Oral presentation: Regine Croes

For decades, educators and policymakers have debated the consequences of (post-)colonial monolingual language policies for educational quality in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Although Aruba has gradually introduced multilingual approaches that better reflect its linguistic ecology and recognize Papiamento as most children’s primary home language, little systematic research has examined the ideological foundations that continue to shape policy design and classroom implementation. As a result, we lack empirically grounded insight into how language ideologies structure educational reform in small postcolonial societies.

This project addresses this gap by investigating the language values, ideologies, and beliefs that inform primary education policy and practice in Aruba. Anchored in theories of language ideology and postcolonial sociolinguistics, it conceptualizes educational language policy as embedded in historically layered power relations and processes of nation formation. A multilayered discourse analysis of policy documents traces how competing ideological orientations are reproduced, negotiated, and transformed within broader geopolitical, socio-economic and technological developments.

Methodologically, the project innovates by integrating critical discourse analysis with the development and validation of a survey instrument that systematically measures language-ideological orientations among educational stakeholders. This mixed-method design enables both in-depth interpretive analysis and longitudinal trend mapping. Scientifically, the study advances theoretical understanding of ideological change in postcolonial multilingual contexts. Societally, it provides evidence-based tools to support sustainable language policy development and informed public debate in the Dutch Caribbean and comparable small-island settings.