Nicanor REBOLLEDO Recendiz 140393732X, 9780230013322, 0230013325, 2007050211

Citation preview

Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents

Edited by

Nancy H. Hornberger

Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities Series Editor: Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, University of Bristol, UK Worldwide migration and unprecedented economic, political and social integration in Europe present serious challenges to the nature and position of language minorities. Some communities receive protective legislation and active support from states through policies that promote and sustain cultural and linguistic diversity; others succumb to global homogenisation and assimilation. At the same time, discourses on diversity and emancipation have produced greater demands for the management of difference. This series will publish new research based on single or comparative case studies on minority languages worldwide. We will focus on their use, status and prospects, and on linguistic pluralism in areas with immigrant or traditional minority communities or with shifting borders. Each volume will be written in an accessible style for researchers and students in linguistics, education, politics and anthropology, and for practitioners interested in language minorities and diversity. Titles include: Anne Judge LINGUISTIC POLICIES AND THE SURVIVAL OF REGIONAL LANGUAGES IN FRANCE AND BRITAIN Yasuko Kanno LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN Unequal Access to Bilingualism Máiréad Nic Craith EUROPE AND THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE Citizens, Migrants and Outsiders Máiréad Nic Craith (editor) LANGUAGE, POWER AND IDENTITY POLITICS Nancy H. Hornberger (editor) CAN SCHOOLS SAVE INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES? Policy and Practice on Four Continents Anne Pauwels, Joanne Winter and Joseph Lo Bianco (editors) MAINTAINING MINORITY LANGUAGES IN TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS Australian and European Perspectives Glyn Williams SUSTAINING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN EUROPE Evidence from the Euromosaic project

Forthcoming titles: Jean-Bernard Adey CONFLICT IN LANGUAGE POLICY Corsica in the French and European Context Maya Khemlani David, Vanithamani Saravanan and Peter Sercombe (editors) LANGUAGE, IDENTITIES AND EDUCATION IN ASIA Gabrielle Hogan-Brun (editor) MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN A CHANGING WORLD Yasuko Kanno LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN Dovid Katz TEN LIVES OF YIDDISH Vanessa Pupavac (editor) LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN CONFLICT Serbo-Croatian Language Politics Graham Hodson Turner A SOCIOLINGUISTIC HISTORY OF BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE

Palgrave Studies in Minority Language and Communities Series Standing Order ISBN 1–4039–3732–X (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents Edited by Nancy H. Hornberger University of Pennsylvania

Editorial matter and selection © Nancy H. Hornberger 2008 Chapters © their authors 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–01332–2 ISBN-10: 0–230–01332–5

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Can schools save indigenous languages? : policy and practice on four continents / edited by Nancy H. Hornberger. p. cm. — (Palgrave studies in minority languages and communities series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0–230–01332–5 (alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978–0–230–01332–2 (alk. paper) 1. Language and languages—Study and teaching. 2. Linguistic minorities—Education. 3. Language revival. I. Hornberger, Nance H. P53.464.C36 2008 418.0071—dc22 2007050211 Cover photo: Schoolchildren, Kinsachata School, Peru, 19 August 2004. Photo by Esteban Hornberger S., KUNA-NAKA. 10 17

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To my ahijado Justo Ramos and the schoolchildren of Kinsachata and Visallani, past, present, and future

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Contents viii ix xi xii

List of Figures and Tables Preface Series Editor’s Preface Notes on Contributors 1

Introduction: Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents Nancy H. Hornberger

Part I 2

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4 5

1

Case Studies on Four Continents

‘Out on the fells, I feel like a Sámi’: Is There Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School? Vuokko Hirvonen Top-down and Bottom-up: Counterpoised Visions of Bilingual Intercultural Education in Latin America Luis Enrique López M¯aori-medium Education: Current Issues and Challenges Stephen May and Richard Hill Learning with Differences: Strengthening Hñähñö and Bilingual Teaching in an Elementary School in Mexico City Nicanor Rebolledo Recendiz

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Part II Commentaries: International Perspectives on the Case Studies 6

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Revitalization through Indigenous Education: a Forlorn Hope? Leena Huss Commentary from an African and International Perspective Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu Riding the Tiger Bernard Spolsky Schools as Strategic Tools for Indigenous Language Revitalization: Lessons from Native America Teresa L. McCarty

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Index vii

List of Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 2.2

The area of the Sámi people and Sámi languages The Sámi Administrative Area in Norway

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Tables 2.1

2.2

4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3

Variation of Sámi as medium of instruction, first and second language and the teaching of Sámi language and culture, 2004/05 Sámi schools (20) and the position of Sámi in teaching during 2004/05 school year in the Sámi Administrative Area Kia Puta ai te Reo resources and corresponding language ability New Zealand Ministry of Education M¯aori language factor funding allowances Number of Kura Kaupapa M¯aori and other M¯aori-medium schools Population of Indian children who attend school Composition of six neighborhoods in Santiago Mezquititlán Students registered at Alberto Correa Elementary School, 2004–05

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25 81 84 87 102 107 109

Preface The immediate inspiration for this book came at the 2005 World Congress of Applied Linguistics Featured Symposium, Can Schools be Agents for Indigenous Language Revitalization? Policy and Practice on Four Continents, held in Madison, Wisconsin. I am grateful to Richard Young, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA and Chair of the Congress, for inviting me to organize a symposium on Indigenous languages; to Alister Cumming, Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, and to the journal Language Learning, for the Language Learning Roundtable Conference Program funding which supported the symposium participants who traveled from afar; to all those who attended and offered their comments and insights on our theme; and to Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, Professor at the University of Bristol, UK, who then and there invited me to prepare a book based on the symposium for her series, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities. The enduring inspiration for the book comes from the importance – indeed urgency – of our topic and from our authors’ lifelong engagement with it. Each of the four colleagues who presented cases at the symposium – Vuokko Hirvonen, Luis Enrique López, Stephen May, and Nicanor Rebolledo, and the four who willingly agreed to comment on those cases afterward – Leena Huss, Nkonko Kamwangamalu, Bernard Spolsky, and Teresa L. McCarty, has, in one way or another, dedicated a lifetime to activism and research in the policy and practice of Indigenous education and indigenous language revitalization. I am profoundly grateful to each one for the enthusiasm and expertise they share with us here. I thank Jill Lake, Senior Editor at Palgrave Macmillan, for her unfailing encouragement and patience as I put this book together. I gratefully acknowledge Multilingual Matters Publishers for permission to reprint the chapter by Stephen May and Richard Hill, which originally appeared in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(5): 377–403 (2005). University of Pennsylvania master’s student Michelle Kirchgraber helped me prepare the manuscript for the publisher. I am especially grateful to University of Pennsylvania Educational Linguistics PhD student Katherine S. Mortimer who enthusiastically took up the task of preparing the index and whose own research on Guarani and bilingual education in Paraguay ix

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promises to shed further light on the role of educational policy and practice in Indigenous language revitalization. The roots of my own inspiration for this work lie in the years I have spent living and working in the Andes, on and off since 1970. For that, I thank my husband Stephan Hornberger and the Quechua Community Ministry which he for many years directed, Fulbright-Hays and the Inter-American Foundation for funding my research in Puno in the early 1980s, and PROEIB Andes for welcoming and supporting my occasional teaching, consulting, and research in Cochabamba since the mid-1990s. My humble thanks to Fredy Quispe Ticona and to the Master’s Program in Applied Linguistics at the University of the Altiplano in Puno, for enabling me to briefly revisit in 2004 the Quechua communities of Kinsachata and Visallani in Puno where I lived for much of 1982–83 and to whose schoolchildren this book is dedicated. NANCY H. HORNBERGER

Series Editor’s Preface Worldwide migration and unprecedented economic, political and social integration in Europe present serious challenges to the nature and position of language minorities. Some communities enjoy protective legislation and active support from states through policies that promote and sustain cultural and linguistic diversity; others succumb to global homogenization and assimilation. At the same time, discourses on diversity and emancipation have produced greater demands for the management of difference. This book series has been designed to bring together different strands of work on minority languages in regions with immigrant or traditional minorities or with shifting borders. We give prominence to case studies of particular language groups or varieties, focusing on their vitality, status and prospects within and beyond their communities. Considering this insider picture from a broader perspective, the series explores the effectiveness, desirability and viability of worldwide initiatives at various levels of policy and planning to promote cultural and linguistic pluralism. Thus it touches on cross-theme issues of citizenship, social inclusion and exclusion, empowerment and mutual tolerance. Work in the above areas is drawn together in this series to provide books that are interdisciplinary and international in scope, considering a wide range of minority contexts. Furthermore, by combining single and comparative case studies that provide in-depth analyses of particular aspects of the socio-political and cultural contexts in which languages are used, we intend to take significant steps towards the fusing of theoretical and practical discourses on linguistic and cultural heterogeneity. GABRIELLE HOGAN-BRUN

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Notes on Contributors Richard Hill is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He trained as a New Zealand primary school teacher in the late 1980s, and taught in bilingual and kura kaupapa M¯aori schools through the 1990s, before taking up his position at the University of Waikato. His research interests are in bilingual and immersion education, M¯aori-medium education, and second language acquisition. In conjunction with Stephen May, he has published a number of research reports and academic articles over recent years in these areas. He is currently conducting an ethnographic study of M¯aori-medium schooling, with particular reference to issues of biliteracy and English language transition. Vuokko Hirvonen is Professor of Sámi Literature and School Research at the Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu, Norway. In 1999 she published her doctoral thesis on Sámi Women’s literature (Saamenmaan ääniä-Saamelaisen naisen tie kirjailijaksi; SKS/Sámeatnama jienat-Sápmelaš nissona bálggis girjec!állin [The Voices of Sápmi-Sámi Women’s Way to Authorship] in both Finnish and Sámi. Recently she served as project manager for the Evaluating Reform 97 Sámi for the Research Council of Norway (2000–03). In this project, she published a monograph, Mo sámáidahttit skuvlla? [Sámi Culture and the School: Reflections by Sámi Teachers and the Realization of the Sámi School. An Evaluation Study of Reform 97] and an edited volume, Sámi skuvla plánain ja praktihkas [The Sámi School in the Curriculum and Practice] (2003). She has been working on questions concerning Sámi teacher education for nearly twenty years. Nancy H. Hornberger is Professor of Education and Director of Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, USA, where she also convenes the annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. She specializes in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, language planning and educational policy, bilingualism and biliteracy, and educational policy and practice for Indigenous and immigrant language minorities in the United States and internationally. She has published widely in national and international scholarly journals. Among her books are Bilingual Education and Language Maintenance: a Southern Peruvian Quechua Case (1988), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas xii

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(1996), Continua of Biliteracy (2003), the Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2008), and co-edited volumes on Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching (1996, with S. McKay) and Research Methods in Language and Education (1997, with D. Corson). She co-edits an international book series on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education published by Multilingual Matters. Professor Hornberger has held visiting academic appointments in Bolivia, Peru, Brazil and South Africa, and has served as specialist for the US State Department, the United Nations, and the Fulbright Program. Leena Huss is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Multiethnic Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. In 1991 she published a doctoral thesis on child bilingualism in Sweden and more recently the volumes, Reversing Language Shift in the Far North: Linguistic Revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland (1999) and Språkliga möten. Tvåspråkighet och kontaktlingvistik [Linguistic Encounters. Bilingualism and Contact Linguistics] co-authored with Ulla Börestam (2001). She has also co-edited Managing Multilingualism in a European Nation-state: Challenges for Sweden (2002, with Sally Boyd), Transcending Monolingualism: Linguistic Revitalization in Education (2003, with Antoinette Camilleri Grima and Kendall King), and International Obligations and National Debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea (2006, with Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Alastair Walker and Stefan Oeter). Her current research interests include language policies and language planning in Scandinavia, bilingualism, bilingual education, and linguistic revitalization. She is a long-time member of the Sweden Finnish Language Board in Sweden and during 2000–04 she was the Swedish member of the Council of Europe expert committee monitoring the implementation of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Europe. Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu is Professor of Linguistics and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at Howard University in Washington, DC, USA. He has taught linguistics at the National University of Singapore, the University of Swaziland, and the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, where he was Professor and Director of the Linguistics Program. He holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and has also received a Fulbright award. His research interests include multilingualism, codeswitching, language policy and planning, language and identity, new Englishes, and African linguistics. He is the author of the monograph The Language Planning Situation in South Africa (2001), and has guest-edited special issues on this and related topics for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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(2000), Multilingua (1998), World Englishes (2002), and Language Problems and Language Planning (2004). Luis Enrique López is Principal Advisor to the Program in Bilingual Intercultural Education for the Andean Region – a graduate training program and research and development center serving six Latin American nations, with headquarters at the University of San Simón in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He specializes in the applied sociolinguistics of Indigenous languages and peoples and, in particular, in the design, implementation, and evaluation of educational programs for Indigenous populations. Author of numerous articles in international journals and volumes, his recent book publications include Diversidad y Ecología del Lenguaje en Bolivia [Diversity and Ecology of Language in Bolivia] (2006), De Resquicios a Boquerones: La Educación Intercultural Bilingüe en Bolivia [From Fissures to Craters: Intercultural Bilingual Education in Bolivia] (2005), and La educación intercultural bilingüe en América Latina: balance y perspectivas [Bilingual Intercultural Education in Latin America: Retrospect and Prospect] (2003), and two volumes co-edited with I. Jung – Sobre las huellas de la voz [Footprints of the voice] and Abriendo la escuela [Opening the school] (1998 and 2003). López is an editorial board member of the international journals Language Policy (USA), Linguas Indígenas (Brazil), Trabalhos de Lingüística Aplicada (Brazil), International Journal of Intercultural Education (United Kingdom), and Prospects (Switzerland). He has served on numerous international working commissions, including UNESCO’s World Commission for the study of world languages. Stephen May is Foundation Professor and Chair of Language and Literacy Education, and Research Professor in the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, Sociology Department, University of Bristol, UK, where he worked for much of the 1990s. Stephen has written widely on language rights and language education, with a particular and longstanding interest in Indigenous education. He has recently edited, with Sheila Aikman, a special issue of Comparative Education on the latest developments internationally in Indigenous education (39(2), 2003). His recent books include Language and Minority Rights (2001), which was shortlisted for the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Book Prize 2002, Indigenous Community-based Education (1999) and Critical Multiculturalism (1999). He is a founding editor of the international and interdisciplinary journal, Ethnicities, an Associate Editor

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of Language Policy, and is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, International Multilingual Research Journal, Journal of Language, Identity and Education, Language and Education, and Sociolinguistic Studies. Teresa L. McCarty is the Alice Wiley Snell Professor of Education Policy Studies at Arizona State University, USA. An educational anthropologist, she has been a curriculum developer, teacher, and coordinator of American Indian education programs at the local, state, and national levels. From 1989 to 2004, she served as Department Head, Interim Dean, and Co-director of the American Indian Language Development Institute at the University of Arizona. A Kellogg National Fellow, her research and teaching focus on American Indian and language minority education, Indigenous language revitalization and maintenance, language planning and policy, and ethnographic methods in education. She has published widely on these topics, including guest-editing theme issues of the Bilingual Research Journal, Practicing Anthropology, Journal of American Indian Education, and International Journal of the Sociology of Language. She is the former editor of Anthropology & Education Quarterly, and the director of a national study of the impacts of native language loss and retention on American Indian students’ English language learning and school achievement. Her most recent books are A Place To Be Navajo – Rough Rock and the Struggle for Selfdetermination in Indigenous Schooling (2002), Language, Literacy, and Power in Schooling (2005), and To Remain an Indian: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (2006, with K.T. Lomawaima). Nicanor Rebolledo Recendiz holds a doctorate in anthropology from the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City and is Professor at the National Pedagogical University, in the Department of Bilingual Intercultural Education. Dr Rebolledo specializes in the anthropology of education and intercultural education, and has worked in the professional development of indigenous teachers in Mexico and Brazil. He has published articles on political anthropology, anthropology of education, intercultural education and cultural ecology. Professor Rebolledo is a member of the prestigious National Research System of Mexico and participates in the Seminar on Anthropology, History, Philosophy, and Sociology of the Mexican Anthropological Association. Bernard Spolsky is Professor Emeritus of English at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he was also founding director of the Language Policy Research Centre. He has taught in high schools in New Zealand, Australia,

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and England; and at Hebrew University in Israel, McGill University in Canada, and Indiana University and University of New Mexico in the USA. Professor Spolsky has carried out research and published widely in applied and educational linguistics, language testing, sociolinguistics, and language policy. He has written and edited a dozen books and published over 200 book chapters and journal articles. Recent books include Sociolinguistics (1998), The Languages of Israel (with Elana Shohamy, 1999), Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics (1999), and Language Policy (2004). He is editor (with Francis M. Hult) of the Handbook of Educational Linguistics (forthcoming 2008). He was founding editor of the journals Applied Linguistics and Language Policy. Dr Spolsky has been President of International TESOL, Secretary of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, President of the Israeli Association of Applied Linguistics, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Applied Linguistics, and President of the International Language Testing Association. He was awarded Guggenheim and Mellon fellowships, and has been Senior Research Fellow at the National Foreign Language Center and the Center for Advanced Study of Language and a Visiting Research Fellow at University of Auckland International Research Institute for Indigenous and M¯aori Education. He is at present writing a book on language management.

1

Introduction: Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents Nancy H. Hornberger

The precarious circumstances of the world’s Indigenous languages are by now well known: of 6800 languages currently spoken in the world, not only are more than half at risk of extinction by the end of this century (Romaine 2006: 441), but approximately 95 per cent are spoken by less than five per cent of the world’s population (May 2001: 2), mainly Indigenous languages and speakers. Meanwhile, more than half of the world’s states are officially monolingual, and less than 500 languages are used and taught in schools. Not only the survival of Indigenous languages is precarious, but also especially the survival and economic viability of their speakers in national contexts where educational systems massively fail Indigenous people, closing them out and leaving them illiterate and oppressed in their own land (Kamwangamalu 2005). This volume offers a close look at Indigenous language revitalization efforts in schools, on four continents, to compare and draw out successes and challenges in this work, both in the schools and in the wider societies in which the schools are situated. We start from the premise that Indigenous language revitalization is worth doing, both for the sake of the speakers of the languages and for the ways of knowing and being that their languages encode and express. Our focus here is on how to achieve Indigenous language revitalization, and in particular, the role of schools in that endeavor. We recognize that schools alone are not enough to do the job. Indigenous language revitalization always occurs within an ecology of languages, in a context of other local and global languages with their relative statuses and uses in domains and social fields such as employment, religion, government, cultural life, media, and others. Indigenous language revitalization is subject to the vagaries of policy, politics, and power; and it is subject to the economics of the linguistic marketplace. 1

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Nevertheless, schools do have an inevitable and important role to play and it is this role that we explore here. By the same token, we recognize that Indigenous language revitalization is never only about language, but also about the identities and experiences of speakers and communities. Nor is Indigenousness found only in rural, traditional communities and territories, but increasingly also in urban contexts, in a world in which by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Nor, finally, is revitalization about bringing a language back, but rather bringing it forward (Hornberger and King 1996). All these realities infuse and inform the chapters herein. The volume is comprised of this introduction and eight chapters organized into two parts: four chapters in Part I, describing and analyzing particular cases of school-based Indigenous language revitalization on four continents, and four chapters in Part II, discussing, reviewing, and commenting on the cases, while also incorporating insights from still other cases. In both parts, the combined perspectives of recognized, senior scholars and on-the-ground innovators provide both in-depth coverage of the cases and a critical perspective on them. The cases taken up here are the Ma ¯ori of Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Sámi of the Nordic countries, the Hñähñö of Mexico, and Quechua and other Indigenous languages of Latin America. Ma¯ori and Sámi are cases of remarkable successes in Indigenous language revitalization over the last quarter century, while the Mexican case considered here is in an initial stage and the other Latin American cases cover a spectrum of experience. Yet all the cases face similar questions and issues. With regard to Indigenous languages in schools: • Is the Indigenous language (IL) taught to all students or only to Indigenous students (and if the latter, how are they identified or defined)? • Is the IL taught as medium, first language (L1), second language (L2), subject? • Is the IL taught in a monolingual immersion or bilingual/biliterate program structure? • What is the role of codeswitching in IL instruction? • What is the role of writing in IL instruction? And what of the visual, audio, spatial, artistic, electronic, and other modes? • Is the IL taught as many varieties or only one? • Who are the teachers? Are they speakers of IL? Literate in IL? How were they trained – where, by whom, in what language? Are teachers Indigenous-minded or ‘West-minded’?

