Language, power and minority schooling

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Abstract
This article points to the ways that education and the discourse practices that it authorises can routinely repress, dominate and disempower language users whose practices differ from the norms that it establishes. It begins with an outline of several debates about language and power, discussing the immanent power that language itself might have. In linking the ideas of two key theorists, Bourdieu and Bhaskar, the larger sections cover: society, language and control; power and the language norms of education; schooling and the language of dominant groups; the academic value of high status language; school level language policies; and the use of minority discursive accounts in the design of emancipatory policies for minority schooling.