistic, religious, and ethnic identities as pathways to peace: views from eight Lisu, Karen, Kachin, and Chin seminary teachers in Myanmar

Abstract

This study examines how the linguistic, religious, and ethnic identities of eight seminary teachers from four ethnolinguistic minority groups in Myanmar informed their views and practices of language use in education and their role in peacebuilding and reconciliation. Data were collected at seminaries as they are rich sites of multilingual education. With the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter declaration in 2009 that English is its sole working language, the over 10,000 local languages used in the 10 ASEAN nations are under threat as English replaces local languages in the school curriculum. The author supports the recommendations by Lo Bianco Kosonen, and Kirkpatrick for a multilingual policy in education in Southeast Asia, and based on the accounts of the eight participants in this present study argues that valuing and safeguarding linguistic, religious, and ethnic diversity in Myanmar holds great potential to not only enhance learning but also to foster social cohesion.

Keywords:

• Myanmar
• English
• religion
• mother tongue
• social cohesion
• language policy

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the eight participants for the years of work they engaged in learning the researcher’s mother tongue, which enabled her to hear and share their stories. She would also like to thank Brooke Treadwell for her invaluable edits and input to the draft, and Kimmo Kosonen for his critical feedback on a conference presentation given at the Comparative International Education Society in Atlanta 2017, on which this article is based, and the editors of the journal for their helpful suggestions. All errors remain the author’s.