Following on from the previous episode, in which we discussed the ROC’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, in this episode of the Asian Education Podcast we discuss language education in Taiwan and its relationship with the island’s fraught identity politics. Haruna Kasai, a doctoral student at Kyushu University, is currently researching language education policy and practice in contemporary Taiwan. Of particular interest to her is the relationship between ‘multiculturalism’ and Taiwan’s language education, and this is the subject of her article for the special issue of Comparative Education on ‘The Politics of Education on China’s Periphery’.
Haruna’s interest in language education and its relationship to identity arises partly out of her own multilingual upbringing, which saw her spend much of her childhood (and receive most of her schooling) in the USA. The interview begins with a brief discussion of how language, culture and identity are seen as related in the Japanese context. This comparative perspective relates not just to Haruna’s personal experience, but is also relevant historically given the enduring influence of Japan and Japanese colonialism on Taiwanese society and the island’s education system.
A particular focus of Haruna’s research has been the introduction over the past decade of programmes for teaching Southeast Asian languages in Taiwan’s schools. These are languages associated with immigrants from Southeast Asia - mostly women who have come to Taiwan as brides of Taiwanese men. We discuss some of the social, cultural (and gender-related) issues and challenges associated with this wave of immigration.
The discussion then moves on to the reasons behind the introduction of Southeast Asian languages into the school curriculum. From the 1990s, ideas of Taiwan as a ‘multicultural’ society have become increasingly popular, especially amongst advocates of Taiwanese independence - for whom invoking the island’s cultural diversity is a means of diluting or resisting claims for Taiwan’s monocultural ‘Chineseness’. At first, however, notions of Taiwanese multiculturalism were associated with diversity amongst Taiwan’s long-established ‘native’ population: Hoklo (Minnanese), Hakka and the Austronesian indigenous peoples. It is only within the last decade or so that Southeast Asian immigrants have come to be incorporated into public representations of a multicultural Taiwan.
Ed and Haruna also spend some time discussing the wider politics of language education in contemporary Taiwan, especially in relation to the place of English in the school curriculum. The place of English in the curriculum, and the way in which the language is portrayed in textbooks and more widely, reflect assumptions about the status of particular languages and their place in an implicit cultural-linguistic hierarchy. These assumptions reflect themes that emerge from Alessandra Ferrer’s analysis in her article for this special issue of ‘internal orientalism’ on Taiwan (and the case of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission). The relationship between language education, identity politics and ideas of cultural or civilisational hierarchy are further examined in a forthcoming article jointly authored by Alessandra and Haruna.
Reading:
Haruna Kasai. 2023. ‘The politics of ‘multiculturalism’ in language education: an analysis of curriculum guidelines in Taiwan’, Comparative Education, 60 (1), DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2023.2245690
Edward Vickers and Lin Tzu-Bin. 2022. Introduction: Education, Identity, and Development in Contemporary Taiwan. International Journal of Taiwan Studies, 5(1), 5-18. https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20211302 (open access: download from here: https://brill.com/view/journals/ijts/5/1/article-p5_5.xml?language=en).
Alessandra Ferrer. 2021. ‘Language policy in public compulsory education systems: Multiculturalism and national identity in the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China’, International Journal of Taiwan Studies 5(1), advanced published online, https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20201135.
