In this course, we will examine how and why language policies, both official and unofficial, are formed in several different parts of the world, aiming to understand how they relate to the underlying “linguistic culture” (Schiffman 1996) of the polity and how these policies are acted out.  Who creates language policies and why?  How are policies articulated and contested?  What are their effects on society, particularly within educational systems?  We will also examine how language policies and practices can lead either to the maintenance or the extinction of minority languages.