Keisha Wiel
2018

Through the relationship of language ideology, identity, and education, I will investigate how attitudes about language, that are seen Facebook, are taught to students in the classroom and its effects on identity formation in a formal educational setting in Aruba and Curaçao.  There are still notions that Papiamentu, in contrast to Dutch, is not suitable as a language of instruction because it hinders students’ access to universities. 

Debates over such matters are now seen in online forums, particularly on public Facebook pages where people strongly express their opinions about language issues and access to education.  As scholars (Coleman 2010) have suggested that digital spaces have become central places for debates about nationhood, human rights, and activism, I will employ both qualitive and quantitative methods from linguistic anthropology to understand the construction of identity through ideologies of language.  This project asks: how are issues of language, identity, and policy intertwined and maintained through education in a multilingual postcolonial society?  This research will help to facilitate insights into the intersection between ideologies of language, identity, and education.

Keisha Wiel was born and raised in New York to an Aruban mother and a Curaçaoan father.  She is currently a PhD student in Anthropology at Temple University with a concentration in Linguistic Anthropology.  Her research interests primarily focus on the socialization of language ideologies in education and how those ideologies are presented and performed on social media.  Specifically, she researches how children are socialized into ideologies about Papiamento/u and Dutch in secondary education in Aruba and Curaçao and in turn observes how those ideologies get discussed, debated, and practiced on Facebook.  Through this, she will examine how notions of identity are informed by these ideologies about language on the islands.