This volume brings together the work of six authors who explore various dimensions of language rights and how they intersect with social justice in the Caribbean context. Language rights advocacy has been an ongoing issue in Caribbean linguistics since at least the 1970s when the Society for Caribbean Linguistics was established and linguists started to turn their attention to the marginalised status of Creole languages in the region. This continued into the 1990s when dismal scores in secondary school English resulted in governments singling out Creole languages as the culprit and linguists had to get involved in shaping language policy for territories across the region. By 2011 the role of linguists was cemented in the language rights debate with the creation of the Charter on Language Rights in the Creole-speaking Caribbean. Using examples from Jamaica and St. Lucia, the current study examines the challenges that still persist ten years after the Charter, specifically in the areas of language advocacy, linguistic discrimination, and communicative hurdles in the courtroom.

This volume brings together the work of six authors who explore various dimensions of language rights and how they intersect with social justice in the Caribbean context. Language rights advocacy has been an ongoing issue in Caribbean linguistics since at least the 1970s when the Society for Caribbean Linguistics was established and linguists started to turn their attention to the marginalised status of Creole languages in the region. This continued into the 1990s when dismal scores in secondary school English resulted in governments singling out Creole languages as the culprit and linguists had to get involved in shaping language policy for territories across the region. By 2011 the role of linguists was cemented in the language rights debate with the creation of the Charter on Language Rights in the Creole-speaking Caribbean. Using examples from Jamaica and St. Lucia, the current study examines the challenges that still persist ten years after the Charter, specifically in the areas of language advocacy, linguistic discrimination, and communicative hurdles in the courtroom.

This edited volume includes seven essays on language policy, linguistic identity, and social justice in five Caribbean nations: Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Curacao. The contributions explore how bilingualism and multilingualism intersect with cultural identity and language policy issues, including education, the status of Creole languages, and how efforts at language planning have often maintained social segregation based on race, gender, and sexuality. By reconfiguring their environments and creating new spaces that transcend geographically and symbolically bounded spaces, these nations unsettle colonial discourses that influence all spheres of societal life, including spatial configuration, cultural production, politics, and the economy. This volume rethinks and broadens new paradigms of the Caribbean experience and draws from interconnected academic perspectives, such as sociolinguistics/creole studies, cultural studies, and decolonial praxis. It includes contributions from scholars from, and familiar with, each Caribbean nation included in the work. Though most of the essays focus on language and educational policies, cultural and literary productions are also discussed as they relate to linguistic and social justice.

This publication is dedicated to the issues related to Social Justice in the Caribbean, and seeks to increase dialogue among practitioners, unions, labour activists, academics, policy-makers and other individuals from across the social sciences and humanities. It is purposely multi-disciplinary in orientation, intending to cover issues related to work, workers, labour, and related topics, as well as social, organizational and institutional aspects of work and industrial relations. It aims to set the tone for discourse on a wide range of issues related to the future of work and sustainable Caribbean development, Social Justice, industrial relations, governance systems, social protection, social dialogue, cooperatives and community empowerment, the future of education, migration and security, among others, nationally, and regionally. The publication will represent contemporary scholarly contributions from researchers presenting either original or innovative research that contribute to the theory, practice and public policy dimensions of work, migration, labour, industrial relations, and related issues.

This book offers a treatment of social justice and higher education within small island developing states like the Caribbean. This is a timely exploration of some of the global-local, structure-actor, policy-practice debates that connect directly to the promise and the challenges of pursuing social justice agendas within and beyond Caribbean institutions of higher education. In this book, the key points of examination are the (i) changing patterns within the global higher education landscape, emerging mandates for university systems, (ii) the perspectives and challenges for diverse student and staff populations, and (iii) the ways in which these collectively impact social justice agendas within institutions of higher education. The contextualization and politicization of these issues within the broader discourse of small island developing states deepens the understanding of the prospects and challenges of addressing social injustices within the contemporary landscape, but with some re-engagement of existing conceptions and theorizations (related to inclusivity, diversity, equity, ontology, coloniality, postcolonial and critical race theory) to inform how actors within these institutions can strategically respond. It will be vital reading for scholars and educational researchers with interests in higher education, social justice, and small island developing states (SIDS).