Introduction

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• Is the Indigenous curricular content transformative – or additive – in relation to the official curriculum? And how so? With regard to the role of schools in Indigenous language revitalization: • How can we develop a broader array of functional uses in society for threatened Indigenous languages? • What do we understand by the term bilingual program in an Indigenous language context? • Is the role of teacher as cultural mediator effective for Indigenous language and culture maintenance and revitalization? • How can we go about incorporating Indigenous values and knowledge in school curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment? In all, we pay particular attention to how, on the one hand, ideological spaces opened up by policies or discourses may carve out implementational spaces; and on the other, implementational spaces at classroom, school, and community levels may serve as wedges to pry open ideological spaces that are closed or closing (Hornberger 2002, 2006a). In Chapter 2, ‘“Out on the fells, I feel like a Sámi”: Is There Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School?’, Vuokko Hirvonen of Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu, Norway, and author of the first doctoral thesis written in Sámi (Hirvonen 1999), reports on her evaluation study of Sámi teachers’ views on the possibilities of implementing Norway’s Reform O97 Sámi (O97S) in practice, on the local level. The adoption of the O97S Sámi curriculum marks, in her words, ‘the biggest step ever taken in Sámi educational matters … the first time that the Sámi got a separate curriculum which has an equal status with the national curriculum’. To put the O97S reform and her evaluation study in context, she provides an overview of the historical development of Sámi schools in Norway since 1967, as well as statistical information on their current coverage and enrollments – some 3000 students in Norway being taught in Sámi, in close to 30 schools (in the 2004–05 school year). Hirvonen discusses the O97S Sámi curriculum and Sámi language instruction provisions in detail, evaluating them as strong, weak, or non-forms of bilingual education (following Baker 2001 and SkutnabbKangas 2000), and concludes that there are three main forms of language programs in use with Sámi: mainstream with foreign language teaching, late-exit transitional, and maintenance or heritage, of which only the last can be considered a strong form of bilingual education. Drawing on teacher narratives from the evaluation study, Hirvonen provides examples

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

of innovative pedagogy in the teaching of Sámi language and culture, while also identifying a series of challenges yet to be met, among them the need for schools to give systematic priority to hiring bilingual personnel and to teaching not only Sámi language but other subjects in Sámi as well. In Chapter 3, ‘Top-down and Bottom-up: Counterpoised Visions of Bilingual Intercultural Education in Latin America’, Luis Enrique López of PROEIB Andes at the University of San Simón in Cochabamba, Bolivia, reviews challenges and initiatives arising from the direct involvement of diverse Indigenous communities and organizations of Latin America in determining their own education from the bottom-up. The analysis seeks to establish to what degree these challenges and initiatives coincide with top-down governmental designs for bilingual intercultural education (EIB), a widespread educational model in Latin America (compare López 2005, 2006) – where overall more than 40 million people claim Indigenous identity or speak an Indigenous language and no less than 400 different Indigenous languages are in active use. His focus is on experiences directed toward the revitalization of Indigenous languages in national contexts where, despite increased national and international attention to the Indigenous question, heritage Indigenous knowledges and the languages which convey them are threatened by the ever greater advance of Western traditions and a hegemonic way of life – creole by nature in Latin America and expressed through the Spanish language. In particular, López draws our attention to key issues raised by contemporary Latin American Indigenous leaders, intellectuals, and organizations, including demands for expansion of EIB to all rural Indigenous communities as well as to urban areas, where Indigenous populations are increasingly present; the need to extend EIB to hegemonic Spanishspeaking populations and not just to the Indigenous; the urgency of modifying the official curriculum to acknowledge Indigenous sociocultural practices and ways of life as integral to an alternative knowledge system; and the obligation to take action toward the rescue and revitalization of endangered and vulnerable Indigenous languages. He outlines a series of ideological/epistemological tensions that will have to be resolved if EIB is to contribute effectively to Indigenous language revitalization in the Latin American context, namely counterpoised topdown governmental and bottom-up Indigenous visions of inclusion versus exclusion, pedagogy versus ethnic reaffirmation and epistemology, and economy versus identity in relation to literacy. Chapter 4, ‘Ma¯ori-medium Education: Current Issues and Challenges’, by Stephen May and Richard Hill of the University of Waikato in

Introduction

5

Hamilton, New Zealand, summarizes key issues and challenges arising after more than 25 years of Ma¯ori-medium education in Aotearoa/New Zealand, drawing from international and historical perspectives on Indigenous education and language minority rights (compare May 1999, 2001, 2004). From the establishment of the first Ko¯hanga Reo (preschool ‘language nest’) in 1982, Ma¯ori-medium education has been predicated upon the principle of He ko¯rero Ma¯ori (‘speaking in Ma ¯ori’) and the practice of full immersion, as distinct from bilingual education involving use of both Ma ¯ori and English. Whereas in the international literature on bilingual education, immersion is seen as a form of bilingual education, in the Ma¯ori experience the two are sharply distinguished. The aims of Ma¯ori-medium education have been first and foremost the revitalization of the language, at which considerable success has been achieved; more recently, a complementary focus on the educational effectiveness of Ma ¯ori-medium education has begun to emerge. May and Hill explore the negotiation of, and occasional tensions between, the wider goals of Indigenous Ma ¯ori language revitalization and the successful achievement of bilingualism and biliteracy for Ma ¯ori learners in Ma ¯orimedium educational contexts. They draw particular attention to the reality that most students currently in Ma ¯ori-medium education are L1 speakers of English and L2 speakers of Ma ¯ori, as are many of their teachers, and point to the implications of this not only for Ma ¯ori programs but also for Indigenous heritage language education programs situated in similar language shift ecologies elsewhere in the world. After reviewing key evaluations of Ma¯ori programs undertaken over the past 20 years, including those by the government’s Education Review Office and the National Education Monitoring Project, the authors highlight two indicators of good practice for further development of Ma ¯ori-medium education: one relating to levels of immersion and the other to the Ma ¯ori L2 language base of the majority of students. Specifically, they call for a reconsideration of the full immersion-only philosophy in light of research evidence around the world that partial immersion programs can be effective as additive bilingual programs as well; they simultaneously caution that partial immersion programs that have less than 50 per cent instruction in the target language should be redesignated as Ma¯ori language support programs rather than bilingual or Ma ¯ori-medium. With regard to the Ma¯ori L2 language base of the students and teachers, May and Hill warn that many programs are not teaching sufficiently through Ma¯ori for the students to achieve bilingualism and biliteracy, and that consideration needs to be given both to teacher professional development in Ma ¯ori academic language and

6

Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

Ma¯ori-medium pedagogy, and to providing students adequate time and exposure to Ma¯ori to enable their acquisition and development of Ma¯ori academic language proficiency in addition to the Ma¯ori conversational competence already being achieved. Chapter 5, ‘Learning with Differences: Strengthening Hñähñö and Bilingual Teaching in an Elementary School in Mexico City’, by Nicanor Rebolledo Recendiz of the National Pedagogical University in Mexico City, Mexico, centers around the difficult schooling through which Indigenous Hñähñö residents of Mexico City pass, focusing on the case of the Alberto Correa Elementary School and in particular the objectives and initial year of an experience in bilingual education set in motion in the school. There have been strong waves of Indigenous migration to large cities in Mexico over the last half-century, mainly to Mexico City (Federal District) where despite their growing numbers, discrimination is a daily lived reality for the Indigenous migrants. Hñähñö, who number close to 300,000 and constitute Mexico’s sixth largest Indian group, began to arrive in Mexico City in the 1940s, most coming from Santiago Mezquititlán in Querétaro and maintaining ties with their community up to the present. Although Mexico’s national curriculum has long been a monolingual Spanish one, the government has recently undertaken reforms emphasizing educational attention for the Indian population in the Federal District and including the introduction of intercultural bilingual education (EIB) in some schools (compare Rebolledo 2002). Currently, an estimated 10,000 students of Indian origin attend schools in Mexico City, and the Secretary of Public Education identifies approximately 200 public schools in the Federal District with Indigenous enrollments. Alberto Correa School, unlike many of the others, serves a majority Indigenous student population: 80 per cent of the students are bilingual HñähñöSpanish speakers. With the school facing a situation of high absenteeism, low academic performance, as well as problems of drug addiction among the students and a school climate of discrimination against all things Indian and against Hñähñö as a language, the author, himself a Hñähñö speaker, has undertaken with colleagues a series of activities to establish a policy of Hñähñö revitalization and a model of bilingual Hñähñö-Spanish teaching at the school. Among the challenges the team has tackled, in ongoing and at times frustrating negotiation with the school staff, are fitting Hñähñö into the existing curriculum and schedule, locating qualified Hñähñö teachers, and designing the actual HñähñöSpanish bilingual curriculum. Part II turns to perspectives and commentaries on the above cases, by four authors with distinguished research records in the field of Indigenous

Introduction

7

language revitalization, who bring to their commentaries both their specialist experience in particular cases and their international perspective on a wide range of cases. In Chapter 6, ‘Revitalization through Indigenous Education: a Forlorn Hope?’, Leena Huss of Uppsala University in Sweden, considers the problem of what to do about the shortcomings of Indigenous education. She takes a clear-eyed look at the disappointments in what has been accomplished in Sámi-medium education, as documented in Hirvonen’s chapter and enriched by her own work on minority languages and Indigenous language revitalization in Scandinavia and Europe (Huss 1999): despite the strong political position of Sámi in the Nordic countries, too few children take part in Sámi-medium education, and in many schools with only a few non-Sámi pupils, Norwegian nevertheless tends to dominate in practice. She points out that the minor and most endangered Sámi languages are in an especially precarious state. Huss notes various discouraging parallels with the other cases herein: that many Sámi pupils, like the Ma¯ori pupils May and Hill describe, are second language learners of Sámi, which the schools inadequately recognize and plan for; that many young Sámi, like the Hñähñö Rebolledo works with or the Latin American Indigenous groups more generally that López describes, leave the traditional areas in search of work or further education and ‘end up far from local Indigenous communities and language and culture competent elders, overwhelmed by a strong majority culture’. Withal, Huss ends with an affirmation that an additive approach is indeed possible for Sámi and for other Indigenous languages worldwide – an approach combining Indigenous education based on Indigenous language and Indigenous knowledge with bilingualism and equal opportunity in the wider society. Far from being a forlorn hope, she reminds us that this ‘struggle without end’ can be as ‘healing and empowering’ as it is ‘onerous and frustrating’. Chapter 7, ‘Commentary from an African and International Perspective’, by Nkonko Kamwangamalu of Howard University in Washington DC, USA, takes up the question of how society can ensure that Indigenous languages and Indigenous knowledges continue into future generations, and the role mother tongue education might play in that purpose, comparing and contrasting the cases in Part I with efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages through schooling in Africa and globally. In Africa, he points out, discussions about mother tongue education from the colonial era to the present have been informed by competing ideologies of development and of (mental) decolonization, with the former implying use of colonial languages in education in order to provide the African

8

Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

child access to processes of development, and the latter calling for replacing ex-colonial languages with Indigenous languages as media of instruction in order to counteract the effects of colonialism in stripping the African child of his/her cultural heritage. Kamwangamalu traces renewed interest in mother tongue education in post-colonial nations of Africa and around the world to theoretical developments around language ecology and the valuing of local languages, to unrealized expectations of national unity via use of a national (ex-colonial) language in the post-colonies, and to widening gaps between elites educated in the colonial language and masses foreclosed from access to it. Yet he cautions that mother tongue education has the potential to disempower Indigenous peoples if it is used to marginalize, segregate and discriminate against them, perhaps especially the case in Africa, as compared to other parts of the world. Taking note that mother tongue education is not always welcomed in Indigenous communities, Kamwangamalu summarizes questions and suspicions raised by parents and communities as recounted in the Sámi, Ma¯ori, Hñähñö, or Latin American cases in Part I, adding others from the situations of Tamil in Singapore (Gupta 1997), aboriginal languages in Taiwan (Li 2003), and Black communities in South Africa (Kamwangamalu 1997). He concludes that unless and until wider societal factors such as ‘political will, economic returns, grassroots support, involvement of non-governmental organizations, availability and allocation of human and material resources’ are set to support the use of Indigenous languages alongside the schools, speakers of those languages are likely to continue to choose the ‘breadwinner’ ex-colonial language, thereby feeding into the ‘main conduit for language shift and loss in many Indigenous communities around the world, and in Africa in particular’. In Chapter 8, ‘Riding the Tiger’, Bernard Spolsky of Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem, Israel, poses the volume’s question in terms of whether schools can preserve rather than weaken the heritage language of Indigenous peoples, that is, whether those who wish to preserve their heritage language and culture can ride the educational tiger that seems intent on consuming it? He begins by clarifying what he understands by ‘saving a language’ – alternatively revernacularization, revitalization, or regeneration, depending on particular situations and goals; and by ‘Indigenous’ – which he takes to mean ‘a usually self-identified minority whose earlier rule of the territory is meant to give them a stronger claim to recognition than other more recent immigrants’. Commenting on the four cases in Part I, and drawing also on perspectives from his own work on Ma¯ori, Navajo, and Hebrew (Spolsky 2002,

Introduction

9

2003; Spolsky and Shohamy 2001), Spolsky concludes that the cases document that, with commitment and with help from majority governments or international bodies, it is indeed possible for Indigenous minorities to ‘ride the tiger by harnessing the proven language shifting function of school systems in the direction of language maintenance’, and that schools can thus help in the pursuit of saving the Indigenous language, though, with other authors herein, he acknowledges that schools alone are not enough. Failing full-fledged language revitalization, two more restricted potential successes Spolsky draws from these cases are the role of language education policy as a focus for mobilization of an ethnic movement, and the value of even a passive knowledge of the heritage L2, as a contribution to ethnic identity and to a linguistic reservoir available for potential future use. These two results, he says, permit a modestly positive answer to our question. The volume concludes with Chapter 9, ‘Schools as Strategic Tools for Indigenous Language Revitalization: Lessons from Native America’, in which Teresa McCarty of Arizona State University in Phoenix, USA, taking as premise the caveat that schools cannot achieve the goal of saving Indigenous languages on their own, argues that this begs the question of just what ‘schools might do to promote, maintain, and revitalize Indigenous languages’. Drawing on the cases in Part I and her own work with Native American communities and schools in the USA (McCarty 2002; McCarty and Zepeda 2006), she begins with evidence that, even in the face of the historical oppression of Indigenous peoples around the world, strong Indigenous bilingual/immersion/intercultural education (IBIIE) programs can do much to stabilize and strengthen Indigenous language proficiency and use and enhance educational opportunities and outcomes among the younger generations. In addition to recalling Sámi maintenance, Ma¯ori full immersion, and Latin American Indigenous bilingual intercultural education (EIB) programs highlighted in Part I, she provides examples from US Hawaiian and Navajo immersion that point to the effectiveness of sustained and academically rigorous Indigenous-language immersion programs as an ‘alternative to Englishonly schooling, even for students with limited proficiency in the Indigenous language’. Beyond these evidences of IBIIE’s effectiveness in strengthening Indigenous languages and Indigenous education, McCarty tackles the question of IBIIE’s role in advancing ‘a larger decolonizing and democratizing project’. All the cases in Part I contain elements of an intercultural approach that extends two-way IBIIE to dominant sectors of society, with the goal and potential of combating societal racism and discrimination.

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

In the Sámi, Ma¯ori, Hñähñö, and other Latin American cases, recent government and educational policy initiatives give strong support to Indigenous languages and multilingualism; McCarty provides examples of courageous school-based Native American educational efforts in New Mexico, Hawai’i, Alaska, and Arizona that wedge open implementational spaces for Indigenous languages and multilingualism in the face of ideological closing-down in the current US context of dominant monolingualism and pervasive English-only educational policy (compare Hornberger 2006a). McCarty recalls Hawaiian activist Sam L. No’eau Warner’s admonition that language issues are always people issues, and affirms that when we ask whether schools can save Indigenous languages, we are really asking about the fundamental right of choice of the Indigenous people who speak those languages to make their own decisions about the content and medium of their children’s education. It’s not about saving a ‘disembodied’ language but about achieving social justice for a people, and in this project, ‘schools alone cannot do the job, but in tandem with other social institutions, they can be (and have been) a strategic resource for exerting Indigenous language and education rights’. Whether the answer to our volume’s question – Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? – is a modest, nuanced, or enthusiastic affirmative, or simply a courageous stance in the face of discouragement over the many challenges remaining ahead even after so many have been overcome, we are above all conscious of the necessity for Indigenous peoples to take the lead in these matters. We advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples to exercise both voice and choice in determining their own Indigenous language revitalization and education processes (Hornberger 2006b; McCarty 2006). Activation of Indigenous voice(s) through use of the Indigenous language in school can be a powerful force for enhancing Indigenous children’s learning and promoting the maintenance and revitalization of their languages (Hornberger 2006b: 290). Equally important is Indigenous choice, entailing ‘the right to linguistic and cultural distinctiveness and to self-education according to local languages and norms’ (McCarty 2006: 313, citing Lomawaima and McCarty 2006). Choice and voice together open up new possibilities for Indigenous language revitalization and for empowering educational alternatives (McCarty 2006: 313). By whatever name we refer to the school’s teaching and use of Indigenous languages – whether Indigenous language-medium education, bilingual intercultural education, intercultural bilingual education, Indigenous education, mother tongue education, IBIIE, or heritage language education – we are convinced that schools have a powerful role to

Introduction

11

play in Indigenous language revitalization and the empowerment of Indigenous communities. Too often, though, school-based efforts ‘miss the mark’ for having failed to ‘include the Indigenous understanding, goals, purpose, and voice’ (Romero-Little 2006: 400). A theme resounding in these pages is that of Indigenous peoples reclaiming ideological and implementational spaces ‘articulating and constructing their own distinct paradigms based on Indigenous epistemologies and rooted in self-determination and social justice’ (Romero-Little 2006: 399). We hope that this volume contributes a step along that way.

Note Here and throughout, we capitalize Indigenous when it refers to people(s), in keeping with the practice of Indigenous organizations such as the Indigenous Language Institute of Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, or the American Indian Language Development Institute at the University of Arizona, USA.

References Baker, Colin (2001), Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Gupta, A. (1997), ‘When mother tongue education is not preferred’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18: 496–506. Hirvonen, V. (1999), Sámeeatnama jienat-Sápmelaš nissona bálggis girje!cállin [The Voices of Sápmi-Sámi Women’s Way to Authorship], Guovdageaidnu, Norway: DAT. Hornberger, N.H. (2002), ‘Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: an ecological approach’, Language Policy, 1(1): 27–51. Hornberger, N.H. (2006a), ‘Nichols to NCLB: local and global perspectives on U.S. language education policy’, in O. García, T. Skutnabb-Kangas and M. TorresGuzmán (eds), Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Glocalization, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 223–37. Hornberger, N.H. (2006b), ‘Voice and biliteracy in Indigenous language revitalization: contentious educational practices in Quechua, Guarani, and Ma¯ori contexts’, Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 5(4): 277–92. Hornberger, N.H. and K.A. King (1996), ‘Bringing the language forward: schoolbased initiatives for Quechua language revitalization in Ecuador and Bolivia’, in N.H. Hornberger (ed.), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up, Berlin: Mouton, pp. 299–319. Huss, Leena (1999), ‘Reversing language shift in the Far North, linguistic revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland’, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Uralica Upsaliensia 31, Uppsala University. Kamwangamalu, N. (1997), ‘Multilingualism and education policy in postapartheid South Africa’, Language Problems and Language Planning, 21(3): 234–53.

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Kamwangamalu, N. (2005), ‘Multilingualism and language planning in postcolonial Africa: what prospects for the Indigenous languages?’ Plenary address at the 14th World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Madison, Wisconsin. Li, D.C. (2003), ‘Between English and Esperanto: what does it take to be a world language?’ International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 164: 333–63. Lomawaima, K.T. and T.L. McCarty (2006), ‘To Remain an Indian’: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education, New York: Teachers College Press. López, L.E. (2005), De resquicios a boquerones: La educación intercultural bilingüe en bolivia, La Paz: PROEIB Andes y Plural Editores. López, L.E. (2006), ‘Cultural diversity, multilingualism and Indigenous education in Latin America’, in T. Skutnabb-Kangas, O. García and M. Torres-Guzmán (eds), Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Glocalization, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 238–61. May, S. (ed.), (1999), Indigenous Community-based Education, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (2001), Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language, Harlow: Pearson Education. May, S. (2004), ‘Ma¯ori-medium Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, in J.W. Tollefson and A.B. M. Tsui (eds), Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 21–41. McCarty, T.L. (2002), A Place to be Navajo – Rough Rock and the Struggle for Selfdetermination in Indigenous Schooling, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McCarty, T.L. (2006), ‘Voice and choice in Indigenous language revitalization’, Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 5(4): 308–15. McCarty, T.L. and O. Zepeda (eds) (2006), One Voice, Many Voices: Recreating Indigenous Language Communities, Tempe and Tucson, Arizona: Arizona State University Center for Indian Education/ University of Arizona American Indian Language Development Institute. Rebolledo, N. (2002), ‘Autonomía indígena y educación intercultural’, Anuario Educativo Mexicano: Visión Retrospectiva, 1: 182–207. Romaine, S. (2006), ‘Planning for the survival of linguistic diversity’, Language Policy, 5: 441–73. Romero-Little, M.E. (2006), ‘Honoring our own: rethinking of Indigenous languages and literacy’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 37(4): 399–402. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000), Linguistic Genocide in Education – or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Spolsky, B. (2002), ‘Prospects for the survival of the Navajo language: a reconsideration’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 33(2): 139–62. Spolsky, B. (2003), ‘Reassessing Ma¯ori regeneration’, Language in Society, 32(4): 553–78. Spolsky, B. and E. Shohamy (2001), ‘Hebrew after a century of RLS efforts’, in J.A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 349–62.

