Lingual and educational policy toward "homeland minorities" in deeply divided societies: India and Israel as case studies

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6 Scopus citations

Abstract

In a bilingual or multilingual society, certain sectors may be regarded as disloyal should they speak the language of state enemies or be associated in one way or another with neighboring hostile countries. Within this framework, the present article analyzes how two deeply divided democracies, India and Israel, determined and implemented language and educational policies with respect to two major minority languages, Urdu and Arabic. A comparison is conducted between the policies of secular democratic India, regarding Urdu, a language of its Muslims minority, and of Israel, an ethnic democracy, regarding Arabic, the language of its Arab-Palestinian minority. The findings indicate that both states have consigned the minority language to a marginal position on the public stage. Moreover, albeit that a certain level of autonomy in the educational sphere is given to the minority, the educational status of the minority is markedly low in comparison to the majority.En una sociedad bilingüe o multilingüe, ciertos sectores pueden ser considerados como desleales si hablan el idioma de estados enemigos o fueran asociados de una u otra forma con países vecinos hostiles. Dentro de este marco, el presente artículo analiza como dos democracias sumamente divididas, India e Israel, determinaron e implementaron las políticas lingüisticas y educacionales de los dos más importantes idiomas minoritarios, el Urdu y el Árabe, respectivamente. Se lleva a cabo una comparación entre las políticas de la democracia secular de India, en lo que respecta al Urdu, un idioma de su minoría Musulmana, y de la democracia étnica Israelí, con respecto al Árabe, el idioma de su minoría Árabe-Palestina. Las conclusiones indican que ambos estados han consignado el idioma minoritario a una posición marginal en el escenario de la vida pública. Además, el status educativo de la minoría es considerablemente bajo en comparación con el de la mayoría, aunque un cierto nivel de autonomía en la esfera educacional es dado al idioma.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)951-970
Number of pages20
JournalPolitics and Policy
Volume37
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

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