Bilingual education in English as a contact zone of neoliberal rationality

Abstract

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the school classroom constitutes a contact zone that promotes transculturation processes that configure the imaginary of English as the global dominant language. The school classroom is understood as a physical space, in which neoliberal educational policies are materialized from bilingualism, so it operates as a contact zone from which, in the implementation of bilingual education in the English language, students interact with political and economic imaginaries which are subjected to criteria of consumption, social competence and individualism. The methodology adopted is critical discourse analysis which is underpinned by Foucauldian conceptual tools. These allow, on the one hand, to unveil the dominant rationality in the policies and texts oriented to bilingual education in English in the contact zone of the school classroom, and on the other hand, to uncover the discursive practices which promote students’ transculturation processes in favour of this rationality.

Keywords: Contact zone, English language, neoliberal rationality, school classroom, transculturation