Part I Case Studies on Four Continents

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2

‘Out on the fells, I feel like a Sámi’: Is There Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School? Vuokko Hirvonen

Introduction One of the main issues concerning educational models for Indigenous and minority children is the question of mother-tongue medium (MTM) education, and it is the main issue for the Sámi people, too. For instance, a report written by experts of the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues points out that the right to mother-tongue medium education is an educational linguistic human right. These experts have also made draft recommendations to governments that: all education programmes for Indigenous children and youth [should provide mother tongue medium instruction] based on the insights from solid research over many years [that show] that mainly mother tongue medium bilingual education (MTM) is superior to all other forms of education practices in order to achieve literacy and generally effective learning, including ‘the development of the child’s personality talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’ (CRC, Art. 29). (Magga et al. 2004: 1, 27) The Sámi people (see Figure 2.1) in the Nordic countries have been working intensively from the 1960s to get mother-tongue (Sámi) medium education to their children throughout compulsory education. This work has been fruitful and, for example, in Norway Sámi children do nowadays have the right to instruction in the Sámi language, although the praxis depends on each school. In this chapter, I examine and analyze the situation of the Sámi language and bilingual education today, and how the Sámi schools have managed to revitalize the Sámi language in Norway. Before the analysis, I define the ‘Sámi school’ and describe the 15

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

O C E A N

A R C T I C

North Cape

Varangerfjord

Karasjok Kautokeino

NORWEGIAN SEA

BARENTS SEA

Murmansk Inari Kiruna

KOLA PENINSULA

Arctic Circle

I A L

FINLAND

nia

SWEDEN

K

Lake Onega

Gu

lf o

NORWAY

A

fB

R

oth

E

Trondheim

TR ON

DE LA G

White Sea

Osio

Lake Ladoga

Helsinki Stockholm

Gulf of Finland Tallinn

Saint Petersburg

FEDERATION OF RUSSIA

ESTONIA

BA

LT IC

SE

A

0

400 km

LATVIA Riga Moscow

"Sápmi" The native land of the Sámi Site of Sámi parliaments State capitals

Figure 2.1

The area of the Sámi people and Sámi languages

Source: Cartography by Thierry Gauthé, reproduced from Seurujärvi-Kari et al. (1997: 5).

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

17

legal history of the Sámi curriculum and the geographical distribution and types of Sámi schools. Towards the end of the chapter, the types of Sámi bilingual education as well as language revitalization in Sámi schools are described. The chapter is mainly based on the evaluation project, The Integration of the Sámi Language and Culture into the Sámi School (O97S), administered by Sámi University College in 2000–03 (see Bibsys). It was a part of the national evaluation program of Reform 97 – a curriculum reform – which was initiated by the Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research and administered by the Research Council of Norway (see Forskningsrådet).1 Resulting from the evaluation, two reports have been published in the Sámi language. One of them is a report called Mo sámáidahttit skuvlla? (Hirvonen 2003; English translation, Hirvonen 2004). This report studies the reflections of thirteen Sámi teachers by using the narrative method, but other methods are also used to assess whether the new curriculum has succeeded in Sáminizing the school. In this chapter I use teachers’ narratives from the study, but I have also collected new information and statistics from school years 2004–05 and 2005–06 in the Sámi schools.

The history of the development of Sámi schools In the 1800s, there was a strongly-felt desire to create powerful nationstates in Norway and the other Nordic countries. One of the many effects of this was that the Sámi lost their language rights. In Norway, schools were the main instrument through which the Sámi were to be systematically Norwegianized. As a result of intensive Norwegianization, the Sámi language remained outside the school walls from the early 1900s to the late 1950s (Hætta Eriksen 1977: 6). The year 1959 was a milestone, because in that year a separate regulation, according to which Sámi could be used as a language of instruction on the basis of guidelines set by the Ministry of Education, was included in the educational law on primary schools. After that, Sámi started to gain more space in school, but progress has, nevertheless, been very slow. Between 1967 and 1987 there were three school reforms, each of which gradually strengthened the rights of Sámi children to instruction in and through Sámi. Since 1967, schools have officially been able to use Sámi at the primary level, even though the regulation itself did not come into force until 1969. The next step in Sámi educational history was taken when the curriculum Model Plan (M74) came into force in 1974: it included Sámi as an obligatory subject. It was followed by the education

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

law of 1975, which states that Sámi children who live in the Sámi areas are to be provided teaching in the Sámi language if their parents so request. In the corresponding law of 1985, which revised the regulation of 1975, the right to receive teaching in and of Sámi in the primary school became stronger. Two years later, school reform M87 (Model Plan) changed the model curriculum so that it was possible to teach the Sámi language as well as teaching other subjects in Sámi in all grades of students’ compulsory education – but only in Sámi areas (M87: 35). A year after the Model Plan (M74) came into force, the Sámi Educational Board was founded through a Royal Resolution in Norway (1976). Its purpose was to attend to educational issues concerning the Sámi, and during the first years of its existence, the board worked to integrate Sámi content into the curriculum and to ensure that teaching materials were available in Sámi. The board worked under the auspices of the Ministry of Education until the end of 1999. Since then, Sámi educational issues have been administered by the Sámi Parliament (established in 1989), and the Sámi Educational Board is now called the Sámi Parliament’s Department of Education. Sámi education is emphasized much more strongly in the 1987 Model Plan (M87) for compulsory education than in the earlier plans. It contains the general objectives for the teaching of Sámi students (Chapter 5), the allocation of lessons for students studying Sámi, and three different language plans for students who are taught Sámi or learn through Sámi. In 1989, there was an addition to this model curriculum: A Model Curriculum for the Comprehensive School, 2nd Part: Sámi Syllabuses, which contained syllabuses that were, to some extent, adjusted to Sámi conditions (Christianity, English, environmental studies, social studies, music, handicraft, and home economics). It should also be pointed out that it was not until the adoption of the 1987 model curriculum that the Sámi language was recognized as equal to Norwegian instead of being merely considered an auxiliary language (Balto 1996: 12). All in all, one can say that M87 provided a good basis for the present curriculum O97S. The establishment of the Sámi Parliament in 1989, following the passing of the Sámi Act (SáL 1987) in 1987, had a very strong and positive influence on the progress of the Sámi school. The Sámi Act, together with the amendments to the Norwegian Constitution (§110a) and the Education Act (VSL 1990) and the regulations concerning the Sámi language (Sámi Language Act, SáLGn 1992), expanded the opportunities for teaching and learning through Sámi. The 1987 Act states that the Sámi and Norwegian languages are equal languages which are of equal importance

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

19

(Sect. 1 (5)), and its regulations must be followed, in the area in which the Sámi Language Act is to be implemented, by public institutions, the activities of which cover all or part of a municipality (Sect. 3 (1)). The Sámi Language Act was to be implemented in the Sámi Administrative Area (later Sámi Area, see Figure 2.2): in five municipalities in the province of Finnmark (Unjárga/Nesseby (1), Deatnu/Tana (2), Kárášjohka/Karasjok (3), Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino (4), Porsá!gu/Porsanger (5)) and one municipality in the province of Troms (Gáivuotna/Kåfjord (6)). From 1 January 2006, a new municipality, Divttasvuotna/Tysfjord (7), was included in the Sámi Administrative Area. The Education Act (VSL 1990, § 40 a) provided all children living in the Sámi Area, regardless of their ethnic background, the right to receive instruction in and through the medium of Sámi. Pupils with a Sámi background outside the Sámi Area also got the right to instruction in or through Sámi, but there had to be at least three pupils in any one school. The Education Act also granted the municipalities in the Sámi Area the right to decide that all Sámi-speaking pupils in a comprehensive school would be taught Sámi for nine years, and that Norwegian-speaking pupils would also have Sámi as a subject. Before 1987, when the Sámi Act defined the Sámi Administrative Area the concept ‘Sámi area’ had been very complicated. It dates back to the beginning of the Norwegianization period in the 1840s when overgangsdistrikter, or ‘transitional regions’, were defined. According to this definition, there were two types of areas: areas of language shift, overgangsdistrikter, and purely Sámi speaking areas, also known as core Sámi areas (Kárášjohka, Guovdageaidnu, Buolbmát, and Unjárga municipalities). The transitional regions consisted of the coastal areas of the provinces Troms and Finnmark, but not Eastern Finnmark or the inland areas of Western Finnmark. In the transitional regions, there was also a special policy the aim of which was not to maintain the Sámi language, but to destroy it as quickly as possible. Today, the term ‘transitional regions’ has a different meaning, as now those areas are the target of various measures designed to prevent the disappearance of the Sámi languages (Hirvonen 2004: 33). In this chapter, the term ‘the central Sámi Area’ means the part of the Sámi Administrative Area where the Sámi-speaking inhabitants are in the majority and, often, Sámi is the dominant language. These municipalities are Guovdageaidnu, Kárášjohka, a part of Deatnu, and Unjárga. The other parts of the Sámi Administrative Area are Porsá!gu and Gáivuotna municipalities and the coastal part of Deatnu municipality.

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

2 1 5 6

3 4

7

Figure 2.2

The Sámi Administrative Area in Norway

Source: Cartography by Davvi Girji, KlikkArt and the Sámi Parliament 2006.

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

21

The Sámi school: a new era The adoption of the Sámi curriculum for the 10-year comprehensive school (O97S) has been the biggest step ever taken in Sámi educational matters. For the first time in the educational history of Norway and the Nordic countries there was a separate Sámi curriculum which had equal status with the national curriculum. Both curricula consist of three sections: the general section, the principles, and the syllabuses. The section on principles is the most important part for the Sámi school, because it defines and describes its main characteristics and also tells which aspects of Sámi culture the school should emphasize and pass down to new generations. Legally, the Sámi curriculum is based on the Norwegian Constitution (§110 a), the Sámi Act (SáL 1987), the Education Act (VSL 1990 and OL 1998), and ILO Convention No. 169. The Sámi curriculum applies to the municipalities of the area where the Sámi Language Act (SáLGn 1992) is implemented, but individual classes, schools, school districts, or municipalities outside this administrative area can also follow the syllabuses. It is also the first time in Sámi educational history that the concept ‘Sámi school’ is mentioned and defined at the level of a curriculum. According to the curriculum’s definition, the Sámi school means classes, schools, or municipalities that follow the Sámi curriculum (O97S: 57). The most significant thing about the curriculum – in terms of politics – is that the syllabuses do not apply only to Sámi but to all students in the implementation area of the Sámi Act, and Sámi do not need to be a majority in such Sámi schools. The beginning of the section on principles states that: The Sámi School, as part of the common school, is founded on the principle that education must be common and equal and start from and be based on the nature and needs of the Sámi society. In terms of content and quality, education must provide basic skills which bring the cultural heritage to life, motivate students to make use of the local culture, and provide children and young people with the desire to become active and innovative in both the Sámi and Norwegian societies. Education must enhance a positive self-esteem in each pupil. (KUF 1998/816: 1) Thus, Sámi language, culture and social life must not be looked at purely as historical phenomena; and education must ensure the revitalization of

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

Sámi cultural heritage and local culture. The strengthening of the Sámi students’ identity is one of the main tasks of the Sámi schools, and they are expected to be able to teach about the varieties of Sámi communities. Education should also stress the position of the Sámi as an Indigenous people among other Indigenous peoples. The curriculum’s section on principles provides guidelines for the subject syllabuses. The intention is for the principles then to be made concrete and put into practice locally and at syllabus level. Thus, we are dealing not only with educational change and the adoption of a curriculum, but also with much wider issues; the social and political changes that concern the meeting of different cultures. This raises the question of whether it is at all possible to make the ways of the school the ways of society, or vice versa, and whether the curriculum provides enough room for the realization of multicultural activities. When the curriculum sets such explicit goals for education, one has to ask how the schools and municipalities have succeeded in achieving these goals. These challenges are diverse and vary according to each municipality and school.

Teaching in and of the Sámi language In 1998, a new Education Act (OL 1998) came into force, maintaining the challenges of the O97S curriculum and its objectives of functional bilingualism. When comparing this new act with the earlier education act of 1990, one can see that it has three important additions. First, it guarantees that the pupil is provided teaching in and of the Sámi language outside the Sámi Administrative Area if at least ten students in the municipality (as opposed to the earlier ruling of three students in a school) want to have such instruction. The other remarkable addition is that Sámi children throughout Norway now have, for the first time, an individual right to study Sámi. The law also gives the Sámi Parliament the right to lay down regulations concerning the topics relating to the Sámi people – their language, culture and social life – which are included in the National Curriculum. The present Sámi curriculum enables municipalities and individual schools to arrange Sámi education in many ways. The Sámi language can be the language in which students get all their compulsory schooling, it can be studied as a first (L1) or second language (L2), or it can be studied as part of the subject ‘Sámi language and culture’; but it is also possible that Sámi is not taught at all. In the municipalities of Guovdageaidnu, Kárášjohka and Unjárga, Sámi is compulsory for every student, but in Porsá!gu, Deatnu and Gáivuotna it is optional. This means that 46 per cent

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

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of the students in Deatnu, 61 per cent in Porsá!gu, and 65 per cent in Gáivuotna are not taught Sámi at all, although some of them learn Finnish as their second language (5.5 per cent in the whole Sámi Area). In the school year 2004/05, there were 20 schools (2146 students) in the Sámi Administrative Area and almost ten schools outside this area which used the Sámi curriculum. As a comparison during the same period there were, in the whole of Norway, 194 schools, including the Sámi schools, which taught Sámi as a subject according to at least one of the three variants of Sámi language syllabuses. The position of the Sámi language has strengthened gradually, and, for example since the school year 2002/03, the number of schools teaching Sámi has increased by about 20 per cent and the number of students during the same period has increased from 2640 to 3023 (12.7 per cent) (see http://www.samediggi.no). In the school year 2004/05 there were 3023 students in Norway who were taught Sámi (see Table 2.1). Of these students 1455 (48 per cent) were living inside and 1568 (52 per cent) outside the Sámi Administrative Area. Within the Sámi Administrative Area more students were taught through Sámi (865) than outside (156) or had Sámi as their first language (L1: 883/132). The balance changes when speaking about Sámi as a second language (L2): there were 595 students outside the Sámi Administrative Area and 318 inside. Also the numbers studying the curriculum for Sámi language and culture are higher outside the Sámi area. Table 2.1 Variation of Sámi as medium of instruction, first and second language and the teaching of Sámi language and culture, 2004/05 The Sámi language in the school Sámi language syllabuses

The Sámi language groups North Sámi Lule Sámi South Sámi Total in Norway Total in Sámi Administ. Area Total outside the Administ. Area Source: GSI statistics.

Total number Sámi as Sámi Sámi as Sámi of students medium of as 1st 2nd language (the three instruction language language and language culture syllabuses) 986 34 1 1021 865

971 34 10 1015 883

820 24 69 913 318

1037 16 42 1095 254

2828 74 121 3023 1455

156

132

595

841

1568

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

The table also shows that the biggest language group are North Sámi students, of whom a slight majority live in the Sámi Administrative Area (51 per cent). When comparing the two other Sámi languages which are taught, Lule Sámi and South Sámi, we can see that the South Sámi group is bigger than the Lule Sámi one. However, the Lule Sámi language is in a better situation than South Sámi in the school, because more students have it as a medium of instruction. During the last three school years the situation of South Sámi has improved. The number of L1 learners has increased gradually and, during the school year 2005/06, three pupils were taught through South Sámi. Within the Sámi Area, teaching in and of Sámi varies not only from one municipality to another, but also within individual municipalities. This variation is shown in Table 2.2. The two first columns of the table list the six municipalities (bold) and 20 schools. The next column gives the numbers of students whose main language of instruction is Sámi, and the fourth column shows how many students have Sámi as their first language (L1). These numbers are usually the same, since, according to the O97S, students who choose Sámi as their first language are supposed to get their learning through Sámi. The fifth column consists of the numbers of second language (L2) learners. The main goal of this syllabus, as well as the first language syllabus, is for students to become functionally bilingual in Sámi and Norwegian by the time they have completed ten years of compulsory schooling. The sixth column shows how many students have chosen the third variant of the Sámi language syllabuses, Sámi language and culture. This syllabus is intended primarily for those students who know very little about the Sámi language and culture. This alternative is the weakest of the three, as the goals are much lower than for example for the first foreign language, English; neither does the syllabus have bilingualism as a goal (Todal 2002: 73). The seventh column shows the number of students whose main language of instruction and first language is Norwegian, and the last column shows the total number of students in each municipality and school. If we analyze the Sámi schools in the Sámi Area more closely, we find that schools have organized the teaching of the Sámi language in a number of different ways. The Sámi schools can be categorized into three groups (indicated on Table 2.2): (1) Sámi-speaking schools (S) Education through the medium of Sámi language (L1) where Norwegian is being learned as a second (L2) or virtually foreign language. In these schools, Sámi is the main language

Table 2.2

Sámi schools (20) and the position of Sámi in teaching during 2004/05 school year in the Sámi Administrative Area

Municipality

School (grades)

Sámi as

Sámi Norwegian as Total no. of language 1st language students and culture

a medium 1st language 2nd language Deatnu/Tana N N S N S Sámi-as-L2 students get their learning through Sámi. Gáivuotna/ Kåfjord N N N-S Kárášjohka/ Karasjok S-N

Juovlavuotna school(1–10) Bokcá school(1–10) Deatnu Sámi school (1–10) Sieiddá school (1–10) Sirbmá school (1–10)

Trollvik school(1–5) Dálošvággi school(1–10) Olmmáivággi school(1–10)

Kárášjohka primary school (1–7)

88 0 0 66 0 22

93 0 5 66 0 22

56 8 23 0 23 2

36 8 7 0 21 0

253 46 63 0 142 2

341 46 63 66 142 24

7

7

63

37

298

303

0 0 7

0 0 7

10 11 42

16 8 13

77 126 93

77 126 100

340

340

91

1

92

432

253

253

65

0

65

319 25

(Continued)

(Continued)

Municipality

26

Table 2.2

School (grades)

Sámi as

Sámi Norwegian as Total no. of language 1st language students and culture

a medium 1st language 2nd language S-N Guovdageaidnu/ Kautokeino S-N S-N There are only mixed groups. S S/ S-N There are both Sámi and mixed groups. ŋgu/ Porsáŋ Porsanger N-S Sámi-as-L1 students are in mixed groups with a resource teacher.

Kárášjohka lower secondary school (8–10)

Guovdageaidnu primary school (1–7) Guovdageaidnu lower secondary school (8–10) Láhpoluoppal school (1–7) Máze school (1–10)

Billávuotna school (1–10)

87

87

26

1

27

114

390

390

23

4

27

417

230

230

7

0

7

237

101

101

16

1

17

118

13 46

13 46

0 0

0 3

0 3

13 49

15

28

49

141

542

557

5

5

13

13

44

49

N-S Bissojohka school (1–10) Sámi-as-L1 student is in a mixed group with a resource teacher. N Ruoššanjárga school (1–10) N-S/N Leavdnja school (1–10) I have divided the school into primary and secondary levels when assessing the language program. Unjárga/Nesseby N-S N-S

Unjárga school (1–4) Stuorravuotna school (5–10)

1

1

4

0

24

25

0 9

0 22

0 32

12 116

26 448

26 457

25 11 14

25 11 14

36 17 19

35 13 22

71 30 41

96 41 55

Source: GSI statistics.

27

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

of communication and the native language of the students. There are four schools which belong to this category. (2) Sámi- and Norwegian-speaking schools (S-N and N-S) In these schools each subject is taught in both Sámi and Norwegian, or there are mixed groups (N-S), where both languages are used. This means that students can choose either Sámi or Norwegian as their first language – which will also be their main language of instruction; the Norwegianspeaking students in these schools can or have to study Sámi as a subject. This category is not very explicit, there being schools which use Norwegian when teaching Sámi-speaking classes especially in the lower secondary levels. In the Sámi-Norwegian-speaking schools, Norwegian was the main language of teaching in six schools during the 2004/05 school year, while Sámi had that status in four schools. (3) Norwegian-speaking schools (N) In these schools Sámi is taught almost exclusively as a subject. Other subjects are very seldom taught in the Sámi language. In these schools and classes, Norwegian is the main language of teaching and communication. There are seven schools (Leavdnja school’s lower secondary levels are included) which belong to this group.

The challenges of the O97S curriculum to bilingual education In the Sámi schools there are students who belong to many ethnic groups (Sámi, Norwegian, Kven, Finnish, Russian and so on), and the question of mother tongue is an important and interesting issue which can be approached from many perspectives. According to Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, there are four different criteria used in the definition of the mother tongue. These are origin, identification, competence, and function. It is important to recognize that a person may have more than one mother tongue and the mother tongue(s) may change during an individual’s lifetime. The mother tongue may also mean the heritage language, which earlier generations of the ethnic group have spoken but the person herself does not even know (2000: 105–15; 2005). Nowadays many Sámi children in the core Sámi area of the Nordic countries speak at least two languages before they start school. Normally, those languages are the majority language (Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish) and Sámi, which means that the children have two mother tongues or they have been learning the majority language as a second language. Outside the core Sámi area, it has been and still is very usual for Sámi children to learn the majority language at home. Thus their first language

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

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is the majority language, although they may have parents or grandparents who are Sámi-speaking or may identify themselves as Sámi, but who have lost or never learned the Sámi language, and would want their children to learn their heritage language. This heterogeneous situation has its own challenges, especially in schools, where Sámi language proficiency differs from student to student; there are also differences in how the schools are able to fulfill, the goals of the curriculum and the parents. Two of the main goals of the O97S curriculum are that every student in the Sámi area should learn about Sámi culture and that as many students as possible should become bilingual at least in Sámi and Norwegian. One can ask how Sámi schools support the Sámi children in learning their Indigenous minority language and in receiving their education in the Sámi language as well as how Norwegian-speaking students learn Sámi; or as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas puts it: ‘How should education be organized, so as to make everybody bilingual or multilingual at a high level?’ (2000: 569). There are many studies concerning bilingual education and the role of the school in language maintenance and revitalization. Bilingual education requires that two languages be used as media of instruction in subjects other than the language themselves (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 571). Skutnabb-Kangas (ibid.) and Colin Baker (2001: 194) discuss different types of bilingual and minority education and divide them into non-forms (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 571) and low/weak and high/strong forms of bilingual education. Skutnabb-Kangas (in Magga et al. 2004:4) states that a good educational program should be able to accomplish: high levels of multilingualism; a fair chance of achieving academically at school; strong, positive multilingualism and multicultural identity and positive attitude towards self and others; and a fair chance of awareness and competence building as prerequisites for working for a more equitable world, for oneself and one’s own group as well as others, locally and globally.

