This handbook places social inequality at the centre of English Medium Education (EME) scholarship in the Global South. Bringing together conceptual, empirical, and review-based contributions from across Asia and Africa, it examines how English-medium education intersects with coloniality, linguistic hierarchy, social stratification, educational opportunity, and language-in-education policy. Across school and higher education contexts, contributors examine how class, caste, gender, geography, digital access, prior schooling, teacher identity, institutional conditions, school choice, and assessment shape access, participation, and educational outcomes. The volume treats English as both a valued resource for mobility and a potential site of exclusion, asking who benefits from English-medium education, under what conditions, and with what consequences. Organised in four parts, the handbook moves from coloniality, epistemic violence, and the politics of English to the structural and institutional reproduction of inequality, lived experiences of participation and marginalisation, and possibilities for more equitable practice. These include multilingual and translanguaging pedagogies, mother tongue-based multilingual education, Global Englishes, institutional reform, and more equitable approaches to assessment.  This book extends discussion of English-medium education beyond questions of language proficiency and pedagogy to consider the wider social and institutional conditions through which educational opportunities are distributed. It will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate students, teacher educators, institutional leaders, and policymakers working across applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language policy, multilingual education, and comparative and international education.

Dr. Samantha M. Curle (DPhil, FRSA, FHEA) is Reader in Education (Applied Linguistics) at the University of Bath, Associate Editor for Artificial Intelligence in Applied Linguistics at Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press), and Adjunct Professor at Khazar University. Her research focuses on English-Medium Instruction, multilingual education, language assessment, learner psychology, and Generative Artificial Intelligence. She has published in Language Teaching, Studies in Higher Education, Applied Linguistics Review, Journal of Engineering Education, and Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Her research has been funded by the European Commission, the British Academy Newton Fund, various international research councils, and the British Council.