Editorial introduction : challenges for bilingual education in the age of globalization

Over the last 15 years or so, roughly coinciding with a new phase of globalization, the possibilities for knowledge exchanges and interactions within the Asia region have increased. But along with the excitement afforded by these possibilities there is a growing disquiet in critical circles about English becoming more central than ever in the academic domain. The reasons for this disquiet are many, and they don't always come out of the concern to preserve and cultivate non-Western languages for their own sake. Along with the increased significance of English comes a greater dependence on (a) publishing companies in the Anglophone world (and the consequent dependence on the materials they commission, process and decide to publish); (b) citation indices and modes of academic certification promoted by the Western academy and its institutional apparatuses; (c) teaching methods suited to monolingual English-only settings. Whether it is in the Asian societies that have been directly colonized by the West, such as South Asia or some parts of Southeast Asia, or whether it is in East Asia, which is being increasingly drawn into a globalized academic space, we see the de-legitimation of more local modes of writing outside the English-language circle and the devaluation of forms of knowledge that are rendered illegible under enforced mono-lingualism.