Bilingual Education in the United S...

Bilingual Education in the United States: Historical unravelling and Current Issues1

Abstract

Bilingual education in the United States has been call in questioned and reformulated within varying historical, political, social, and economic words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] followings Guided by three interrelated research questions in succession ideology, policy, and politics, this article examines the various interpretations of the historical forces that have determined language policy in the United States by dint of first briefly discussing the permissive, restrictive, opportunist, and dismissive periods and then focusing upon the current challenges to bilingual education. The author argues that changing political, social, and economic forces, rather than any consistent ideology, have shaped the nation's answers to language diversity. He judges that language ideology in the United States has shifted according to changing historical adventures and the absence of a consistent U language ideology has enhanced the character of symbolic politics-the resentment of special treatment for minority arranges

Introduction

Long before European colonizers arrived forward the North American continent with their admit languages, cultures, myths, and ideologies, the land was a cornucopia of indigenous languages and tillages An estimated 250 to 1000 American Indian languages were oral in 15th-century North America at the time of European contact (Sherzer, 1992; Grosjean, 1982) If we also consider Mexico and Central and toward the south America, the linguistic reality of 1492 America becomes equal more diverse and complex. Contrary to the popular image of the United States as a monolingual agriculture dominated by the English language and White Anglo-Saxon traditions, numerous indigenous people's dreams and realities have protracted been filtered through a polyglot prism (Crawford, 1998; Macias, 1999; Wiley, 2000)

Despite this rich cultural and linguistic seedbed, the U sink s envisioned "a country with a unified history, with unified traditions, and with a customary language" (Hechinger, 1978, p. 130) This vision was based largely in succession the English legal system and schooling practices (Tocqueville, 1873; Tyack, 1981) Given this Anglo-Saxon orientation at the dawn of the nation's history, the colonizers place the stage for the part of symbolic politics of language and ethnic identity in the United States (Ovando, Collier, & caruncles 2003; Ovando & McLaren, 2000) The potential for strife of words over language policy was instant from the beginning. Yet, the nation's caster s adopted neither "an official language nor a government-sanctioned visible form [i]or[/i] frame to regulate speech" (Crawford, 1999 p 22)

However, issues of language inclusion or exclusion oftentimes masked ignorance, indifference, or collective psychological repression. European languages were more likely than others to be treated with reverence and their speakers to be accommodated in schooling and conduct services (Wiley, 1998). Indigenous languages, exhibited by American Indians, Mexicans, Hawaiians, and Puerto Ricans, did not fare as well. Despite the alleged U libertarian linguistic tradition (Baron, 1990; Heath, 1976 1983; Klos 1977/ 1998; Ricento, 1998) assimilationist and pluralist policies (cf Wiebe, 1967) have each prevailed, repeatedly as surrogates for racist, classist, and religious prejudices.

In this article, I examine three interrelated research questions forward language ideology, policy, and politics:

1 Is there an explicit "tradition"of any kind, regarding language diversity in the United States?

2 What have been the solution factors in determining U.S. policies for educating language minorities, and in what way have these varied during different historical periods?

3 What strategies have been used-and by what mode have opponents responded-- in the labor to establish effective educational programs for languageminority children?

In answering these questions, I briefly discuss the permissive, restrictive, opportunist, and dismissive periods as identified on Baker and Jones (1998) and cross-reference the work of Heath (1976) Klos (1977/1998) Baron (1990) and Ricento (1998) to argue that changing localized political, social, and economic forces, rather than any consistent ideology, have shaped the nation's answers to language diversity. I will argue that language ideology in the United States, rather than maintaining a stable course, has shifted according to changing historical issues (Crawford, 1992, 2000; Wiley, 2000 2002) In contrast to the situation in numerous other countries, where language has been a salient unifier and divider, the absence of a consistent language ideology in the United States has enhanced the part of symbolic politics of language, creating gall of special treatment for minority clusters This, in turn, has keeped to overwhelm pedagogical considerations in making policy for language-minority education (Crawford, 2000; Ovando & McLaren, 2000; Ovando & Wiley, 2003)

The question with Theories

Scholars have different interpretations of historical marked occurrences and legislation regarding development of language policies. For example, Heath (1976) argues for an explicit libertarian tradition in the nation's formative period based upon her interpretations of historical marked occurrences Kloss (197711998) emphasizes that policies have been relatively tolerant for immigrants speaking European immigrant languages of that kind as German and gives short shrift to the Americanization period, when German was singled public for repression; Kloss also leave out of views the treatment of conquered and colonized clumps and nonWhite immigrants (Crawford, 1992; Wiley, 2002 1998) in succession the other hand, Baron (1990) proffers a mirror image of Kloss-a history in which the restrictionist impulse has always been with us and has usually predominated: "The conditions producing today's official English motion have been present in the United States since before the country's founding pair centuries ago, and the arguments as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but for and against official English have been repeated, with slight variations and little solidify effect, since that time. In short, little has changed in the past brace hundred years, at least in the same manner far as official English is concerned" (p xiii). forward the other hand, Ricento (1998) gives a restrictionist interpretation-a "deep values" theory of history, in which poor language minorities always got the short extremity of the stick because of a settle of dominant "beliefs and attitudes" that promot assimilation athwart pluralism.