Multilingual Students in Qatar’s Education City International Branch Campuses: Advancing a Social Justice-Centred Policy Agenda

This chapter presents new insights and understandings based on a qualitative meta-synthesis of studies exploring the challenges faced by multilingual students in Qatar’s Education City international branch campuses (IBCs). These challenges include emotional, academic, and language barriers, sociocultural hurdles, and issues pertaining to students’ linguistic identities and sense of belonging in IBCs. The synthesis culminates in strategic pathways forward and policy recommendations, aimed at enhancing diversity, inclusion, and equity in Qatar’s Education City IBCs. Key recommendations include promoting linguistically responsive instruction, shifting from monolingual to multilingual approaches, and embracing more local epistemologies, ethics, and pedagogies. The social justice-centred policy agenda presented in this chapter is not only applicable to the specific context of Education City IBCs, but could be extended to English-medium and transnational higher education settings across the Arab Gulf states and more globally.