Language education policy in Portuguese public universities: the voices of institutional stakeholders

ABSTRACT

Acknowledging the importance of the ideological language component in language policy and planning within a micro-level language-planning framework, this paper sets out to identify and discuss the social representations of Portuguese higher education institution (HEI) stakeholders concerning: (i) language teaching and learning in HEIs and (ii) the development of language education policies in this particular context. Based on a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders responsible for the pedagogical strategy, specifically five Vice-Rectors for Education at their respective Portuguese public universities, their common perspective points to tension between, on one hand, the value they attribute to a diversified language teaching and learning in terms of the quantity of languages offered and to the strategic development of multilingual language education policies and, on the other hand, the prominence of institutional initiatives and actions relying primarily on English.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• language education policies
• social representations
• Portuguese public universities

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their valuable and enriching comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Susana Pinto is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in the Education of Trainers (Portugal). She concluded her PhD Degree in Didactics and Teacher Education, at the University of Aveiro in 2012 with the thesis entitled ‘Languages at the University of Aveiro: discourses and practices.’ Her research interests focus on language education policies, the development of plurilingual and intercultural competences in higher education, supervision across cultures and on linguistic and cultural diversity.

Maria Helena Araújo e Sá is a Professor at the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where she teaches Language Teacher Education. She has coordinated and participated in European projects concerning intercomprehension and intercultural communication. She has published extensively in the field of foreign language teaching and plurilingual communication. Currently, she coordinates the Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in the Education of Trainers (CIDTFF) and she is the director of the Doctoral Programme in Education.

ORCID

Susana Pinto http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7441-4140

Notes

1 http://web.fu-berlin.de/tnp3/

2 http://web.fu-berlin.de/enlu/

3 http://www.molan-network.org/

4 http://www.dylan-project.org/Dylan_en/home/home.php

5 http://intluni.eu/

6 http://www.ub.edu/cusc/llenguesmitjanes/?page_id=17&lang=en

Additional information

Funding

This work is financially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the Grant [SFRH/BPD/84560/2012].