FROM LANGUAGE-AS-PROBLEM TO LANGUAGE-AS-RESOURCE: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF INDONESIA'S LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY WITHIN A MULTICULTURALISM FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Indonesia is home to 1,340 ethnic groups and 718 regional languages, yet the direction of its language policy is rarely read through an explicit language-planning framework, and multiculturalism is rarely treated as an analytical category. This study mapped the orientation of Indonesia's language and national education policy in the post-reform era, examined the extent to which multicultural principles are institutionalised in policy instruments, and identified the gap between policy text and implementation capacity. A qualitative document-analysis design was employed, applying directed content analysis to twelve policy and official-data documents together with twenty-two curated academic sources. The coding scheme was derived deductively from Cooper's typology of language planning, Ruiz's orientations, Spolsky's model, the UNESCO vitality framework, and Banks's five dimensions of multicultural education. Three findings emerge. First, Indonesian language policy has shifted decisively from a language-as-problem to a language-as-resource orientation, but the language-as-right orientation is almost absent, so recognition of diversity stops at the cultural level. Second, the claim that most regional languages are endangered cannot be verified, because three official releases report inconsistent figures and only 12 to 16 per cent of the 718 languages have ever been assessed for vitality, which makes the mapping deficit a more pressing problem than extinction itself. Third, multiculturalism is strongly institutionalised in content integration but weakly institutionalised in equity pedagogy and the empowering school culture. Strengthening multicultural language policy requires simultaneous reform at the diagnostic, normative, and capacity levels.