Recent research on the co-constitution of race and language has intensified debates about inclusion and exclusion in educational settings, particularly in higher education. This scholarship exposes how hidden ideologies are embedded in apparently neutral expectations of “language appropriateness”, “language legitimacy”, and “academic language,” revealing the complex ways these discourses on language normativity shape the experiences of migrantised students in postcolonial contexts. While mainstream accounts often depict globalised higher education as a borderless environment, these dynamics reveal the persistence of ordinary raciolinguistic bordering practices that shape both everyday and academic interactions. Against this backdrop, the present literature review examines the main thematic and conceptual debates that investigate the interplay between language, racialisation processes, and bordering practices. By identifying and synthesising prevailing frameworks, it highlights how language ideologies and racial formations intersect to regulate belonging and exclusion in higher education. The analysis advances understanding of the mechanisms underlying these dynamics and points to directions for future research that integrate perspectives on bordering and raciolinguistics within higher education.

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