Educating supranational citizens: The rise of English in curricular policies

초록

Preparing future citizens for “post-national society” (see Ramirez, Bromley, and Russell in this volume) necessitates an education for communication in intercultural and international contexts. Englishlanguage education, which is now a global phenomenon, is an illustrative example. In this chapter, we investigate the cross-national institutionalization of English as a regular school subject over the past century and discuss how the rise of English as a global language in today's curricular policy models around the world reflects an expansive conception of supranational citizenship that emphasizes the empowerment of the individual in global society. We also extend our discussion to the possible problem that the discursive rationalization of English language education as an indispensable tool to help children become supranational citizens can also lead to the legitimation of some new forms of social inequality both within and across countries, especially if curricular policies on English language education are not accompanied by sustained and shared efforts to constantly identify and minimize their unintended consequences. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017.