Ideologies of Policy Arbiters in Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Policy in the Nepalese Context

This article aims to identify the ideologies of school-head teachers towards a mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) policy and analyse how these ideologies influence the implementation of MTB-MLE policy in schools in the context of Nepal. Adopting qualitative ethnographic research, two school-level policy arbiters (head teachers) were interviewed for the research data. Supplementary data were collected through telephone conversations. The data were discussed qualitatively, drawing upon Weinberg's (2021) role of microlevel policy arbiters in implementing MTB-MLE policy and three ideological frameworks by Bourdieu (1991): monolingual habitus, legitimate language, and symbolic power. Through the discussion of data, the article reveals that even though the MTB-MLE policy arbiters are well-informed about the value of MTB-MLE, they still seem reluctant to implement it. The policy arbiters are still implicitly or explicitly supporting monolingual or dominant language policy in education. The policy arbiters are influenced by the hegemony, globalization, and neoliberal ideologies of the English and Nepali languages. The article contradicts the coordination notion of Weinberg (2021) between policy arbiters; the issues of ideology seem to be stronger than the issue of coordination in MTB-MLE policy implementation.