Bridging competing ideologies: From utilitarianism and social division to communicative action in French Higher Education
Marc Deneire, ATILF-CNRS, Université de Lorraine
Symposium 29 "Dismantling Language Ideologies and Promoting Social Justice in Higher Education Second Language Teaching"
In a large scale survey that I conducted in French universities in 2013 concerning the teaching of English, a clear dichotomy appeared between the 1042 student respondents and the 242 faculty members. On the one hand, students perceived English as a "mere tool" for employment, but also as an instrument of selection and discrimination. On the other hand, faculty members, most of whom had international experience, considered language learning as a path to (inter)cultural understanding.
Drawing inspiration from sociolinguistic research undertaken over the past ten years (see also Deneire & Benmokthar, forthcoming), this paper explores possible ways to bridge the gap between these two ideologies of language using Habermas' theory of communicative/strategic action (1984) and discourse ethics (1990) which seeks to build a "lifeworld" that integrates all social groups and strata in society. We will show how intercultural and international project-based approaches to language teaching may contribute to fostering intercultural awareness and consensus-building. Further, we will argue that, to be productive, such an approach necessitates the transformation of French higher education institutions that presently select, divide, and exclude, thereby thwarting all efforts to build an integrated European (and international) higher education system as officially promoted in the bologna process (Torotcoi et al. 2020; 0rr, 2020)
References
Deneire, M. & H. Benmokhtar (Forthcoming). EMI in France: Europeanization and renationalization. In Bolton, Botha and Lin (eds) The Routledge Handbook of English-medium Instruction in Higher Education
Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol 2: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Habermas, J. (1990) Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, translated by Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Orr, D. (2020). Bologna Process in the Global Higher Education Arena. Going
Digital? In: Curaj, A, Deca, and Pricopie, R. (eds). European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade. Springer.
Torotcoi, S, Gologan, D, and Kurysheva, A. (2020). What Works for Underrepresented Groups? Identifying Effective Measures for Enhancing Access to Higher Education in Europe. In Curaj, A, Deca, and Pricopie, R. (eds). European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade. Springer.