Strong and weak forms of bilingual education in Sámi For evaluating the language programs in the Sámi Area, I use the models from Baker (2001) and Skutnabb-Kangas (2000). Baker defines immersion, maintenance/heritage language, two-way/dual language, and mainstream bilingual programs as strong forms of education, which lead to a high level of bilingualism in L1/L2 (2001: 194). Maintenance bilingual

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

education has as a major goal to develop both the learners’ native language and majority language skills, and to use both languages in the learning of considerable content (Faltis and Hudelson 1998: 30). As weak forms, Baker defines submersion, transitional, segregationist, mainstream monolingual programs with foreign language teaching, and separatist programs, which lead to strong dominance in one language (2001: 194). Tove Skutnabb-Kangas has made a new categorization, dividing Baker’s weak forms into non-forms and weak forms of bilingual education. Nonforms are mainstream monolingual programs with foreign language teaching, submersion, and segregation programs, and the rest belong to the weak forms (2000: 578–80). Of the strong forms of bilingual education, Sámi schools are using maintenance/heritage language and two-way/dual language forms of education (Billávuotna, Bissojohka and Kárášjohka2 schools), but immersion models are not commonly used; only few children have been provided with such an education (for example, in Sirbmá school). In schools which can be categorized as maintenance bilingual education schools, Sámi receives a more prominent place in the curriculum than Norwegian. In these schools, the Sámi language is seen to be of great value, in part because of the Sámi Act, the O97S curriculum and the Education Law, but mostly for its own sake. In those Sámi schools where Sámi-speaking students (L1) get their main education in Sámi, one can see that not only are there maintenance/heritage language programs, but the schools also have effective bilingual education as a part of the whole school system. In these schools, Sámi is also the main language of communication and the native language of the students. A teacher, Káre, working in a primary school describes a situation which is very common in these schools: Sámi is the language the children learn through, and they speak Sámi during the breaks. The Sámi language is the main language; I must say that you seldom hear Norwegian in the primary school. In that way, I don’t think that Norwegian is getting stronger than Sámi … Most of the teachers are Sámi who speak Sámi … All our meetings are held in Sámi and interpreted into Norwegian. The administration consists of Sámi-speaking people. The parents get the letters in Sámi and Norwegian. The children prefer to study Sámi rather than Norwegian … It was really weird for me – the fact that Sámi is considered the most prestigious language and Norwegian is nothing. (Hirvonen 2004: 140)

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There are four schools which belong to this category: Deatnu Sámi school, Láhpoluoppal school, Sirbmá school, and Máze school’s Sámispeaking classes. The Sámi-Norwegian-speaking schools where students are divided into two language groups also belong to this category: both Guovdageaidnu and Kárášjohka primary schools’ Sámi-speaking classes (1–7). The Sámi-speaking classes of Olmmáivággi school (1–10), Leavdnja school’s primary level classes (1–6), and the Sámi-speaking classes of Unjárga (1–4) fall at a slightly lower level when assessing the status of the Sámi language. In these Norwegian-Sámi schools, a minority of the students learn through Sámi; thus, the schools have Norwegian as their main language of teaching and communication. Although Sámi-speaking children initially receive literacy instruction in their native language in many Sámi primary schools (1–7), the situation tends to change at higher levels because of the lack of teachers and because instructional materials are more readily available in Norwegian than Sámi. This means that as students move to the eighth grade in a bilingual class, Sámi is used less and less in instruction during the school day (approximately 50 per cent). Another way to reorganize a bilingual class is to have mixed groups. Normally in mixed groups, Norwegianspeaking students are in a minority, and it has been shown many times that a single Norwegian-speaking student in a class can turn all teaching into Norwegian (see Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2001: 27). It is obvious that mixed groups lead to teaching through Norwegian rather than through Sámi, and in the worst cases, this can mean that Sámi children are Norwegianized or transferred to the dominant group linguistically and culturally (see Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2001: 29). In both these cases – Sámi-speaking classes in a S-N school and mixed classes – Norwegian gains more and more space, even if all or a majority of the children are still Sámi-speaking. Thus, Norwegian becomes the main language of teaching and Sámi the main language of communication. Such a model is called transitional bilingual education, and, according to Baker and Skutnabb-Kangas, is categorized as a weak model and seen as assimilationist. In the Sámi schools as well as in other parts of the world, the most common system for transitional bilingual education is a class taught by a bilingual teacher (see Faltis and Hudelson 1998: 27), but monolingual majority teachers sometimes also teach these classes. The linguistic human right, the right to mainly mother-tongue medium education provided by a competent bilingual teacher, is violated in many cases when organizing transitional language education (see also Magga et al. 2004: 2; Aikio-Puoskari and Pentikäinen 2001). One could say that the schools

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

which have adopted a transitional model have given up on the wishes of parents and students as concerns learning through the Sámi language. We can place Kárášjohka lower secondary school, Stuorravuotna school (although it has succeeded gradually in increasing Sámi-medium teaching) and Guovdageaidnu and Máze schools with their mixed classes into this category of transitional bilingual education. For example at Máze school, the first language of the children is Sámi, but there are some Norwegian-speaking (L1) children, too. There are two kinds of classes: Sámi and mixed. In the Sámi classes, subjects were taught through Sámi in 2005–2006; but, in mixed classes, where Sámi- and Norwegian-speaking students are together, teaching is provided through both languages by one bilingual teacher, while during L1 and L2 subjects, the groups are separated. This arrangement is not voluntary: it has been dictated by the circumstances. In Guovdageaidnu lower secondary school, too, the model of education program seems to be transitional. In the Sámi-Norwegian-speaking schools, then, we can see two tendencies: there are schools which work to increase their Sámi-speaking classes where subjects are taught through Sámi, and there are schools which tend to decrease their supply of teaching through the Sámi language.

Language revitalization and the Sámi school The harsh policy of Norwegianization from the mid-1800s until the 1960s led to severe suppression of Sámi culture and language. The Norwegian parliament pursued a vigorous policy, especially directed at those living in the coastal Sámi area, of linguistical and cultural assimilation of Sámi people into the majority population, which also meant educating them to become monolingual. As a result, many Sámi parents started to speak Norwegian to their children, and many children grew up in a milieu that was unfavorable to multilingual or multicultural development (see also Todal 1999: 127; Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2001: 26; Huss 1999: 74). After a hundred years of assimilation and as a result of the Sámi ethnic revival which started after World War II a new policy has been formed in Norway and the other Nordic countries. The situation has changed especially since the 1970s when the Sámi people started to gain more political and linguistic rights and recognition in society (Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2001: 26). With the wave of the ethnic revival, the role of the school also changed and Sámi language and culture have gradually gained more space in the school system. Nowadays, some of those parents who have lost their mother tongue want to revitalize their own and their children’s knowledge of the Sámi language. According to Leena

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

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Huss and many others, language revitalization means ‘a conscious effort to curtail the assimilative development of a language which has been steadily decreasing in use and to give it a new life and vigour’ (1999: 24). In the coastal Sámi area, this kind of revitalization is very obvious and remarkable when looking at individual persons and schools. According to the O97S curriculum, pupils can choose Sámi as their second language, which has functional bilingualism as its goal. It can be an optional subject for those who study Norwegian as their first language and for those who simply want to study Sámi. Groups can be very heterogeneous, including pupils who speak Sámi as fluently as native speakers and others who are just beginning to learn the language. The latter may come from families where their Sámi parents do not know Sámi themselves or do not speak it to their children. Sámi can also be taken by ethnic Norwegian children who simply want to learn Sámi. Teaching in such a situation demands, of course, a great deal of the teacher, who has to figure out how to organize the teaching, how to guide each pupil, and how to achieve, in the end, the objectives of the syllabus. How have schools managed to fulfill parents’ demands and wishes? When analyzing the language policy of schools outside the central Sámi area one can see that instruction is mainly given through Norwegian. This means that Sámi children are usually assigned to Norwegian-speaking classrooms and instructed through the majority language. Students are pulled out of their regular classrooms to receive teaching in the Sámi language, and often the students studying the second language and the subject of Sámi language and culture are mixed. If Sámi parents want their children to become bilingual in their heritage language – which is the main goal of the syllabus of Sámi as a second language – we have to conclude that the Sámi schools are not supplying education programs which make it possible to reach this goal. Here, the school has not given the students a real opportunity to learn the Sámi language well enough to be able to pass as a native speaker, and we can say that the school works against the parents’ wishes and, as a powerful institution, is again assimilating Sámi children. This kind of language education can be defined, according to Baker, as mainstream monolingual education with foreign language teaching in which the children belonging to the linguistic majority are instructed through their mother tongue and the foreign language is taught as a subject (2001: 194). Tove Skutnabb-Kangas goes further and calls this a non-form of bilingual education. According to her, none of the nonforms and weak forms fit under the classic definition of ‘bilingual education’. They fit under the United Nations definition of linguistic genocide

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Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages?

if they are used for minority groups or Indigenous peoples, because ‘they transfer minority children linguistically to the majority group’ (SkutnabbKangas 2000: 579). Skutnabb-Kangas refers to the UN International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). For example its Article II (e) defines genocide as ‘forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’, and Article II (b) as ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group’; both processes apply to the present educational situation of the Sámi (see also Bear Nicholas 2005; Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2001: 29–30). As noted above, this same weak form, mainstream with foreign language teaching, is also used when teaching ethnic Norwegian-speaking children in the central Sámi area. This means that bilingualism is a utopian goal, if it is a goal at all. Often, children from Norwegian-speaking families do not become bilingual, even if they study Sámi throughout their compulsory schooling. Ovllá, who works as a teacher in the central Sámi area, confirms this: ‘There are also students who have hardly learned any Sámi before they leave the school; they do not care, they are not interested. Every year, we have maybe five to ten such students. That is quite a few in our school, when you look at the percentage.’ It is important to remember that Sámi is the language of a minority and has a lower status in society and only a few domains in which it is used (see Magga 2003). In many areas, it is also a language which is only taught as a subject in school and there are few people in the community who have it as their native language. On the other hand, the pupils who choose Sámi as a second language are supposed to become bilingual. In such a situation, teaching methods – and how suitable the methods are for Sámi children – are of importance. Risten, a teacher in an N lower secondary school, describes her teaching methods, an example of pedagogy that motivates pupils to use the language actively in order to enhance their knowledge while simultaneously strengthening their self-confidence: Of course, I feel that they will learn the language naturally and faster while working. We try to do that, to use Sámi while working. My students say that they feel like Sámi when they are out on the fells so I spend a lot of time outside with them. We go to the shore and I speak only Sámi there … We spend very little time in the classroom. And I’ve noticed that it encourages them. They have this Sámi feeling when they are on the fells and outside in nature, and they like to use the language there. (Hirvonen 2004: 90–1)

Linguistic and Cultural Equality in the Sámi School

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In some settings, instruction is provided in the Sámi language by a resource teacher who works with the Norwegian-speaking teacher in the same classroom (in Billávuotna and Bissojohka schools with Sámi as L1), or through removing children from their regular classrooms to instruct them in the native language; some immersion camps have also been organized. In some areas, schools get assistance from Sámi kindergartens. From these kindergartens, children enter school speaking Sámi and can choose it as their first or second language. The newly-established Sámi resource and language centers also help the schools with the teaching of Sámi. There are language centers in Leavdnja, Olmmáivággi and Stuorravuotna. Teachers say that they can take the pupils to such centers to do handicraft, giving them an opportunity to speak Sámi in a natural environment while working. These centers are financed by the Sámi Parliament, and they organize many kinds of activities during the day (see http://www.samediggi.no). Although some teachers and schools try to promote Sámi language teaching, there are still many challenges. For example, schools have not adopted the objective of making their teaching personnel bilingual, and bilingualism is not promoted systematically. These shortcomings are particularly apparent when discussing how the teaching of Sámi is arranged outside ordinary language lessons. Máijá, a teacher in a lower secondary school, explains how the teaching of Sámi is organized in her school and how the Sámi-speaking teachers have tried to extend it to other subjects: Of course we have talked about it, but there are not enough teachers. The whole thing depends on the number of teachers. And we, the few bilingual teachers who work here – we are all tied to teaching the language. I have thought about it and talked a lot with the others about the idea that we who are Sámi-speaking teachers could do our teaching during the other lessons. Of course, all the children – whether Sámi-speaking or not – are in the same classroom. There are children who take Finnish, or who study Sámi as a second language or who study the subject ‘Sámi language and culture’, and there are children whose native language is Russian, and there are children who have not chosen any language course. And how could it ever be possible to reach any kind of level of teaching in Sámi in such conditions? What I would like is to be a ‘circulating’ teacher who would go from one classroom to another and speak some Sámi here and there to the children in the room. Teach math for ten minutes and so on, but of course this would be really hard to organize. I wonder if we will ever

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get so far during my lifetime that such an idea could come true, as there are so many groups in one place. (Hirvonen 2004: 86) Máijá’s words reveal that although the aim of bilingualism is explicit in the present curriculum, little has, in fact, been done to achieve the aim. Teachers working outside the central Sámi Area often have to defend the children’s right to learn Sámi, and also their right to have the subject of Sámi language and culture treated on an equal basis with other subjects. Teachers say that the Sámi lessons are often assigned the most unfavorable teaching hours. This means that schools are not taking into consideration either learning results or pedagogical arguments when organizing the teaching of Sámi. This is evident in the failure to plan the teaching so as to give Sámi equal status with other subjects. We are dealing here as well with the low status of Sámi in society. Teachers of other subjects express their own lack of appreciation of Sámi when they complain that the pupils studying Sámi are too often absent from their lessons. Sámi teachers have to be strong and determined in such situations, and the same applies to the pupils. Many Sámi teachers working in areas which are outside the present central Sámi Area observe that there is something rather special about the pupils who take Sámi. They have to have a strong identity and they are skillful students in other respects, too. There are seven schools where Sámi is only an optional subject (Leavdnja lower secondary school, Bokcá, Juovlavuotna, Ruoššanjárga, Sieiddá, Trollvik and Dálošvággi). The level of instruction is very low, 3–4 hours per week, and children do not hear the Sámi language outside the classroom. According to Leanne Hinton, it is not easy to revitalize the language through the language-as-a-subject program, because there is rarely enough time or it is not possible to put the language to practical use. However, the program can help young people to overcome shame and create an eagerness to learn their language. ‘Children with such positive attitudes will be tomorrow’s leaders in language revitalization’ (2001: 7). The schools where Sámi is taught only as a subject realize neither the right of native speakers of Sámi to have their education in their own language nor the right of students studying Sámi as a second language to become functionally bilingual. To sum up the role of the Sámi school in Sámi language revitalization, then, the outlook is not very positive. The main forms of bilingual education used by Sámi schools which teach the Sámi language only as a subject are non-forms or weak forms of bilingual education. The first

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prerequisite for the schools to contribute to language revitalization, then, is for the schools, together, to agree on and adopt plans on how to work for the realization of bilingualism among the students who study Sámi as a first or second language. This means that Sámi teaching must not be confined only to the language lessons, but that other subjects must also be taught in Sámi. This, in turn, requires an increase in the number of Sámi-speaking teachers in schools. The entire school system must support the teaching of Sámi, as opposed to the situation revealed by the teachers in their interviews that Sámi as a subject is not equal with the other subjects, that pupils may be discriminated against because they study Sámi, and that the Sámi language is not sufficiently visible in the school.

Conclusions We return to the definition of a good educational program (SkutnabbKangas 2004) to evaluate the degree to which the four goals are reached in the Sámi school. The first goal – ‘high levels of multilingualism’ – means that the minority child should reach a high-level competence in oral and literacy skills both in her mother tongue (L1) and the majority language (L2). When this goal has been realized, the next goals – ‘a fair chance of achieving academically at school; strong, positive multilingualism and multicultural identity and positive attitude towards self and others; and a fair chance of awareness and competence building as prerequisites for working for a more equitable world, for oneself and one’s own group as well as others, locally and globally’ (SkutnabbKangas in Magga et al. 2004: 4) – become more obvious and realistic. When discussing the Sámi school and the results of its bilingual education we notice that there is no established praxis of testing or assessing students’ bilingual skills throughout the system; so it is difficult to assess if students in the schools have reached high levels of multilingualism. Another problem when evaluating bilingual education is that most of the Sámi schools have neither a written plan for their language policy nor a statement of their goals in language education. Despite these weaknesses we can summarize the main outlines of language education in the Sámi schools. There are three main forms of language programs which the Sámi schools are using: the maintenance or heritage form, late-exit transitional form, and the mainstream with foreign language teaching form, although there have also been some other attempts to provide bilingual education. It is obvious that mainstream with foreign language teaching, assessed as a non-form or weak form,

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does not lead to a high level of bilingualism or multilingualism, but it can increase the student’s positive attitude towards multilingualism and multicultural identity and towards herself and others. Transitional bilingual education, defined as a weak form and used especially in some upper secondary level schools, may have negative consequences for the achievement of educational goals. Nonetheless, it is much better than the mainstream form, because many subjects are taught through Sámi, and on the whole, the Sámi language is seen to be of great value. Maintenance or heritage bilingual education, defined as a strong form, leads to high levels of multilingualism if schools systematically increase the minority child’s oral and literacy competence both in her mother tongue (L1) and the majority language (L2). This also allows schools to achieve other goals concerning the definition of good education. ‘In the elementary school setting, maintenance bilingual programs advocate that children begin their literacy and content learning experiences in the native language’ and continue with this as long as possible even after reaching good competence in the majority language (Faltis and Hudelson 1998: 31). This is the main principle in the Sámi schools, as Sámi-as-L1 and Norwegian-asL1 students are divided into two language groups and most subjects in the Sámi group are taught in Sámi. It also conforms to parents’ wishes. Working with two languages in various situations is time-consuming and requires the use of the new language in many contexts (Ryen 1994: 58–9). Research also shows that children who belong to minorities should have all their education in the language which has, in other respects, fewer opportunities for development in society. This makes it possible to sustain one’s language skills and become functionally bilingual (SkutnabbKangas 1988: 149–56). According to the curriculum’s section on principles, the school must provide a teaching and learning environment in which Sámi culture plays a central role. However, this is not the case in the schools where no other subjects are taught in Sámi besides the language itself and where there are not enough Sámi-speaking teachers. Thus, municipalities are failing to realize the objectives of reform O97S, because as both international studies and studies made in the Sámi region (Todal 2002) show, it is impossible to achieve functional bilingualism merely by teaching the language. We need special measures in order to realize this objective. It is of critical importance that Sámi be used in connection with other school subjects; that is, in the entire school environment and society. The position of Sámi is delicate throughout society, and if we want to achieve the objectives of the curriculum the language must be the object of special support and positive discrimination. Sámi is not just one subject

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among many; it is a threatened language which does not get a great deal of support in other spheres of society. Of course, it is easiest for the school to have an impact on the situation of Sámi within its own system. This requires schools to have plans on how to help the pupils who have chosen Sámi as L1 or L2 to become bilingual. Therefore, the Sámi Parliament must do everything possible to ensure that the objectives of functional bilingualism in the curriculum are realized. The extent to which the school integrates the minority language and culture in its work has an impact on how effectively the language and culture are strengthened (Cummins 1994: 363–90). This is apparent in the comments above from teachers concerned in the teaching of Sámi. Cummins also emphasizes how the school can influence the whole surrounding community when the integration of the minority community into the educational process becomes a primary goal of education (ibid.). It is therefore, extremely important that municipalities and schools work consciously to enhance the teaching of Sámi.

Notes ‘Out on the fells’ – the fell, in the meaning of tundra, a mountainous formation; a very typical feature in the natural environment of Sápmi. This chapter was translated by Kaija Anttonen. 1. After the 097S national evaluation, a new reform called ‘knowledge promotion’ took effect in autumn 2006, which launched a new Sámi curriculum (see http://www.udir.no/templates/udir/TM_Artikkel.aspx?id=2376). 2. The municipality of Kárášjohka has drawn up a separate plan to promote bilingualism, which has been in force since 1998.

References Aikio-Puoskari, Ulla and Merja Pentikäinen (2001), The Language Rights of the Indigenous Saami in Finland – under Domestic and International Law, Juridica Lapponica No. 26, Rovaniemi: Arctic Center, University of Lapland. Baker, Colin (2001), Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Balto, Asta (1996), Samisk skolehistorie – en kort innføring [The history of the Sámi School: a short introduction], SUC Report No. 1, Guovdageaidnu: Saami University College. Bear Nicholas, Andrea (2005), ‘Education through the medium of the mother-tongue: the single most important means for saving Indigenous languages’, Rationales and Strategies for Establishing Immersion Programs, drawn from a symposium on Immersion Education for First Nations, sponsored by St Thomas University and the Assembly of First Nations, Fredericton, NB, Canada, October 3–6.

