The multilingual project, Standard Australian English and Critical Cultural Studies: Reimagining English education in Australian schools as an opportunity to encounter postcolonial possibility

English is the official language of Australia. Yet, the monolingual reality of Australia today is entangled with the multilingual actuality of Australian First Nations Peoples and Australia as a successful multicultural nation. In this imaginary of monolingual multiculturalism, the vibrant linguistic ecologies of many communities are largely silent/ced. In this chapter, I draw on Critical Cultural Studies to inform a view of language(s) as cultural practice, where language(s) is negotiated in-between spaces of difference to construct meaning. Language(s) as cultural practice resides in tension with Standard Australian English (SAE) as an institution tied up with locations of power that serve to ambiguously position and (in)validate being and belonging. From the stance of language(s) as cultural practice, I recast the authority of SAE historically to understand SAE as a reappropriation of colonial inheritance. This has implications for schooling in a time where educational success is measured against standardised metrics, including mastery of SAE. In this chapter, I attempt to (re)position the current multilingual, multicultural condition not as a policy challenge, but as an opportunity to explore through language(s) how ‘we’ as Australians arrived in this socio-cultural moment and (re)imagine who ‘we’ may yet become. In this way, English education may be framed not by its colonial legacy, but by the opportunity to encounter postcolonial possibility.