This chapter begins by providing an overview of the many educational reforms which have taken place in the United Arab Emirates within its short history as a nation. Pushed forward by neoliberalism and globalisation, such reforms have largely focused on increasing amounts of English-medium instruction at all levels of education. In the United Arab Emirates, not only does English dominate teachi…
Neoliberalism, globalisation, and English language hegemony have contributed to the adoption of Western “travelling policies” in the Arab Gulf states, such as building knowledge-based economies and the implementation of English-medium instruction in schools and universities. In Qatar, as well as in other Arab Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, this has led to ideologies of English-m…
This chapter explores how bottom-up and top-down language policies in the Gulf countries interact with wider language ideologies and discourses related to globalization, internationalization of higher education, and neoliberalism. Drawing on Irving and Gal’s theories of semiotic formation of language ideologies and Bourdieu’s theory of language and symbolic power, the chapter critically exa…