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Bibsys, ‘The integration of the Sámi language and culture into the Sámi school (O97S)’, http://wgate.bibsys.no/gate1/SHOW?objd!p03000385&base!FORSKPR2. Cummins, Jim (1994), ‘The socio-academic achievement model in the context of coercive and collaborative relations of power’, in R. DeVillar, C. Faltis and J. Cummins (eds), Cultural Diversity in Schools: From Rhetoric to Practice, New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 363–90. Faltis, Christian J. and Sarah J. Hudelson (1998), Bilingual Education in Elementary and Secondary School Communities. Towards Understanding and Caring, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Forskningsrådet, http://www.forskningsradet.no/servlet/ reform97. GSI (Grunnskolens Informasjonssystem) [The information system of the comprehensive school], Oslo: Norwegian Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research, Central Statistical Office. Hætta Eriksen, Edel (1977), ‘Norga vuoddoskuvla sámimánáide/Norsk grunnskole for samebarn/Norjan peruskoulu saamelaisten kannalta’, Diedut 1977:2. Oappahusáššiid seminara. Møte om samiska utbildningsfrågor. Saamelaisten opetusasioita käsittelevä seminaari [The comprehensive school for the Sámi children in Norway. Diedut 1977:2. A Seminar on the Sámi School] (pp. 6–19), Guovdageaidnu: Nordic Saami Institute. Hinton, Leanne (2001), ‘Language revitalization: an overview’, in L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 3–18. Hirvonen, Vuokko (2003), Mo sámáidahttit skuvlla? Sámi oahpaheaddjiid oainnut ja " álliid Lágádus. sámi skuvlla ollašuhttin. Reforpma 97 evalueren, Kárášjohka: C Hirvonen, Vuokko (2004), Sámi Culture and the School: Reflections by Sámi Teachers and the Realization of the Sámi School. An Evaluation Study of Reform 97, trans. " álliid Lágádus. Kaija Anttonen, Kárášjohka: C Huss, Leena (1999), Reversing Language Shift in the Far North, Linguistic Revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Uralica Upsaliensia 31, Uppsala: Uppsala University. ILO (1990), ILO Convention No.169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. ILO-konvenšuvdna nr. 169 eamiálbmogiid ja c"earddalaš álbmogiid hárrái iešmearrideaddji riikkain, Oslo: Kommunaldepartementet, http:// www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/62.htm. KUF 1998/816, Forskrift: prinsipper og retningslinjer for opplæringen etter det samiske læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen [Principles and guidelines for teaching in comprehensive schooling according to the Sámi curriculum], Oslo: Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research. M74 (1974), Mønsterplan for grunnskolen [Model Plan for comprehensive schooling], Oslo: Aschehoug. M87 (1987), Mønsterplan for grunnskolen [Model Plan for comprehensive schooling], Oslo: Aschehoug. Magga, Ole Henrik (2003), ‘Sámegiella vuosttašgiellan vuod¯d¯oskuvllas’ [The Sámi language as a first language], in V. Hirvonen (ed.), Sámi skuvla plánain ja praktihkas – Mo dustet O97S hástalusaid? [The Sámi School in curriculum and " álliid Lágádus, pp. 54–86. practice: How to meet the challenges?] Kárášjohka: C Magga, Ole Henrik and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (2001), ‘The Saami languages: the present and the future’, Cultural Survival Quarterly (Summer 2001), 26–31, 51.

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Magga, Ole Henrik, Ida Nicolaisen, Mililani Trask, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Dunbar (2004), ‘Indigenous children’s education and Indigenous languages’, expert paper written for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research (1989), Minsttarplána vuod¯d¯oskuvlii, 2. oassi: Sámi fágaplánat/Mønsterplan for grunnskolen: 2. del: samiske fagplaner [A model curriculum for the comprehensive school, 2nd part: Sámi syllabuses], Oslo: Aschehoug. O97S (1997), 10-jagi vuod¯d¯oskuvlla sámi oahppoplánat. Det samiske læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen [Sámi curriculum for comprehensive schooling], Oslo: Gonagaslaš girko-, oahpahus- ja dutkandepartementa. OL (1998), Oahpahusláhka. LOV 1998-07-17 nr 61: Lov om grunnskolen og den vidaregåande opplæringa (opplæringslova) [Education Act]. Ryen, Else (1994) ‘Tospråklighet og språklig variasjon’ [Bilingual and lingual variation], in Thor Ola Engen An-Magritt Hauge, lvar Morken, Else Ryen and Gro Standnes, Like muligheter. Migrasjonspedagogik i vidergående skole [Equal possibilities. Migration pedagogics in high school], Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal, pp. 53–69. SáL (1987), Sámeláhka nr. 56 Sámedikki ja eará sámi vuoigatvuod¯daid hárrái [Sámi Act]. SáLGn (1992), Died¯ut sámelága giellanjuolggadusain ja sámelága giellanjuolggadusat ja láhkaásahus [A statute and information concerning the linguistic regulations of the Sámi Act], Oslo: Kulturdepartemeanta, Stáhta diehtojuohkinbálvalus. Seurujärvi-Kari, Irja, Steinar Pedersen and Vuokko Hirvonen (1997), The Sámi. The Indigenous People of Northernmost Europe, European languages 5. Brussels: EBLUL. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (1988), Vähemmistö, kieli ja rasismi [Minority, language and racism], Helsinki: Gaudeamus. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000), Linguistic Genocide in Education – or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2005), ‘Ealáskahttima vuoigatvuohta. Gávdnogo?’ [Is there a right to revitalize?], paper presented in Sámegiela buolvvaidgaskasaš sirdaseapmi. Ohcamin vugiid bearráigeahccat gielladili, Guovdageaidnu: Sámi allaskuvla. Todal, Jon (1999), ‘Minorities with a minority: language and the school in the Sámi areas of Norway’, in S. May (ed.), Indigenous Community-based Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 124–36. Todal, Jon (2002), ‘… jos fal gáhttet gollegielat’. Vitalisering av samisk språk i Noreg på 1990-talet [Vitalizing Sámi language in Norway in the 1990s.], Avhandling til dr.art.-graden. Det humanistiske fakultet [Dr. Art. Diss. Faculty of Humanities] Tromsö: Universitetet i Tromsö. United Nations (1948), International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, United Nations, www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm. United Nations (1989), Convention on the Rights of the Child, United Nations, 1989, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm. VSL 1990 ! Vuod¯d¯oskuvlaláhka [Education Act]. Grunnskoleloven 1990.

3

Top-down and Bottom-up: Counterpoised Visions of Bilingual Intercultural Education in Latin America Luis Enrique López

Brief historical overview The analysis of education in Indigenous communities of Latin America must look beyond exclusive pedagogic, cultural and linguistic issues, since in this region the national policies that promote and regulate the application of bilingual education – in an Indigenous language and Spanish or Portuguese – have, for the most part, been the result of Indigenous suffering in constant struggle against racism and discrimination. This reality arises from the prevalent political, social and economic exclusion which marks the colonial condition characterizing our region in relation to Indigenous issues. Freire (1973) alerted us to the fact that education is far from neutral and that underlying every educational model or even specific strategy one can find a clear-cut political orientation or tendency which reveals the nature of the society at which the model aims. In Latin America, Indigenous education has always been looked upon with concern and distrust, practically from the moment our countries became independent and adopted the principles of classical European liberalism. Latin American countries – while conscious of the ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity inherent to their societies – have projected an erroneous image of themselves as homogeneous and uniform nation-states. The European languages and the predominantly Luso-Hispanic sociocultural traits, practices and even types of social organization were seen as instruments for the denial of Indigenous ancestry and the consequent configuration of a unifying single national culture. The socio-political image of cultural homogeneity took the educational system, and specifically each and every individual school, as a privileged device for the dissemination of this ‘unifying’ ideology. The ruling class, which represented the interests of 42

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the societal sectors belonging to the most European pole of the ethnicracial continuum, took upon itself with real determination and commitment to configure the ideal of a uniform ‘national’ society. Although it is not common to refer to any of the Latin American political situations as apartheid, in most cases the policies applied to the Indigenous societies in this vast region could indeed be characterized as such, since a clear and often publicly conceded intention of eradicating Indigenous ethno-cultural differences underlies them. Thus, ethnocide – whether admitted or not – has always been part of Latin American republican history. Almost two hundred years after the formal conclusion of the colonial regime, and in some countries more than in others, the system regulating relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people remains similar to that of typical colonial situations. To date, all Amerindian societies continue in the condition of subaltern communities (Spivak 1988), even in those countries where Indigenous people constitute the majority of the population, as in Bolivia and Guatemala. Without exception, recent legislation throughout the continent officially acknowledges ethnic and cultural diversity as inherent characteristics of Latin American societies. In the 1990s most countries legally endorsed the proposals and strategies of contemporary liberal multiculturalism (Kymlicka 1995). Nonetheless, many people, especially the ethnic and social sectors in power, continue to perceive cultural and linguistic diversity as a problem and as an obstacle that jeopardizes national unity and/or that puts the process of consolidating the nation-state at risk (Prudencio 2005). Despite the adverse conditions in which they live, there are still more than 40 million people in Latin America (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 1994) who claim their Indigenous identity and/or speak an Indigenous language. Although it is difficult to determine with precision who is and who is not Indigenous, as the category is not clear-cut, there is a high correlation between speaking an Indigenous language and Indigenous external or self-identification (López 2004).1 In fact, Latin American persons of Luso-Hispanic ancestry who speak an Indigenous language constitute exceptions that prove the rule. Nonetheless, Indigenous people represent at least 10 per cent of the region’s total population; although this figure varies considerably from one country to another. In some countries, such as Costa Rica and Brazil, Indigenous people constitute less than 3 per cent or even 1 per cent of the total population. In other countries, however, they constitute real demographic majorities, as in Bolivia and Guatemala where Indigenous people make up more than 50 or 60 per cent of the total population (López 2004).

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In this context, where no less than 400 different Indigenous languages are still actively used, though not without severe difficulties (DíazCouder 1998), the introduction of Indigenous languages in education has seen broad acceptance only in the last 20 years. Although Indigenous bilingual education began much earlier – almost 70 years ago in certain cultural areas of Latin America (López 1998) – it has never previously enjoyed the status nor reached the extension that it has today. Seventeen countries are trying to implement some kind of bilingual education, at least at the primary school level, under various denominations: bilingual education, bilingual intercultural education (EBI), intercultural bilingual education (EIB), Indigenous education or even ethno-education. All the same, the situation throughout the region is far from uniform. How Indigenous languages are used in, and benefit from, the implementation of bilingual education changes from one country to another and even within specific areas in the same country; both in formal and in non-formal education. In Guatemala, for instance, bilingual education is limited to teaching and partially using the Indigenous language for the first three or four years of basic education, under the classical early transition approach. In other countries, such as Peru, bilingual education, although officially intended for the entire six grades of primary school nationwide, is in actuality implemented only in geographically remote rural schools. However, there are also cases like the Argentinian one where bilingual education can be introduced in secondary schools without necessarily having been developed at the primary level first. But what most of these programs have in common is their public nature under government financing. In other words, in almost every case, bilingual education, no matter which form it adopts, is part of the national educational service. However this came about – in countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, it was the result of active and sometimes even belligerent demands by Indigenous leaders and organizations, and in others, such as Peru and Mexico, it was the consequence of governmental and academic concerns and experiments – this type of education is primarily under public management and finance. This situation was strengthened by the educational reforms undertaken by most Latin American governments in the 1980s and 1990s, with the support of international lending agencies and donors. As we will see, this association has had severe implications in the development of Indigenous bilingual education. Two more characteristics are currently shared by most Indigenous bilingual education programs in Latin America: (1) the scope of their implementation is limited to the most populated Indigenous linguistic

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communities, mainly on the basis of economic cost-benefit criteria and analysis; and (2) the appeal to notions of equal opportunity and equity has contributed to the configuration of an alternative educational strategy, which comes to be seen as similar to other remedial or compensatory approaches responding to vulnerable groups, such as handicapped persons with special educational needs or youth and adults who do not have access to the regular educational system. The parallels established between these approaches are to the detriment of Indigenous bilingual education whether its objectives are compensatory or emancipatory. The fact that bilingual education has become part of government strategic plans and programs is without doubt a noteworthy improvement for Latin American educational policy, which had always been based on the ethnocidal illusion of linguistic-cultural homogeneity. Above all, this is an unquestionable victory in the political struggle of the continent’s Indigenous peoples, as their leaders and organizations repeatedly claim. Nonetheless, and in part also as a result of a context of growing Indigenous ethnic self-reaffirmation that began to expand in the early 1980s, and after more than two decades of statewide, generalized implementation of the bilingual approach, reactions against this type of education have begun to emerge, from both the hegemonic and subaltern sectors of these multiethnic societies. Anxious about Indigenous political progress, voices in countries such as Bolivia are beginning to rise against Indigenous bilingual education. Earlier sympathy and support for the Indigenous cause, even among mainstream society, was the result of many factors, above all the politically correct discourse and climate established in Bolivian society by the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s following government reforms inspired by contemporary liberal multiculturalism. Nowadays, however, intercultural bilingual education (EIB) is criticized for its high costs, its insufficient gains in terms of school achievement – especially regarding the appropriation of alphabetic writing in the first two grades – or even for intensifying racism and promoting opposition and division within the nation, while education should be propounding the eradication of differences, such as linguistic and cultural ones, that put each country’s unity at stake (Prudencio 2005). Indigenous self-affirmation and the demand for more political participation in national decision-making are viewed with concern by the Bolivian hegemonic sectors.2 But what interests us most here are the reactions against EIB that are coming from the Indigenous sectors themselves. For some of their leaders and organizations, EIB is insufficient and has failed to meet their expectations, which are mainly of a political nature. They conceive EIB as an

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instrument to move ahead on the difficult road to social emancipation, a process through which they expect to gain increasing control of the state, now in the hands of the mainly Luso-Hispanic criollo-mestizo groups. Therefore, leaders and organizations throughout the region, while acknowledging the progress in education made by most governments and the historical-ideological questioning and disruptions that the adoption of EIB has brought about, still consider it necessary to move further towards a more radical approach. At least five key issues are now raised by Indigenous leaders, intellectuals and organizations. (1) The demand for expansion of EIB in a context where, despite the acknowledged government progress in line with the search for equity and cultural relevance, bilingual schools and the intercultural and bilingual approach have not even reached all the rural communities that require this type of service.3 (2) The call for extending the approach to cities and most heavily populated towns, including capital cities, especially now that the increasing presence of Indigenous populations in urban environments is much more evident, as in, for instance, Mexico City, Lima, Santiago de Chile or even Buenos Aires.4 (3) The need for Spanish-speaking populations also to benefit from Indigenous bilingual education, so as to become aware of language diversity, learn about the Indigenous languages spoken in their countries and also develop more sensitivity to Indigenous cultures. Indigenous leaders repeatedly state that it will not be possible to eradicate discrimination and racism if the Luso-Hispanic criollo-mestizo population do not change their attitudes towards diversity and difference. (4) The urgency of modifying the official curriculum so that it acknowledges, accepts and includes Indigenous sociocultural practices and ways of life as integral to an alternative knowledge system. (5) The obligation to make decisions and take action toward the rescue and revitalization of endangered and highly vulnerable Indigenous languages. But, most problematic of all are the discrepancies linked to the role that schools and education play at the political level. There are controversies and unresolved demands that question the uniform nature of the nation-state and the homogeneous understanding of citizenship; these begin from a stance that situates the school and education in general as an instrument to self-determination and social emancipation. These claims have profound pedagogical consequences that take us beyond the classical bilingual approach and demand a new understanding of the intercultural paradigm in education and an intensification as well as an expansion of cultural reflection and exchange at school, as well as the development in students and teachers of an attitude and everyday practice

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of permanent doubt, inquiry and criticism. As I have stated elsewhere (López 2006, 2005; Prada and López 2005), unlike what transpired throughout the course of the twentieth century, Indigenous educational demands place contemporary discussion in a new political and epistemological scenario which has brought about equally new challenges vis-à-vis the ontology of knowledge at school (see Howard et al. 2002) and simultaneously the defiance of power structures related to school management, supervision and control. In this chapter I shall refer to existing discrepancies on these five topics, which in my judgment are a by-product of the place and position from which the situation of Indigenous bilingual education is analyzed and proposals or demands are formulated. It is precisely the locus of enunciation (Bhabha 1994) or, in this specific case, the place from which demands and proposals are stated and put together that determines the way in which EIB is conceived and implemented. In my understanding, the locus of the enunciation is more influential than the presence of Indigenous professionals in government, in charge of policy definition or of the administration of education. Should this be so, it becomes essential to establish each of the positions occupied by EIB actors: whether from within the state and on behalf of it, or aligned with the Indigenous cause and supportive of it. Therefore, the organization of specific government units or directorates responsible for EIB at the official level turns out to be insufficient, even when such offices are under the leadership of professionals that identify themselves as Indigenous, as is the case today in a good number of Latin American countries (Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, among others). In the same vein, it appears to be equally limited to appoint to EIB only those teachers who speak an Indigenous language, proceed from an Indigenous community or even identify themselves as Indigenous, even though to do so is admittedly a sign of unquestionable cultural relevance and fundamental democratic progress. In the cases of both Indigenous government officers and teachers, what seems to be at stake is the way these officers position themselves in relation to the state and the Indigenous societies, as well as the manner in which they take up their cultural and linguistic heritage. Above all, there is a need to determine the place and position from which teachers and officers speak and the way they relate to the conditions of political subalternity and cultural and linguistic oppression affecting all Indigenous societies and their hoped-for process of ‘development with identity’. There is a need to look into the position occupied by EIB teachers as well as into their engagement and involvement with the fate of the societies

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whose children they attend. Precisely because all qualified teachers have gone through a minimum of 16 or 18 years of schooling – including their professional training in pedagogy and teaching – those working with Indigenous children under the guidelines of EIB must necessarily experience internal conflict, at least during the first months or years of their bilingual and intercultural professional performance. The internal conflict accompanies a process of personal rediscovery, re-identification and autobiographic reconstruction triggered by the confrontation of these teachers with the Indigenous issues and concerns that they meet in the course of their professional training and/or development. Such confrontation helps these teachers overcome the side effects of the invisibilization and denial they experienced in their own difficult transit, first through a school that ignored difference and diversity, and later as they learned to perform the role of government officer in a specific Indigenous community. In these two periods, these teachers also took on the homogenizing and assimilating ideology disseminated by mainstream society and learned to distance themselves from the cultural and political aspirations of the communities where they were born and raised. Therefore, the education of Indigenous professionals – whether pre or in-service – should not continue to attend only to the technical components of didactics and teaching. In Indigenous teacher education, immediate attention needs also be paid to the processes of: (1) subjective re-conversion of the Indigenous individual; (2) critical recovery of his/her social, cultural and educational autobiography; (3) the collective construction of a critical comprehension of the colonial oppression that Indigenous societies and their members have undergone; and, (4) along with all this, the development of political awareness. Equally true for all teachers in multiethnic societies, Indigenous teachers in particular need to learn to assume an unvaryingly critical position regarding the subaltern condition and consequent racism and discrimination that their societies face. Furthermore, Indigenous educators need to empathize with the imagined plans and projections towards the future that the societies with which they work have historically and socially constructed.5 Should teacher-education continue rooted in a restricted understanding of professional development, those same teachers, even being Indigenous, will favor their position as government officers. Hence, they will identify mainly with the homogenizing nation-state and not contribute significantly – from the privileged space they occupy – to the transformation of the state in the way that the Indigenous leaders and organizations hope for.6

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Opposing views: the state vs the Indigenous peoples Based on periodic reviews and observations of the varied national situations within which EIB is implemented in Latin America (López 2006, 2005, 2001, 1998, 1996; Sichra and López 2003; Hornberger and López 1998),7 to my mind these discrepancies reflect substantial underlying differences in the understanding of EIB, sociocultural diversity and their roles in the construction and consolidation of Latin American democracies. EIB in Latin America cannot escape from the historic role assigned to education in general, and to schools in particular, in the construction of citizenship, the nation and the state. Taking into account the different places and positions from which such fundamental aspects are seen today, it is not strange to find that there is no consensus between the state and Indigenous leaders, intellectuals and organizations as to the type of education that Indigenous communities require as well as to the manner in which education should be implemented or even as to how public schools – if not all schools – should be administered in Indigenous territories.8 In this section I shall try to identify some of the tensions that sustain the discrepancies identified above. Inclusion vs exclusion In countries where EIB enrollment is higher today than ever before and where the analysis made by Indigenous leaders and intellectuals of its progress is becoming more extensive, Indigenous proposals make clear that EIB needs to be seen as an instrument to transform the nation-state and society, in light of the now undeniable historic multiculturalism and multilingualism within each nation. From this standpoint, it seems an urgent matter to transcend Indigenous settings and to also affect, in some way, educational practice in schools attended by mainstream children. While highlighting that the EIB approach has been applied from a restricted perspective and only with Indigenous peoples, Indigenous leaders now state that the construction of an inclusive and intercultural society will only be possible if the state also considers Spanish or Portuguese speakers as EIB beneficiaries. From this stance, Indigenous leaders project the need to overcome EIB’s compensatory condition and rather make it shape and permeate all educational approaches and strategies so as to reach all of the population, whether minority or not. Although ideas such as these were promoted by most Latin American educational reforms in the 1990s, progress in this direction has been minimal and there is still much to do.

