Roads for Equitable Integration: The Impact of the UK ESOL Policy on Refugees' Socio-cultural Resilience, Inclusion and Citizenship

Lead Research Organisation: Manchester Metropolitan University
Department Name: Information, Communications & Languages

Abstract

his project aims to explore new approaches to teaching English to forced migrants in the UK in order to promote equitable participation and integration. The project draws on applied linguistics research that brings together how language teaching and learning is tightly linked to the ideological construction of identities and becoming (Callan, 2014; Holliday, 2016; Cooke and Peutrell, 2019). The significance of this research stems from its potential to contribute to reimagining English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in the UK, by deviating from the current ESOL policy that links integration with a citizenship model based on a single monolithic set of cultural values called 'the fundamental British values' (Cooke et al., 2015; Cooke and Peutrell, 2019). This current approach is problematic as it contradicts the principles of diversity and equitable citizenship in two ways. First, it does not support equitable participation that recognises and validates the socio-cultural identities of refugee learners as it exclusively conditions social membership upon embracing one set of values and linguistic norms. Second, this approach stratifies people according to the exchange value of their socio-cultural and linguistic norms, leaving no room for learners to contest this stratification. For this reason, there is a risk that current ESOL policies could re-enforce a degree of 'otherness' as it may leave ESOL learners with the impression that their own socio-cultural realities are at odds with expected cultural values. In reality, most British values can arguably be seen as shared values, a term that official ESOL policymakers insist on not using. Rather, they insist that reinforcing one set of values to live by makes "the UK feel like home for all citizens" (HM Government, 2019a: 11) and equips "people for life in modern, diverse Britain" (ibid: 13).

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