This book presents evidence in support of the hypothesis that Ship English of the early Atlantic colonial period was a distinct variety with characteristic features. It is motivated by the recognition that late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth century sailors’ speech was potentially an influential variety in nascent creoles and English varieties of the Caribbean, yet few academic studies have attempted to define the characteristics of this speech. Therefore, the two principal aims of this study were, firstly, to outline the socio-demographics of the maritime communities and examine how variant linguistic features may have developed and spread among these communities, and, secondly, to generate baseline data on the characteristic features of Ship English. The methodology’s data collection strategy targeted written representations of sailors’ speech prepared or published between the dates 1620 and 1750, and prioritized documents that were composed by working mariners. These written representations were then analyzed following a mixed methods triangulation design that converged the qualitative and quantitative data to determine plausible interpretations of the most likely spoken forms. Findings substantiate claims that there was a distinct dialect of English that was spoken by sailors during the period of early English colonial expansion. They also suggest that Ship English was a sociolect formed through the mixing, leveling and simplification processes of koinization. Indicators suggest that this occupation-specific variety stabilized and spread in maritime communities through predominantly oral speech practices and strong affiliations among groups of sailors. It was also transferred to port communities and sailors’ home regions through regular contact between sailors speaking this sociolect and the land-based service-providers and communities that maintained and supplied the fleets. Linguistic data show that morphological characteristics of Ship English are evident at the word-level, and syntactic characteristics are evident not only in phrase construction but also at the larger clause and sentence levels, whilst discourse is marked by characteristic patterns of subordination and culture-specific interjection patterns. The newly-identified characteristics of Ship English detailed here provide baseline data that may now serve as an entry point for scholars to integrate this language variety into the discourse on dialect variation in Early Modern English period and the theories on pidgin and creole genesis as a result of language contact in the early colonial period.

This book explores the problematic relationship between education, social justice and the State, against the background of comparative education research. The book critiques the status quo of stratified school systems, and the unequal distribution of cultural capital and value added schooling. The authors address one of today’s most pressing questions: Are social, economic and cultural divisions between the nations, between school sectors, between schools and between students growing or declining?

Globalization, Education and Social Justice, which is the tenth volume in the 12-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, presents up-to-date scholarly research on major discourses concerning global trends in education, social justice and policy research. It provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information about the international concern in the field of social justice, globalisation, and policy research. Above all, the book offers the latest findings to the critical issues in education and social justice globally. It is a sourcebook of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policy makers in education, globalisation and social justice education reforms around the world. It offers a timely overview of current issues in social justice affecting education policy research in the global culture. It provides directions in education, and policy research, relevant to transformational educational reforms in the 21st century. The book critically examines the overall interplay between globalisation, education reforms, and social justice. It draws upon recent studies in the areas of globalisation, social justice education reforms and the role of the State. It explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in the research covering the State, globalisation, equity, education, and social justice. It demonstrates the neo-liberal ideological imperatives of education and policy reforms, and illustrates the way the relationship between the State and education policy affects current models and trends in education reforms for social justice and schooling globally. Various book chapters critique the dominant discourses and debates pertaining to the politics of social justice and education globally and the newly constructed and re-invented models of neo-liberal ideology in education and policy reforms. Using a number of diverse paradigms in comparative education research, ranging from critical theory to post-structuralist discourses, the authors, by focusing on globalisation, social justice and democracy, attempt to examine critically both the reasons and outcomes of education reforms and policy change for social justice. The volume offers a more informed critique on the Western-driven models of education reforms and implications for social justice. The book also draws upon recent studies in the areas of equity, cultural capital and dominant ideologies in education. The general intention is to make Globalization, Education and Social Justice available to a broad spectrum of users among policy-makers, academics, graduate students, education policy researchers, administrators, and practitioners in the education and related professions.