“Looking like a boarding school student”: the construction of unequal personhood in language policy in education

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this article is to analyze the construction of unequal personhood in the institutional logics for the implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy. I build on the theories of figures of personhood and figured worlds to discuss how institutions (public schools) use multiple semiotic resources to characterize students’ diverse personality traits that reproduce neoliberal subjectivities shaping their EMI policies. The data for this article are drawn from ethnographic observations and interviews with the teachers from two Nepali public schools that have recently introduced a segregated EMI policy. The analysis of data shows that EMI schools use ‘śikṣita’, ‘sabhya’ and ‘yogya’ personality traits to justify the relevance of EMI policy to produce the educated person. The construction of such person types is shaped by sociocultural and political-economic ideologies and build unequal personhood, reinforcing neoliberal subjecthood and epistemic injustice. My recommendation is that we need to pay attention to examining how language policies in education construct unequal personhood by assigning, imposing, and imaging discriminatory personality traits which remain as the foundation of social injustice.