Language, Historical Literacies
& Civic Engagement

This is a large-scale, cross-cultural, comparative research program that investigates the intersection of language and linguistic practices, historical literacies, and civic engagement in multilingual African societies.

This project re-conceptualizes social development in terms of individual attitudes to civic engagement, articulated in terms of input rather than the "outcome" models of orthodox development studies. Rather than measuring civic participation by its outcomes — voter turnout, policy change, measurable improvements in governance — INARELS researchers are interested in the attitudinal, linguistic, and historical conditions that shape whether and how individuals understand themselves as civic actors in the first place.

The project also explores social identity as a mediating variable between historical literacies and language and linguistic practices both within and outside schools. The central purpose of this study is to understand whether an individual's historical literacy affects their social identity, their language behaviors, and their attitudes to civic engagement — and through what mechanisms this relationship operates across different multilingual contexts.

Study instruments are developed with and administered through relevant community partners, including local schools, religious and cultural organizations, and local academic researchers. This collaborative instrument design process is itself a model of the kind of action research INARELS promotes — where the research community is an active participant in framing the questions, not merely the subject of inquiry.

The project was initiated in summer 2013 as a cross-national longitudinal study on the links between historical literacies, linguistic practices in and outside schools, and civic responsibility.

This project works at the intersection of sociolinguistics, history education, political theory, and civic studies. The guiding research questions include:

• RQ1 How do language and linguistic practices — in and outside schools — shape an individual's historical literacy in multilingual African societies?
• RQ2 What is the relationship between historical literacy and social identity formation in multilingual contexts, and how does this vary across national and linguistic settings?
• RQ3 In what ways does an individual's historical literacy influence their attitudes toward civic engagement, and through what mechanisms does this relationship operate?
• RQ4 How do community-based organizations — religious, cultural, educational — mediate between historical knowledge and civic participation in multilingual settings?
• RQ5 What are the implications of these findings for language policy, history education curriculum, and civic education reform across African national contexts?

Selected publications directly relevant to this project's theoretical framework and empirical program.

To cite data from this project, please refer to the citation guidelines provided in the Member Portal or contact the lead researcher directly.

Field images and community engagement documentation from study sites across the network. Additional materials available to approved members.

This project is pan-African in scope, spanning multilingual societies across West, East, and Southern Africa. The breadth of sites reflects the comparative ambition of the project — to understand how language, historical literacy, and civic engagement interact across different national histories, colonial legacies, and linguistic ecologies.