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There are two underlying considerations that require further analysis. On the one hand, conscious of the way in which school contributes to mold attitudes and mentalities, Indigenous leaders want to radically change the current situation where an average Latin American student may conclude 12 or even 20 years of formal schooling without ever becoming aware of the multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual nature of the society in which s/he lives nor of the importance that Indigenous issues have now taken on. Neither is the school doing much to help students assume an antiracist and committed attitude towards difference and to encourage a new understanding of diversity and difference as values in themselves. On the other hand, Indigenous parents have developed a certain scepticism regarding EIB. They question the sincerity of the approach saying that ‘If EIB is as good as state employees and academicians state – mostly members of the culturally hegemonic sector – why do they not apply it in urban schools and with their own children? Why don’t they benefit from this treasure?’ The fact is that what seems to be under scrutiny is neither EIB in itself, nor the beneficiaries for whom the state has adopted this approach, but rather, and above all, the role that the Indigenous question as such should play in education. If in the 1990s Latin American educational systems took a step forward through the recognition of their multiethnicity and the adoption of interculturalism as a cross-cutting issue in the national school curricula, in this decade the need to design and draw on concrete strategies to translate this approach into specific methods and techniques in order to make it effective has become evident. It is now important to develop effective pedagogical tools designed to make us all critically aware of the everyday implications of sociocultural diversity, of intercultural dialogue and of the exercise of the right to difference, now universally recognized as part of the regime of cultural liberty required to reach human development (see UNDP 2004), particularly in multiethnic and multilingual societies. The traditional formula of EIB only for the Indigenous peoples and rural areas has turned out to be entirely insufficient. It becomes mandatory now to move forward towards the required interculturalization of the hegemonic sectors of society. With two-way EIB, the ideal of interculturalism could contribute to an equally new orientation to citizenship education, anchored in a plural and heterogeneous view of society. The fact is that Indigenous people do not seem to understand Indigenous social inclusion as the assimilation of the subaltern sector by the mainstream one – the option chosen by the Latin American ruling classes. On the contrary, inclusion needs to be understood as a by-product of a process through which everyone

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learns from one another and different forms and strategies of interaction and dialogue are discovered. This requires a more equitable approach to life and the need to break away from the still dominant asymmetric organization of the average Latin American multiethnic society. While for the mainstream sector in control of the nation-state, living together in an ethnically diverse context should take place in a framework of acknowledgment of those recognized as different and of tolerance – as encouraged by liberal multiculturalist positions, Indigenous leaders go further, emphasizing the need for new intercultural relations that acknowledge their condition and right to be different, accept the persistence of inequality and assume the requirement to struggle together against social injustice and generalized racism. In the face of an official discourse of tolerance, respect and participation of minorities at the local level, Indigenous leaders and people put forward an inclusive scheme that can be translated into a new understanding of equality with dignity (López 2004), which, in the long run, aims at overcoming generalized exclusion and discrimination, and thereby will also lead to more active participation in decision-making and control of power. Pedagogy vs ethnic reaffirmation and epistemology Complementary as processes of EIB pedagogical transformation and of ethnic reaffirmation could most certainly be, they have diverged depending on who has been in control of the education offered to the Indigenous population. Thus, the increasing government tendency to focus EIB discussion solely on pedagogical issues is a side effect of a broader concern with the quality of education as well as with the need to reach higher enrollment growth and internal efficiency in the educational system. Governments have set goals for educational access and expansion in order to reach even the most distant and inaccessible communities and to promote student retention for the longest possible period, as well as pursuing goals related to improving educational quality. These objectives are shared by most if not all Indigenous communities, particularly since schools have by now become an essential and aspirational good for most Indigenous leaders and communities who have been fighting for their rights to education since the beginning of the twentieth century. Considering EIB merely as a pedagogical proposal generates critical reactions if major links are not established between the new pedagogy and the Indigenous political view and projections. That is the reason why leaders and organizations often radicalize their demands in search of greater ethnic and political content and significance in educational and linguistic policies imposed on them or on their territories.

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This could explain why, for example, various Indigenous communities in the region repeatedly claim the need for the official school curricula also to take into account Indigenous values and knowledge. Nowadays, it is common to hear Indigenous leaders speak of differences in worldview (Weltanschauung) and the urgency of opening a path for ancestral Indigenous wisdom, knowledge, practices and values; a reality that opens a new area of confrontation between the school and the hegemonic educational project. This occurs in places and among peoples as distant and different as the Maya communities of southern Mexico or Guatemala, the Peruvian-Bolivian-Chilean Aymara highlands, the multiethnic and multilingual communities of the Amazon, or the Chilean-Argentinian Patagonia. While Latin American educational systems – pressed by the currently dominant ideologies of liberal multiculturalism and of social constructivism – have opened up to new forms of learning and teaching, and conceive of EIB as instrumental in reaching their goals of universal coverage and quality, Indigenous leaders would prefer to approach this type of education from a more radical stance, in alignment with their political project. To this end, they utilize the same bases that sustain contemporary pedagogical arguments, that is, the centrality of the learner and of the learning process, the situated nature of learning and the need for schools to recover students’ previous knowledge and experiences. Generally speaking, the contemporary struggle around schools transcends the dimensions it had at the beginning of the last century – when it was mainly grounded on the right to school access – a period in which Indigenous people constructed school buildings as prerequisite to the government’s provision of teachers in their communities (López 2005, 1998). It is also different from demands in the second half of that century, relating to the insertion of Indigenous languages in schooling. Nowadays, the nature of school knowledge itself is being examined and, thereby, the debate is moving from a merely didactic-linguistic sphere to an epistemological-political one (compare López 2005, 2006). Evidence in this direction can be found, for example, in Colombian Indigenous demands regarding their ‘own’ education (educación propia), as a part of the so-called Plan de vida (life-plan) established by each Indigenous community and people; or the 57 Mayan schools implemented according to their own curricula, which differ from national curriculum prescriptions; or the demands of the Yuracares in Bolivia who want to acquire the best of the official school curricula in the mornings but, through a dual scheme, also seek the best of the Indigenous tradition in the afternoons, with their own Indigenous educators and through their heritage

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language. In this general framework and from an Indigenous stance, there is no doubt that, in each case, it is the national government that has to assume the financial costs of these new types of education (ibid.). These unforeseen outcomes have occurred in different places across the continent, often as a reaction against unexpected results deriving from Indigenous languages being incorporated within the official school curriculum, only to be co-opted to transmit official Western-style content. Indigenous positions also radicalized when people saw that schools reduced their cultures to the level of folklore – which results from the attention given only to the tangible aspects of a culture – and when part of their cultural heritage had been disconnected from their own Weltanschauung. The fact is that today Indigenous people struggle for a redefinition of the educational approach they themselves helped to put together: EIB. In their demands for a more insightful educational transformation, Indigenous intellectuals, leaders and organizations take advantage of the open character of contemporary official curricula and proposals that, throughout Latin America, acknowledge the need to diversify the once untouchable centrally-defined school curriculum. Current discussions on the nature of school knowledge, involving leaders and organizations in various countries, provoke an unexpected encounter in which the ontology of knowledge – naturally including linguistic knowledge – is at stake. This new situation forms an integral part of a wider framework of ethnic awareness and political advancement of Indigenous peoples.9 This is why Indigenous people claim that for intercultural relations to be possible and consistent with the concept adopted by Latin American bilingual education in the mid-1970s (López 1998), there first has to be a phase of cultural and linguistic re-affirmation that, even if only for symbolic purposes, places conflicting peoples and cultures in positions of relative equality. They understand that intercultural education initially implies work of an intracultural nature, based on the need to foster mental decolonization by Indigenous students and the communities they belong to. In the process, the intracultural phase helps re-position hegemonic knowledge.10 According to Indigenous intellectuals’ and leaders’ viewpoints, EIB should first privilege the historical cultural heritage of each specific Indigenous society, and if necessary even its reconstruction and reinterpretation, as essential conditions for a sequential dialogue between subaltern and hegemonic knowledge and wisdom. In such a context, the role played or to be played by the Indigenous languages in education needs gradually to be redefined, for language relocates itself vis-à-vis the specific fund of knowledge it is part of, and must, first and foremost, be used to transmit the knowledge and experiences it

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helps construct in order to promote Indigenous cultural self-rediscovery and re-affirmation. Economy vs identity There is no doubt that government involvement in EIB also arises from economic concerns, particularly with the discovery by the ministries of education and finance that considerable economic resources allocated to the sector were lost annually because of a failure to retain students and also because of pupil repetition, phenomena that reached dramatic figures in Indigenous regions in most Latin American countries (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 1994). One would have to add to these costs those derived from Indigenous youth and adult illiteracy.11 By contextualizing Indigenous education in a situation where increasing attention is given to education as a crucial component of economic growth, EIB was seen as a means of contributing to the students’ equal opportunities and also of helping them overcome the deficiencies of the system. Thus, they would not have to waste time learning the official language before being able to learn the official curricular contents, and, above all, they could learn to read and write. However, these are contexts in which linguistic and cultural diversity involves, at a minimum, four different languages in one country, as is the case in Nicaragua.12 Where the Indigenous population is a numerical majority, government concerns regarding bilingual education have focused on those Indigenous languages with the largest number of speakers. For instance, in Guatemala, where bilingual education has a tradition of at least 30 years, efforts have focused on the four most-used Maya languages – Kaqchikel, Mam, Qeqchi and Quiche – to the detriment of the other 19 linguistic communities (López 2006). Similarly, in Bolivia, since 1994 the EIB approach has been extended considerably within the frame of a broad education reform program, but still reaches speakers of only three of 36 different languages (López 2005). Education authorities have stated that this way they reach 80 per cent of the needed population (Guatemala) or that it is not the duty of a Ministry of Education to engage in linguistic archaeology or language rescue (Bolivia) (López 2006). While the ministries of education seem to approach life only from the standpoint of the sector they are in charge of and simply from their – natural and understandable – nation-state logic, Indigenous people and leaders, from a more holistic, decolonized and integral view, are concerned with their survival and a renovated role within a new type of nation-state. And, in this context, their ‘own’ language and culture become a part of that entirety or wholeness.

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Faced with these situations, Indigenous leaders and organizations have taken advantage of governments’ liberal multicultural openness to advance in their demands and seek ways to reverse the processes of linguistic change and shift in progress. For example, leaders of Bolivian Guarani communities where children no longer speak the heritage language, decided, against all technical guidelines and advice, that their children had to learn to read and write in Guarani and not in Spanish – technically their L1 – for, in that way, they considered that children would recover active use of ‘their’ language (López 1997). Also in Bolivia, when the leaders of the region with the highest incidence of linguistic diversity (the eastern side, known as Orient, Chaco and Amazon region) negotiated with the government over the initiation of bilingual education, they stated they should start with those peoples and communities whose language was most at risk, since the ‘school had to give them back the language it had deprived them of’. Government officers, on the other hand – under economically and instrumentally-oriented rationales – proposed to begin with those communities with the highest number of speakers. The Indigenous counterpoised criterion was that of higher vulnerability and therefore pressing ethnic need – which reflects their focus on helping those who most urgently need attention to retain their Indigenous status. For the government, ethnic considerations did not really matter. Besides the different economic views that underlie Indigenous determination and interpretation, there is also a difference in political will, linked to the fact that what matters is being Indigenous. The use of Indigenous languages in education is not disconnected from these ethnopolitical projections. People deliberately perceive their language as a tool for collective identification and as a way of assuring their continuity and the right to difference. In general, they are conscious of the difficulties and challenges implicit in working with languages at risk, but they seek to do it and they summon the nation-state to commit to this job. They consider it is the government’s responsibility to reverse language shift since it is government that fostered linguistic eradication as the privileged instrument of ethnocide. They are aware that they might only reach a level of symbolic revitalization but this does not prevent them from pursuing their aims. It is emblematic that the nation-state be the one to participate in this task and to assume its responsibility, particularly considering its prolonged history of denial of Indigenous peoples and cultures. Another discrepancy derived from the economic rationale with which educational systems operate is related to written language and to the place assigned to it in the education of Indigenous students. Schools have always been agencies for the dissemination of the written word, since writing has

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always been regarded as a tool for the gradual de-localization of life and knowledge and, consequently, schools have assigned the alphabet a preponderant role. The introduction of schools in Indigenous territories and communities signaled the beginning of a gradual process of constructing literate societies either through Spanish or Portuguese, or in an Indigenous language, as occurred when Latin American rural education discovered bilingualism and assigned the Indigenous language an instrumental role. The fact is that educating and making people literate were part of one and the same process of deliberate and conscious cultural change that has had transcendent social, cultural and economic repercussions for Indigenous societies that cannot be analyzed here in detail (see Landaburu 1998; López 2001; Almendra 2004, among others). What is relevant now is to highlight the fact that the use of Indigenous languages in formal education has led to the passage from a predominantly oral world to a written one, together with which, at least in part, the communication matrix of Indigenous societies has begun to change, often with the concomitant loss of other graphic forms of socio-cultural significance or of the ancestral ‘orality’ which in many respects still characterizes Indigenous societies (see Landaburu 1998; López 2001). This prevalence of the written letter and word has, in turn, generated social conflicts and generational gaps hard to overcome within Indigenous communities (Almendra 2004; Landaburu 1998). Among these, the most crucial are those related to the generational distance that the written word helps establish between illiterate community elders and wise men and women on the one hand and their sons and daughters on the other, with the latter not only able to read and write but also tending to occupy leading political roles in the community at a national historic moment in which knowing how to read and write becomes a valued social asset. When the application of the EIB approach goes beyond the communitarian context to extend to regional and national domains, as can be the case with widely used and extended Indigenous languages such as Aymara, Maya, Nahuatl or Quechua, educational planners and linguists have faced new types of needs that require drawing on the economic rationale mentioned above. Seeing that the Indigenous demands and international pressure for EIB increased, the region’s ministries of education had to make decisions regarding alphabets and writing systems that were to be adopted to convert the oral Indigenous languages into written ones, so as to be able to use them in education, in increasingly larger areas. For a community of only oral language users to become a community of writers, decisions that go beyond the introduction of the local language

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in schools had to be taken, in line with its written standardization. Extending language use into the written domain in everyday life usually implies clear determinations regarding the numerous socio-cultural and historic variants every language generally has. Written standardization, or normalization, as it has been called for the past three decades in Latin America under the influence of the Basque and Catalonian sociolinguistics and bilingual education tradition (Ninyoles 1972), had clear political roots both in the Iberian peninsula and in Indigenous America. At the beginning of these processes, linguists – some of whom came from Indigenous homes – positioned themselves before the condition of historical colonial oppression that Indigenous languages and their speakers faced. They thus took written standardization as an instrument to overcome the subaltern condition of the Indigenous languages and of their speakers (Cerrón-Palomino 1988; Moya and Cotacachi 1990; Plaza 2003). Through normalization they also hoped to overcome dialectal fragmentation as well as the relative communicative disconnection that colonization generated. They aimed at reversing the feeling of isolation and ‘uniqueness’ embedded in the minds of the speakers of social and geographical variants – geographically but also ideologically situated – in order to generate among these speakers a feeling of belonging to a larger linguistic community with a shared common heritage: the sense of being a ‘people’ who, thus, transcend local affiliation. This stance was shared in some countries by the leaders of the then emerging Indigenous movement. In Ecuador, for instance, since the beginning of the 1980s, Indigenous leaders and intellectuals have had a leading role in these matters. In 1980 they arrived at a unified Quichua writing system and their political strength determined general acceptance of these new decisions. Since then, Quichua written materials published by governments and civil society have followed these decisions (Moya and Cotacachi 1990). Ministries of education looked upon idiomatic normalization with interest for it permitted the production of school textbooks in large enough amounts for it to become cost-effective. In cases such as the three Andean countries with a high population of speakers of an Indigenous language – Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador – determinations such as this one also allowed the government to counter opposition referring to the high costs of bilingual education. Linguistic normalization allowed officials to think in terms of thousands or millions of textbooks printed in one common written variety, as was the case in the production of textbooks and of children’s literature in Aymara and Quechua. Whether the motivation was linguistic-political or economic, normalization inevitably required relocating the relationship between language

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and speakers, since everyday language, that is, the language of the home and of the community, began to fulfill new communicative functions that, in turn, made it go far beyond the socially known and imagined communicational domains as well as the geographic space imagined as its own. At the same time, writing created an emotional distance between the speaker and his/her language as it became more capable of objective analysis, and even turned into a subject of school study and of academic enquiry. The use of the Indigenous language in the school environment generated many questions and unexpected suspicions among the parents. Why should the school be interested in or even pay attention to knowledge that had been ignored, if not denigrated, before? Was not the school the place of the new and the unknown, and moreover, the space and the mechanism through which Indigenous people should gradually forget their ancestral cultural patrimony? Was it not possible that, having noted the political progress made by Indigenous people, the groups in power were seeking ways of ensuring that the Indigenous remain in their communities? Why read and write in an Indigenous language when there are neither written materials nor real opportunities to exercise these competencies in these languages that the school was now beginning to use? Unfortunately, it is rare that ministries of education listen to concerns such as these and look for opportunities to explain to parents and communities the reasons underlying the school use of the language of the home. But, beyond queries such as these, the speakers of a specific geographic or social variant of an Indigenous language had to also confront a unified written variety that at times differed from what they heard, knew and considered their own. Very few took the time to explain the political or economic rationale behind written standardization. Explanations given, most generally, referred to the differences between orality and writing, many times using examples from Spanish, Portuguese or another European language, disregarding the fact that they were addressing predominantly oral societies and speakers with limited social experience of the written word. What seemed rational to the Indigenous politicians, the committed linguists or the governmental planners, earned a very different emotional reaction from speakers in any one specific community. Variants of daily use also served the function of the speakers’ identity self-affirmation who, in opposition to what seems to be the case in societies with a longer written tradition, whose languages are more extended and disseminated, identify much more with a specific local variety and community, since they have not yet developed the feeling of belonging to a single people or nation, except in some cases such as the Bolivian-Peruvian-Chilean Aymara communities or the Wayuu

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Colombian-Venezuelan ones. And even in these cases, what prevails from the Indigenous point of view is local identity more than the state’s economic rationale.

A temporary closure Through the two previous sections I have tried to show how EIB – born as an Indigenous proposal and as the result of long Indigenous struggle to conquer the school as a privileged instrument of the mainstream in the construction of citizenship – is nowadays considered, by an important number of Indigenous organizations, intellectuals and leaders, only as one more component of the official educational offer. And although this approach is viewed as the most pertinent and advanced, since it has managed to come closest to the needs and aspirations of Indigenous populations, their intellectuals and leaders do not yet consider it to be as radical as the present historical moment of ethnic resurgence might demand. The fact that EIB is being met with alternative proposals that claim to appeal to the Indigenous people’s ‘own’ education may be the result of differing views and understandings such as the ones I have tried to show in three specific areas of tension: pedagogy and its transcending meaning, the economic rationale vis-à-vis the identity and epistemology rationale, and the intended beneficiaries of an EIB approach, in a multiethnic and multicultural context where diversity and difference should not only be acknowledged – or tolerated, as international agreements and conventions suggest (compare World Commission on Culture and Development 1995) – but rather considered as values in themselves, and, thus, regarded as indispensable instruments to strengthening the construction of an alternative sense of citizenship and democracy. Surely there are other areas of tension that could have been included in this chapter. These three have been privileged here because one basic idea has cut across them: the need to re-imagine the multiethnic society as a whole, accepting that all the segments that compose it have the right to be different, but, at the same time, recognizing the need to create bridges of exchange and dialogue between them, in order to learn to live together in situations in which conflict cannot be resolved but needs to be managed in order to achieve common goals in the search for further equality, equity and, moreover, dignity. And, perhaps paradoxically, it seems more necessary now than ever to privilege and strengthen local and particular cultural traits so that, from there, subaltern societies could move towards what is regarded as universal. In today’s Indigenous stance, a process of cultural re-affirmation or of intraculturalism constitutes a sine qua non stage of an intercultural dialogue.

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Indigenous leaders and intellectuals currently challenging the ontology of knowledge, proposing a relocation of Western knowledge and relying on an Indigenous view of the world – even identifying some Indigenous universals – at times adopt essentialist Indigenous positions, possibly as a strategic move in search of a new correlation of forces in their struggle against secular discrimination and racism. They would not have reached these levels of analysis and reflection if it had not been for the experience and the progress of the application and development of the very EIB approach that they now critique. If we analyze recent experiences of the Latin American Indigenous movement we can see how, from a subaltern position, they have learned that there is no other way to move forward than by gradual approximation through a strategy that takes advantage of the fissures that they have managed to open up in the inflexible walls of the hegemonic criollo-mestizo mentality. It has been precisely through this mechanism of gradual approximation that they have been able to slowly turn these fissures into big craters that demand the reconstruction of new and more radical structures. Right or wrong, the Indigenous movement, its leaders and intellectuals undoubtedly rely on education and schools – most often excessively – to help reverse their subaltern condition. The school appears to be seen not only as the place and instrument to conquer the bastions of the hegemonic society – the European language and reading and writing – but also as the context and tool to recreate knowledge and local wisdom, to revitalize or even recover a vulnerable language or one that is at the verge of extinction. Indigenous intellectuals have surely become aware of the decisive role schools and education have played in the construction of the nation. Perhaps these are also the grounds for claims such as the ones mentioned above that sustain their demands of linguistic devolution under school responsibility and of a curriculum that includes Indigenous knowledge, for everyone’s use and consumption. The bottom line here is that the Indigenous people are now conscious that their continuity as different, and their possibilities of exercising the right to be so, are in jeopardy if society as a whole does not change its perception and interpretation of what is Indigenous and, hence, of the multiethnic character of the society. In other words, for the Indigenous population of America to continue resisting the forced assimilation process that the Latin American hegemonic sector in control of the nationstate imposed upon them, these same powerful criollo-mestizo sectors have also got to open up their minds and hearts to the diversity that has always characterized the countries they are part of. Only if they recognize and accept the Indigenous population with their own values and knowledge

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systems, and discover that these can contribute to solving problems that society as a whole now confronts, will the Latin American countries be able really to come to terms with diversity and difference, and hence move beyond the merely legal liberal and perhaps merely cultural recognition of multiethnicity that took place during the 1990s. As many Indigenous leaders suggest, while in schools Indigenous pupils should first develop an intracultural feeling, also in school their criollo-mestizo counterparts should discover the richness of diversity and learn to appreciate and value the Indigenous cultural legacy from an intercultural perspective. The question now is whether or not governments would be willing to construct different educational proposals that coexist with one another and allow schools to begin strengthening Indigenous issues, institutions and knowledge. I suspect that when the possibility of interculturalizing schools was rapidly and openly accepted by most Latin American governments, in many cases interculturalism was understood only as the need of generating a sense of tolerance towards diversity in society, from a multiculturalist perspective. It may have also been the case that the hegemonic sector saw in interculturalism a useful venue in which to update the waning colonial project of mestizaje and reinscribe this old political project under new, contemporary and ‘politically correct’ terminology. It remains to be seen if we will finally be able to see in interculturalism a possibility to re-imagine and reconstruct the Latin American nation-state along the lines sought by Indigenous leaders and organizations. Only then will education contribute to constructing an ethnic citizenship alongside and complementary to the national citizenship by which we abide today.

