ABSTRACT
This chapter presents ethnographic research on the policy-to-practice pathway of Timor-Leste’s new language education curriculum for primary schooling. It does so by explaining key areas of policy contestation between diverse educational actors, describing constraining contextual factors in schools and discussing how these contestations and contexts shaped early implementation of the language education curriculum. Relevant to policy makers, practitioners and researchers interested in education development in multilingual and developing countries, this chapter argues for the value of ethnographic methods in elucidating the way that ideas, resources and communication act as filters through which policy passes on its way to becoming enacted practice.