Post scriptum This was written before the Bolivian national elections took place in late 2005 and Evo Morales, a well-known social leader who claims Indigenous identity, was elected president. This was the first time in 180 years of independent rule that the majority of the country voted for an Indigenous person and it was also the first occasion that a candidate clearly proposed an agenda that might have an impact on the political, economic and cultural interests of the hegemonic sectors of society constructed over a period of five hundred years of colonial and republican rule by a white-mestizo minority. The new Aymara Bolivian president enjoys a majority in the National Congress and in the National Constitutional Assembly recently elected to draw up a new political constitution. Several Indigenous leaders and intellectuals accompany Evo Morales as president. Amongst them are

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the ministers of education and of foreign affairs, both of whom strongly support a policy of decolonizing Bolivian politics and everyday life. Since January 2006, several Indigenous international meetings have taken place in Bolivia and the eyes of the Indigenous Latin American movement are now on that country. A new era starts in Bolivia and now it will be the responsibility of the Indigenous leaders in power to reinvent intercultural bilingual education and to enforce it in line with their demands and present understandings. Unlike what occurred in the past, they can now go beyond questioning official language and educational policies and design and implement the transformations they themselves deem necessary to make of the educational system an instrument for the construction of the antiracist plurinational state they have been seeking. Their responsibility is greater than ever since the changes they make might very well have an impact on Indigenous politics in the whole region and even possibly beyond. I wonder whether in the new context to come we will continue speaking of intercultural bilingual education or if the Indigenous leaders and intellectuals in power will propose a new denomination to mark the beginning of this new era of Indigenous education in the continent.

Notes 1. At the beginning of 2006, Mario Vargas-Llosa sparked international debate in this regard, as a result of his characterization of Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Evo Morales, as a mestizo, typifying as demogagogical and shrewd his self-definition as Indigenous (see Vargas-Llosa 2006). The denial of the right to self-ethnic ascription is often a strategy used by the dominant classes to stress the so-called advantages of racial mixing or mestizaje. Vargas-Llosa, as many other Latin American mainstream elite intellectuals, highlights the undeniable process of hybridity and racial mixing that has taken place in the continent since the European invasion starting in 1492, precisely to invalidate Indigenous resurgence and right to self-determination. What mainstream spokesmen tend to ignore is that Indigenous essentialism and re-affirmation might be politically strategic and convenient in order to push the Indigenous political agenda further. 2. Interestingly enough in December 2005, Bolivian society moved to what could be defined as an Indigenous left, when 54 per cent of the votes in the most recent national elections elected Evo Morales. 3. Despite the fact that official Peruvian education policy assumes bilingual education to be an integral part of the state educational system, its application, in general, is still limited to remote communities and its enrollment growth barely reaches 11 per cent of Peru’s rural schools (Trapnell and Neira 2006). In Guatemala the situation is similar since EIB is restricted to only 20 per cent of the communities that require this type of education; in Bolivia, it

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5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

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represents either 22 per cent or 27 per cent, if we refer only to the total numbers of rural schools in the country (López 2005). Indigenous societies such as the Mapuche concentrate much of their population in cities. Estimates state, for example, that half a million Mapuches live in Santiago de Chile and if one adds the Mapuches living in other Chilean cities, one would find that about 50 or 60 per cent of the Mapuches today are urban (López 2004). For example, Colombian Indigenous organizations have coined the notion of Plan de vida or life-plan. Guidelines as to the competencies that a teacher should develop in this sense have been presented in López (1996). The nature of PROEIB Andes as an international network of Indigenous organizations, universities and ministries of education has allowed me to set up what could be considered a permanent observatory of EIB in Latin America. It is necessary, however, to acknowledge that the Indigenous leaders’ vision regarding EIB does not always coincide with that of the students’ parents; for, as a result of the colonial condition and of the limited spaces of use of the Indigenous languages, many of the latter still prefer a monolingual education in a European language. See, for example, the Bolivian Educational Indigenous Proposal formulated by the Indigenous Peoples’ Education Councils (CONAMAQ et al. 2004). In an intuitive manner, but as the product of their political growth and due to their assumption of a decolonizing position, Indigenous leaders and intellectuals find themselves following the same line of thought proposed by some academics, of both North and South, in stating the need to become aware of the situated and local character and history of what is now known as universal knowledge (compare Lander 2000; Mignolo 2000; Quijano 1997). Although it may sound redundant, I would rather refer to Indigenous women as ‘alphabetic illiterates’ as although they may not be able to read and write alphabetic script, they might be highly skilled in decoding various types of graphic encoding, as is the case of Andean textile weavers (see López 2001). At the extremes of the continuum of linguistic diversity regarding the number of languages spoken in each Latin American country, we find Nicaragua with four (Miskitu, Sumu, Creole English and Spanish) and two at the verge of extinction (Rama and Garífuna), and Brazil with approximately 180 different languages.

References Almendra, Agustín (2004), Uso del Namui Wam y la escritura del castellano. Un proceso de tensión y distensión generacional en el pueblo guambiano [The use of Namui Wam and Spanish writing. A process of generational tension and distension in the Guambiano community], La Paz: PROEIB Andes, PINSEIB and Plural Editores. Bhabha, Homi (1994), The Location of Culture, New York: Routledge. CONAMAQ, CSUTCB, CIDOB, APG, CSCB, FNCMB-BS, CEAM, CEPOG, CENAQ and CEA (2004), Por una educación indígena originaria. Hacia la autodeterminación ideológica, política, territorial y sociocultural [For an Indigenous originary education.

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Towards ideological, political, territorial and sociocultural self-determination], La Paz: GIG. Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo (1988), ‘Unidad y diferenciación lingüística en el mundo andino’ [Linguistic unity and differentiation in the Andean world], in Luis Enrique López (ed.), Pesquisas en lingüística andina, Lima-Puno, Perú: CONCYTECUNAP, pp. 121–52. Díaz-Couder, Ernesto (1998), ‘Diversidad cultural y educación en Iberoamérica’ [Cultural diversity and education in Iberoamerica], Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 17: 11–30 (Madrid). Freire, Paulo (1973), Education for Critical Consciousness, New York: Seabury. Hornberger, Nancy and Luis Enrique López (1998), ‘Policy, possibility and paradox: Indigenous multilingualism and education in Peru and Bolivia’, in Jasone Cenoz and Fred Genesee (eds), Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 206–42. Howard, Rosaleen, Francoise Barbira-Freedman and Henry Stobart (2002), ‘Introduction’, in Henry Stobart and Rosaleen Howard (eds), Knowledge and Learning in the Andes. Ethnographic Perspectives. Liverpool Latin American Studies, New Series 3, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 1–13. Kymlicka, Will (1995), Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Landaburu, Jon (1998), ‘Oralidad y escritura en las sociedades indígenas’ [Orality and writing in Indigenous societies], in Luis Enrique López and Ingrid Jung (eds), Sobre las huellas de la voz: Sociolingüística de la oralidad y la escritura en su relación con la educación [Over the traces of voice: sociolinguistics of orality and writing in its relationship with education], Madrid: Ediciones Morata, PROEIB Andes, DSE, pp. 39–82. Lander, Edgardo (ed.) (2000), La colonialidad del saber: eurocentrismos y ciencias sociales. Perspectivas latinoamericanas [The coloniality of knowledge: Eurocentrisms and social sciences: Latin American perspectives], Buenos Aires: CLACSO and UNESCO. López, Luis Enrique (1996), ‘La diversidad lingüística, étnica y cultural latinoamericana y los recursos humanos que la educación requiere [Latin American linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity and the human resources education requires], in Héctor Muñoz and Pedro Lewin (eds), El significado de la diversidad lingüística y cultural, México, D.F.: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana/Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, pp. 115–38. —— (1997), ‘To Guaranize: a verb actively conjugated by the Bolivian Guarani’, in Nancy Hornberger (ed.), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 321–53. —— (1998), ‘La eficacia y validez de lo obvio: lecciones aprendidas desde la evaluación de procesos educativos bilingües’ [Efficacy and validity of the obvious: lessons learnt from bilingual education processes], Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 17: 51–90 (Madrid). —— (2001), ‘Literacies and intercultural education in the Andes’, in David Olson and Nancy Torrance (eds), Literacy and Social Development: the Making of Literate Societies, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 201–24. —— (2004), Igualdad con dignidad. Hacia nuevas formas de actuación con la niñez indígena en América Latina [Equality with dignity. Towards new ways of attending Indigenous children in Latin America], Panama: UNICEF Tacro.

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—— (2005), De resquicios a boquerones. La educación intercultural bilingüe en Bolivia [From fissures to craters. Intercultural bilingual education in Bolivia], La Paz: Plural Editores and PROEIB Andes. —— (2006), ‘Cultural diversity, multilingualism and Indigenous education in Latin America’, in Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Ofelia García and María TorresGuzmán (eds), Imagining Multilingual Schools. Languages in Education and Glocalization, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 238–61. Mignolo, Walter (2000), Local Histories/Global Designs. Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Moya, R. and M. Cotacachi (1990), ‘Pedagogía y normalización del quichua ecuatoriano’, Pueblos indígenas y educación, 14: 1001–202 (Quito). Ninyoles, Rafael Lluis (1972), Idioma y poder social, Madrid: Tecnos. Plaza, Pedro (2003), ‘Normalización de la escritura del quechua en Bolivia’ [Standardization of Quechua writing in Bolivia], in Elizabeth Uscamayta and Vidal Carbajal (eds), Qinasay: Revista de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, 1: 87–106 (Cochabamba). Prada, Fernando and Luis Enrique López (2005), ‘Educación superior y descentralización epistemológica’, in CIESI, I Conferencia Internacional sobre Ensino Superior Indigena. Construindo Novos Paradigmas na Educacao, Mato Grosso, Brazil: Universidade do Estado da Mato Grosso, pp. 27–47. Prudencio, Ramiro (2005), ‘Intensificación del racismo’ [The intensification of racism], Diario La Razón, La Paz, 5 July. Psacharopoulos, George and Harry Patrinos (eds) (1994), Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America. An Empirical Analysis, World Bank Regional and Sectorial Studies, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Quijano, Anibal (1997), ‘Colonialidad del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina’ [The coloniality of power, culture and knowledge in Latin America], Anuario Mariateguista, IX/9: 113–21 (Lima). Sichra, Inge and Luis Enrique López (2003), ‘La educación en áreas indígenas de América Latina’ [Education in Indigenous areas of Latin America], in Elizabeth Uscamayta and Vidal Carbajal (eds), Qinasay: Revista de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, 1: 15–26, (Cochabamba). Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988), ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ in Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271–313. Trapnell, Lucy and Eloy Neira (2006), ‘Situación de la educación intercultural bilingüe en el Perú’ [Situation of intercultural bilingual education in Peru], in Luis Enrique López and Carlos Rojas (eds), La educación intercultural bilingüe en América Latina bajo examen, La Paz: Banco Mundial, GTZ, Plural Editores, pp. 253–355. UNDP (United Nations Development Program) (2004), World Report on Human Development: Cultural Liberty, New York: United Nations. World Comission on Culture and Development (1995), Our Creative Diversity, Paris: UNESCO. Vargas-Llosa, Mario (2006), ‘Raza, botas y nacionalismo’, La Razón, La Paz, Bolivia, 15 January [reproduced from El País, Madrid, Spain].

4

M¯aori-medium Education: Current Issues and Challenges Stephen May and Richard Hill

Introduction Before discussing the latest developments in M¯aori-medium education in Aotearoa/New Zealand, three key areas of clarification are required. The first is that Aotearoa/New Zealand is one of the only national contexts that specifically distinguishes between bilingual and immersion education. Elsewhere, immersion education is regarded simply as one form of bilingual education. However, in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the two forms are consistently juxtaposed. This distinction is instantiated by the recognition, and associated funding, of four levels of immersion: Level 1: 81–100 per cent; Level 2: 51–80 per cent; Level 3: 31–50 per cent; Level 4: 12–30 per cent. Immersion education is associated exclusively in the New Zealand context with Level 1 immersion and these programs are, in turn, most often identified directly with the separate, whole-school programs that have come to represent the M¯aori-medium movement – Te K¯ohanga Reo (preschool), Kura Kaupapa M¯aori (elementary) and wharekura (secondary) M¯aori-medium programs. Bilingual education is equated with lower levels of immersion (Levels 2–4), and these, in turn, are more often associated with a growing number of bilingual units within ‘mainstream’ (English-medium) schools.1 This distinction was solidified in the early years of the M¯aori-medium education movement, which began with the establishment of the first K¯ohanga Reo in 1982. The kaupapa (philosophy) of K¯ ohanga Reo and, subsequently, Kura Kaupapa M¯aori and wharekura M¯aori-medium schools, was predicated upon the central principle of ‘He k¯orero M¯aori’ (speaking in M¯aori),2 and thus also the notion of ‘full immersion’ (Level 1: 81–100 per cent). The centrality of full immersion was itself a product of the 66

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widespread concern among M¯aori over the exponential loss of te reo M¯ aori (the M¯aori language) that had followed the rapid urbanization, and subsequent dispersion of M¯aori, after the Second World War. Indeed, as a result of a major sociolinguistic survey, it had been predicted in the 1970s that, unless the pattern of language shift and loss was attenuated, eventual language death would almost certainly occur (Benton 1979). Promoting an educational environment where only M¯aori was spoken was thus seen as the best means by which to ensure the survival of, and an ongoing use for, te reo M¯aori. These views were also influenced at the time by the predominance in second-language teaching circles of natural approaches to language learning, exemplified by the arguments of Krashen and Terrell’s Natural Approach (see Richards and Rodgers 1986). Moreover, prior to the emergence of the M¯aori-medium movement, the only other form of bilingual education available to M¯aori had been a limited number of transitional bilingual programs, established in the 1970s, among the few isolated rural areas in the country that still remained predominantly M¯aori-speaking. As with most transitional bilingual programs, however, while M¯aori was used as an instructional language, the main aim in the majority of these programs was to shift the students towards greater use of English, rather than the retention of M¯aori itself (Benton 1981). Consequently, for advocates of M¯aori-medium education, ‘bilingual education’ came to be associated, even elided, with subtractive models of bilingual education; hence the subsequent, and ongoing, juxtaposition with ‘immersion education’, which also presupposes an additive bilingual education approach.3 A second key point of clarification relates to the aims of the M¯aorimedium education movement. Up until recently, these aims have been framed from within the movement itself almost exclusively in terms of the role of education in revitalizing te reo M¯aori – of achieving what Paulston has called ‘language reversal’: a process by which ‘one of the languages of a state begins to move back into more prominent use’ (1993: 281; see May 2004 for an extended discussion). Not surprisingly perhaps, academic commentary on M¯aori-medium education, both nationally and internationally, has likewise focused almost exclusively to date on the significant successes that it has achieved in relation to this wider language revitalization aim. M¯aori-medium education is regularly cited in the international literature, for example, as an exemplary school intervention that has successfully addressed, and redressed, the language shift and loss of an Indigenous language (see, for example, Baker and Prys Jones 1998; Baker 2001; May 1999, 2004). Moreover, other Indigenous language education programs, such as those in Hawai’i for example, have often looked to

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M¯aori-medium education as a model of good practice in guiding the development of their own programs and pedagogy (see Wilson 1999). And yet, despite the significance of these wider achievements (or, perhaps, to some extent, because of them), there remains an ongoing dearth of information on the factors that contribute specifically to the educational effectiveness of particular M¯aori-medium programs, and the related academic outcomes of their students. Indeed, Cath Rau (2003: 2) comments that ‘to date, there is little comprehensive information available to describe the achievement of students being instructed in the M¯aori language, especially in their formative years’ (although, see Rau 2005 for the beginnings of just such an analysis). More extensive research and assessment of such programs is thus urgently needed, particularly with respect to those conditions that promote the successful achievement of biliteracy, and thus educational achievement, among students in M¯aori-medium education (May et al. 2004). This is an area of focus that is only just now beginning to emerge in both the research on, and practice within, M¯aori-medium education itself.4 A third point of clarification relates closely to the other two. A key feature of any bilingual program is the relationship between the students’ language(s) and those of the program. In particular, is the language of instruction the students’ L1 or L2? Do all the students have the same language base (L1 or L2), or is the student language base mixed (a combination of both L1 and L2 speakers)? When these questions are asked, it immediately becomes apparent that most students currently in M¯aori-medium education are actually L1 speakers of English and L2 speakers of M¯aori as, indeed, are many of the teachers, since the latter are the generation that experienced personally the generational loss of the language. And yet, the L2 base of the students in M¯aori-medium education, and its implications for teaching and learning, is another key characteristic that has hardly been commented upon until recently, in either research on, or evaluation of, M¯aori-medium education. This lacuna can be explained, at least to some extent, by a related ambiguity in much of the international research literature on bilingual/ immersion programs – particularly, with respect to the usual distinction employed between ‘maintenance’ and ‘enrichment’ bilingual education models. Both maintenance and enrichment approaches are recognized as additive bilingual education approaches that aim to achieve bilingualism and biliteracy for their students by the end of the program and which aim also to contribute to the wider maintenance of the minority language(s) concerned in the broader community (see Hornberger 1991; Baker 2001, 2006).

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The principal point of difference between maintenance and enrichment programs appears to be the language base of the students in the program. Maintenance models of bilingual education are most often associated with minority L1 speakers who are already fluent in their L1, to age appropriate levels. Additive bilingual programs for L1 Catalan and Welsh speakers, French-speaking Canadians, and L1 Spanish speakers in the USA might be said to constitute examples of maintenance bilingual programs. Enrichment models, a term first coined by Fishman (1976), are most often associated with relatively privileged majority language L2 speakers being taught through a minority, or target, language. French immersion programs in Canada, which cater predominantly for middle-class L1 English speakers, are perhaps the most often cited example here. Welsh-medium schools, which also include many middle-class L1 English speakers, are another example (see May 2000). Elite bilingual programs such as the European Schools movement are also widely regarded as enrichment programs (Skutnabb-Kangas 1981; Valdes and Figueroa 1994). Given the nature of their constituency, in enrichment programs the primary focus will be (and will need to be) on developing the L2 target minority language skills of these students, rather than maintaining an already existing ageappropriate language base in the L1, as in maintenance bilingual programs. The maintenance/enrichment distinction is a useful form of shorthand in the wider research literature, but it does not apply so easily to heritage language programs – those programs, such as M¯aori-medium education, which are most commonly associated with wider Indigenous language revitalization efforts (see Hinton and Hale 2001; May 1999; May and Aikman 2003 for further discussion). Some of these Indigenous language programs are aimed at students who still speak the Indigenous language as an L1 (for example, Navajo and Hualapai in the USA; Inuit in Nunavut, Canada; Sámi in Finnmark, Norway) and may therefore be regarded as L1 maintenance bilingual programs. But many also cater for students with a mix of L1/L2 speakers of the language (M¯aori, Hawaiian), and some have only L2 speakers (or, rather, learners) of the language (for example, the Master/Apprentice program developed for the now largely moribund Indigenous languages of California; see Hinton and Hale 2001). And yet, where heritage language programs are discussed in the wider research literature, they tend to be described simply as an example of maintenance bilingualism, with the allied presumption that the majority of their students are L1 speakers of the Indigenous language (see, for example, Baker 2001). Given the clear continuum between maintenance and enrichment models, this description can be defended. Indigenous language programs are, after all, most often based on additive bilingualism,

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with instruction in the Indigenous language a central feature of these programs. Moreover, there clearly are heritage language programs that still comprise a majority of L1 speakers. However, even in Indigenous language programs that have traditionally drawn primarily from L1 speakers, more L2 speakers are increasingly present. For example, McCarty (2003) notes that in the Navajo heritage language program at Rough Rock in Arizona – one of the strongest and longest established in the USA – only 50 per cent of Navajo now speak their own language and their numbers are declining each year. The increasing presence of L2 speakers in heritage or Indigenous language programs is the ongoing consequence of already well-established processes of language shift or loss for such languages, such as those experienced by M¯aori (see above). Given this, it is crucial that the wider research literature begins to address more clearly the specific consequences of the increase in L2 speakers in many heritage language programs. In particular, we need to distinguish, and if necessary differentiate between, the specific language and learning needs of L1 and L2 speakers or learners of the minority language within these programs. This can be accomplished in ways that will further enhance the developmental and educational outcomes of all the students involved, but only if these issues are directly addressed. At present, the increasing presence of L2 speakers continues to be either ignored, or subsumed within the L1 group, even though their educational circumstances and learning needs may differ. Baker’s (2001) typology of heritage language education, for example, does not distinguish between these groups or their different needs and this is typical of the literature more generally.5 Much the same can be said for the research literature – at least until recently – on M¯aori-medium education, which has not addressed in sufficient depth the particular characteristics and demands of working in a predominantly L2 learning and teaching context. Bearing these three particular characteristics in mind, and with a specific focus on how best to achieve bilingualism and biliteracy for students, we will now provide a necessarily selective summary of recent research on M¯aori-medium education in Aotearoa/New Zealand over the last decade or so, drawing from our recent major report in this area (see May et al. 2004: Ch. 8 for an extended discussion). In so doing, we will also attempt to extrapolate key indicators of good practice for such programs.

Research on M¯aori-medium programs The relative paucity of discussions of M¯aori-medium education with specific reference to how best to foster biliteracy, and related academic

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outcomes for students, has already been noted. More extensive research and assessment of M¯aori-medium programs is thus urgently needed, particularly with regard to these questions. Such research might assess effectiveness and student achievement, but it might also examine existing pedagogy and practice – highlighting good practices, but also where pedagogy and practice can be further improved and/or extended. Without such research information, it is very difficult to build upon the existing strengths of these programs. Nonetheless, the beginnings of just such a consistent research basis are now beginning to emerge. The areas encompassed by this research include evaluations of M¯aori-medium programs and the learning of the students who are involved in the programs, teacher effectiveness in such programs, and assessment processes and tools in M¯aori-medium contexts. Jacques (1991) One of the earliest evaluations of M¯aori bilingual/immersion programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand was a study conducted by Jacques (1991) into the effectiveness of six South Island bilingual classroom-based programs within mainstream (English-medium) primary schools. This study identified both the strengths and weaknesses of these particular programs, within the educational context of home, school and community. It focused on: 1. Identifying the rationales for the establishment of the M¯aori bilingual units. 2. Identifying structures in place within the school to promote the programs. 3. Describing the operations of bilingual classrooms including: availability of resources; teacher training and teaching practices; the roles and functions of the kai¯arahi reo (language teaching assistants); and the incorporation of M¯aori language and culture into the curriculum. 4. Assessing the outcomes of the bilingual programs, including: the students’ affective development and development of English language skills; the retention of M¯aori language skills acquired at K¯ ohanga Reo; and the impact of the programs on the school and wider community. 5. Making recommendations for future program development. The research methodology consisted of quantitative and qualitative methods involving documentary evidence, interviews, classroom observations and surveys over an 18-month period from 1989 to 1990. The research participants included staff members, wh¯anau (extended families), staff from K¯ ohanga Reo, and the local community.

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Jacques found that the programs were very successful in terms of the promotion of the students’ self-esteem, self-confidence and cultural identity; the provision of culturally sensitive and safe environments; the inclusion of families; and the development of the students’ English language abilities. There were a number of factors, however, which militated against the promotion of te reo M¯aori and cultural maintenance goals. These included the following: 1. The ongoing dominance of English as the language of instruction. 2. The inadequacy of pre-service and inservice training for associate teachers and kai¯arahi reo with respect to teaching in bilingual contexts. 3. The lack of adequate M¯aori language teaching resources for use in instruction. 4. The lack of clear program rationales. 5. The lack of a clearly defined client-group (a wide range of students with differing fluency in te reo M¯aori were grouped together in classes). 6. Few effective support services. 7. An absence of provision for the continuation of bilingual programming beyond primary school level. 8. Absence of local planning/advisory groups to assist in the steering of the programs. 9. Resistance among some staff and community to the programs. 10. Little promotion of kaupapa M¯aori practices in the wider school structures. 11. A widespread feeling among wh¯anau whose children went to K¯ohanga Reo that their needs would be better met in a separate M¯aori language school, such as a Kura Kaupapa M¯aori, than in a bilingual unit within a mainstream school. M¯aori language proficiency was not measured in the study. There were several reasons for this, one being that there were no measures at that time devised to assess the language (see also below), and another being that the researcher was not herself a fluent speaker of M¯aori. Instead, an impressionistic assessment was made of the students’ fluency in M¯aori. The lack of data in such an important area and the researcher’s inability to speak te reo M¯aori are thus a fundamental weakness of this research. This same feature – failing to assess adequately the students’ knowledge of te reo M¯ aori – is also a weakness of the Educational Review Office (ERO) evaluation of Kura Kaupapa M¯aori discussed below (see Education Review Office 2002)

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and points to a wider concern about the ongoing inability of Aotearoa/ New Zealand research, and researchers, to address such an important consideration. Nevertheless, in terms of what evidence Jacques does present regarding fluency in te reo M¯aori, she reports that the students displayed their use of te reo M¯aori on only a limited number of occasions, such as when reciting karakia (prayers) and during mihi (greetings), and when they took part in M¯aori language musical activities. One can infer from this that te reo M¯aori use was thus limited to organizational, rather than instructional language contexts. Likewise, in terms of listening comprehension, she observes that the students ‘seemed to comprehend the M¯aori language speech of teachers and kai¯arahi reo, and would for example, sit down, or go outside when asked, [but] they showed little age appropriate proficiency in either oral or literacy-related tasks’ (Jacques 1991: 296; our emphasis).6 In terms of the students’ English language skills, Jacques’ research utilized the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) to measure the students’ reading comprehension, reading vocabulary and listening comprehension across two of the schools in the research study. Two hundred and thirty-nine Year 4–6 students were tested in all. Of these, one quarter of the students were enrolled in a bilingual class (using around 10 per cent of te reo M¯aori, the target language) and the remainder were enrolled in mainstream English-only classes. The results indicated that although eight of the comparisons employed favoured the bilingual students, there was no significant difference between these students and those in English-medium. However, Jacques does point out that being enrolled in a bilingual class was clearly not a disadvantage for these students in their English language acquisition when compared with those in mainstream English-medium classes. In her conclusions, Jacques provides an important caveat regarding the results. Although the evidence from her results ostensibly matches those found in studies of many overseas bilingual programs, all the bilingual programs that she examined had a significantly lower ratio than the 50 per cent level of target language instruction7 – the minimum ratio considered to be characteristic of authentic bilingual programs in the wider research literature (see, for example, Baker 2001; Lindholm-Leary 2001; May et al. 2004; May 2008). Consequently, the data gathered cannot be directly compared with such programs. It is also highly likely that the comparable performance of bilingual students in English language skills was the result of other factors – such as cultural support – rather than linguistic factors.

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Hollings, Jeffries and McArdell (1992) Issues of M¯aori language assessment are addressed directly by a subsequent study by Hollings et al. (1992). In their study of 47 M¯aori-medium programs, and via questionnaires and cluster interviews with 73 teachers in these programs, these authors focused upon: 1. 2. 3. 4.

M¯aori language assessment Variables affecting M¯aori language Teachers’ knowledge of assessment How assessment procedures are used in other situations (total immersion)

Results from the questionnaire found that teachers were using a wide variety of methods to assess M¯aori language development – generally, methods commonly found in mainstream (English-medium) schools, such as running records and six-year net.8 However, incidental observation was the method most often used because of a lack of appropriate benchmarked assessment tools for te reo M¯aori at that time. Not surprisingly, the majority of teachers also felt that the available assessment procedures were not satisfactory. Results from cluster meetings found that, while various forms of language assessment were regularly implemented in these programs, few teachers demonstrated a sufficient understanding of their efficacy for L2 learners, or their appropriateness to L2 contexts – a crucial omission, given that, as discussed above, M¯aori is an L2 for most students in these programs. It was also found that there was not much coordination in the recording of assessment. In fact, many teachers indicated that they based their decisions on a ‘feeling’ about the students’ progress as they worked with them. On the basis of these findings, Hollings et al. concluded that while most classroom assessment was at that stage still largely anecdotal and intuitive, this was primarily because of a lack of appropriate language assessment resources and related training in them. Certainly, teachers in the programs were anxious to get further guidance about assessment practices. Accordingly, the study’s principal recommendation was to improve the resource materials base in M¯aori language for schools, including M¯aori versions of the major language and literacy assessment tools available to mainstream English-medium schools (see also Rau 2005). Following from this, the authors argued that better coordination and sharing of information about language assessment among teachers in M¯aori-medium contexts should occur.

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Educational Review Office (2000, 2002) The 1990s saw the subsequent development of key M¯aori language assessment tools for junior primary levels – particularly Ng¯a Kete K¯orero and Aromatawai Urunga-¯a-Kura.9 However, a recent unpublished Educational Review Office (ERO)10 report of literacy practices in Kura Kaupapa M¯aori (Education Review Office 2000) highlighted ongoing issues of concern about language assessment, as well as raising wider concerns about the development of academic literacy in te reo M¯aori. With respect to curriculum management and planning, for example, the 2000 ERO report concludes that there was not always sufficient evidence of planning to guide teachers with program implementation, particularly in written and oral language in te reo M¯aori. Oral language programs, for example, were not always well planned and tended to occur only incidentally. Those teachers who did plan for the teaching of reading, writing and oral language in te reo M¯aori tended to plan only basic sessions of instruction referenced to the curriculum documents. Feedback from the teachers in these programs consistently highlighted the following ongoing concerns: 1. The inadequacy of current pre-service and inservice teacher training in literacy development in M¯aori-medium contexts, particularly biliteracy development, and second language acquisition more broadly. 2. Neither the M¯aori nor the English curriculum documents were seen as adequately supporting the teaching of reading, writing and oral language in M¯aori immersion settings. 3. An ongoing lack of sufficient M¯aori language benchmark assessment resources, particularly at more senior primary (elementary) levels, and a related lack of training in their use. Those assessments that were available – particularly, Ng¯a Kete K¯ orero and Aromatawai Urunga-¯aKura – were valued highly, however. 4. An ongoing lack of adequate and appropriate teaching and learning resources. A more recent summary of the ERO report’s findings was published in 2002. The information from the 2002 ERO report also incorporated the findings of the most recent reviews of 52 Kura Kaupapa M¯aori (KKM) with Level 1 (above 80 per cent) immersion levels in te reo M¯aori (Education Review Office 2002). As with its predecessor, the 2002 ERO report continues to highlight the significant constraints experienced by KKM in terms of teaching, evaluating, programs, planning and management. Surprisingly, however, the report does not focus specifically on

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the quality of M¯aori language instruction or on the extent to which students were achieving fluency in te reo M¯aori. Only 16 of the 52 KKM that were reviewed received specific comment regarding their te reo M¯aori programs, of which ERO found that 12 had demonstrated good quality language programs. The report did comment on the instructional methods teachers used to teach te reo M¯aori and found that at 23 KKM the methods were appropriate and likely to lead to competency in both te reo M¯aori and English, while at seven KKM the teaching methods were less appropriate. However, the basis of this assessment is not stated, nor does the report indicate the types of language competencies the reviewers focused upon – oral fluency, reading comprehension and so on. Given the centrality of bilingualism and biliteracy to the educational aims and practices of these M¯aori-medium schools, the analysis and findings of this ERO report are disappointingly light on these crucial details. There were a large number of other areas of instruction, assessment and governance that ERO deemed to be of concern in around 50 per cent of the Kura Kaupapa M¯aori studied. These areas included curriculum planning, curriculum delivery, student assessment, meeting individual needs, learning environments, and administration and governance, the supply of staff and personnel, and teaching resources. The last two are largely beyond the control of the school, however, and are longstanding concerns in Aotearoa/New Zealand (see May et al. 2004 for further discussion). The report identified the greatest strengths of the KKM programs as the use of cooperative learning techniques in instruction, effective learning environments, safe environments and relationships with the community. There are, however, some ambiguities in these areas as well. For example, the report (Education Review Office 2002: 6–7) finds that most KKM have a good focus on providing an effective learning environment (62 per cent). This statement does not match the statistics stated elsewhere in the report, however. In fact, earlier in the report, only 54 per cent of kura were said to have adequate systems for identifying learning needs, 56 per cent lacked effective mechanisms for assessing the progress and needs of the students, and curriculum delivery was effective in only 48 per cent of the schools. The available evidence from the 2002 ERO report would thus suggest some ongoing concerns about the further development of effective learning environments in M¯aori-medium contexts. That said, the specific experience and/or expertise of the reviewers in bilingual, second language and/or M¯aori-medium education, or the specific criteria underlying their

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assessments of the bilingual programs, are never made clear. Thus, the validity and reliability of their conclusions cannot be accurately gauged. National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) The National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) has the task of assessing and reporting on the achievement of New Zealand primary school students in all the subjects of the school curriculum. The main purpose is to provide detailed information about what students can do. Two recent reports have focused on the comparative achievements of Year 8 M¯aori students involved in Level 1 immersion M¯aori-medium education, or within mainstream (English-medium) education. In 2000, NEMP focused on assessing speaking and reading skills (National Educational Assessment Research Unit 2001), with twelve reading and speaking tasks being administered to these students. The tasks included reading comprehension, retelling a sequence that was viewed, completing a story, and presenting an advertisement. Two tasks required all students to read M¯aori words or texts, although the task instructions were given in English for the M¯aori students in general education settings. The remaining ten tasks were presented in M¯aori or English for the M¯aori-medium and English-medium students respectively. Administration of the tasks was either by videotape (nine tasks), one-to-one interview (one task) or station format (students work independently recording responses on paper; two tasks). The results found that in three tasks the M¯aori-medium students performed at significantly higher levels than their English-medium peers. As one might expect, these included the two tasks that required all students to read M¯aori words or texts (pronouncing M¯aori words; oral reading in M¯aori). In five tasks, M¯aori students in both settings performed equally well (including presenting a news report, retelling a story from a picture book, completing a story). In four tasks, M¯aori students in general English-medium settings performed significantly higher (including reading comprehension and retelling a video story). The same report also included research on music skills and technology skills for these students. From the total findings, the report concludes that in 55 per cent of the tasks, both groups performed similarly. In 14 per cent of tasks, the M¯aori immersion students performed better, and in 31 per cent of the tasks the general English-medium students performed better (National Educational Assessment Research Unit 2001). An earlier NEMP report on science, art, graphs, tables and maps skills (National Educational Assessment Research Unit 2000) also found a broad comparability between M¯aori students in M¯aori-medium and

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English-medium settings, with both groups performing similarly in 70 per cent of the tasks. In the remaining tasks, the English-medium students performed moderately better than the students in the M¯aorimedium programs (National Educational Assessment Research Unit 2000). While, in this case, the results were broadly similar, one clear advantage for the M¯aori-medium students was that they were able to perform as well as their English-medium peers, plus do so in their L2. However, the 2001 NEMP Report also specifically warns about generalizing from these results, for several reasons: 1. The development and selection of some tasks may have advantaged the English-medium students, as mainstream teachers and researchers developed the majority of tasks. 2. The earlier assessments were translations of English texts with which the M¯aori-medium students may not have been familiar, and which may have also included unfamiliar dialectal vocabulary. 3. The activities in the M¯aori texts were often more complex than the English versions. 4. The sample of immersion students unexpectedly fell by 16 with the withdrawal of two classes. 5. The students in the 1999 sample did not necessarily have stable M¯aori proficiency, as their te reo M¯aori abilities were not screened beforehand. Some may also have had only one or two years experience in M¯aori-medium contexts, thus also potentially disadvantaging them with respect to the assessment of grade-appropriate material in te reo M¯aori. In order to redress this, the second sample in 2000 included only those students with at least 5 years in M¯aori-medium education. 6. There are significant educational issues regarding the comparability of the English-medium and M¯aori-medium groups, given that M¯aorimedium education lacks resources and qualified teachers, something that M¯aori students in general English-medium schools would not experience. Rau (2003) and Rau et al. (2001) also specifically warn against the practice of comparing M¯aori with non-M¯aori and the use of non-M¯aori benchmarks to gauge M¯aori progress (see also below). Rau (2003) Rau (2003) has examined and compared the M¯aori-literacy skills of groups of students involved in Level 1 M¯aori-medium programs over two periods 1995 and 2002–03 (see Rau 2005 for a more recent discussion). The purposes of this assessment were to observe the literacy achievement of students in te reo M¯aori after at least one year of instruction in a high

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immersion context, to identify those experiencing difficulty, and to provide information about the classroom programs. This, according to Rau, is important because no other standardized assessments currently exist in M¯aori that provide such comprehensive literacy information for students in the first three years of schooling. Rau used a set of M¯aori-developed literacy assessments including those which tested letter identification (Te Ta¯utu), concepts about print (Ng¯a Tikanga o Te Tuhi K¯orero), word recognition (Te Whakam¯atautau kupu), writing vocabulary (Te Tuhi Kupu), hearing and recording the sounds in words (Whakarongo, Tuhia, Ng¯a Tangi o Roto i ng¯a Kupu) and text reading (Te P¯anui Pukapuka). The participants were 97 students aged 6.0 to 7.0 years (the 1995 group), and 100 students aged 6.0 to 7.0 years (the 2002–2003 group). The results were as follows: 1. Students in the 2002–03 sample scored consistently better than students in 1995 across five of the six tasks. 2. Students in the older age bands scored consistently higher than the younger age band on all tasks for both the 1995 sample and the 2002–03 sample. 3. Overall, there was little difference between the performance of boys and the performance of girls for both the 1995 and 2002–03 samples. Rau argues that the different findings evident in 1995 and 2003 are attributable to a range of factors, including increased support for, and resourcing of M¯aori-medium programs, particularly since 1998. In particular, such resourcing has included: • The development and promulgation of Ng¯a Kete K¯ orero. This framework has provided much needed organization of junior reading material in te reo M¯aori into increasing levels of difficulty, comparable to those in English-medium. Teachers potentially are able to make better matches between reading material and learner need/ability as a result. • The increased quantity and improved quality of reading instructional material available in te reo M¯aori (although more is needed). • The increased recognition and development of epistemology and pedagogy for M¯aori-medium contexts. • The increased provision of M¯aori-medium-specific professional development in literacy for teachers, thus addressing the consistent need identified by teachers in M¯aori-medium programs for such professional development.

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• The ongoing commitment and dedication of M¯aori-medium teachers who continue to strive toward improving curriculum delivery and raising M¯aori achievement in the face of extreme demands, often overwhelming expectations, and limited resources. However, Rau also points out that the results may have been better still had it not been for a number of factors which have made the tasks of the M¯aori-medium teacher even more difficult. These include, in particular: 1. The high number of ‘linguistically challenging’ curriculum documents in M¯aori that have been developed within a relatively short period. 2. The high mobility of teachers. 3. An increased demand for M¯aori-medium teachers due to a rapid increase in the number of schools offering M¯aori-medium programs. 4. Increasing demands for professional development in M¯aori-mediumspecific literacy, which drains teacher supply. 5. The still piecemeal nature of teacher professional development provision. Berryman, Walker, Reweti, O’Brien and McDonald (2002) In another recent research study, also pertaining to student achievement and assessment in M¯aori-medium education, Berryman et al. (2002) outline the development of a language assessment resource called Kia Puta ai te Reo. The study also discusses some preliminary findings from some M¯aori-medium program trials of the resource. Kia Puta ai te Reo consists of a combination of four programs and assessment tools that are designed to assist students with different levels of language ability to improve their te reo skills in M¯aori-medium education settings. The programs are: • Tukuna kia Rere: For students who need to strengthen and enrich their M¯aori language base. It is based on an English oral language program called the ‘One Hand Approach’ and helps students build and link language by using a hierarchical model of word and meaning associations. • Hopungia: For students who have learned to communicate in English but who need to develop M¯aori language skills in order to succeed in M¯aori language learning contexts. Hopungia consists of a range of interactive activities such as barrier games and collaborative stories,

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which are designed to broaden student understanding of M¯aori language and fluency. • Mihi and Tata: These two programs are designed to assist students who experience communication difficulties. Mihi is a program designed to help parents of students with hearing difficulties. Tata works at developing vocabulary and the development of letter sound knowledge associated with the initial sounds of words. Table 4.1 highlights the levels of the students’ language ability in te reo M¯aori and the corresponding programs that are designated to match that language ability level. Each type of program caters for the needs of each particular group of students. Given their greater level of linguistic proficiency, however, Level 1 students use the standard M¯aori-medium assessments, such as Aromatawai Urunga-¯a-Kura, which are designed to ensure their ongoing extension in te reo M¯aori. The preliminary results of the use of these programs in the classroom are also now available. The Tata program (testing the naming of objects and the initial sounds of selected vocabulary) has been successfully trialled in three sites. At each site there were increases in student performance over the period for both tests. The Hopungia program has been trialled successfully at two sites, one a Kura Kaupapa M¯aori and the other a bilingual unit within a mainstream school (wishing to increase its M¯aori immersion level from Level 3 to Level 2 – that is, to at least 50 per cent). In terms of these results, the authors state: Table 4.1

Kia Puta ai te Reo resources and corresponding language ability

Level

Language ability of student

Corresponding programs

Level 4

Pre-schoolers who communicated in mainly poor English or M¯aori structures and vocabulary

Tata Mihi

Level 3

Pre-schoolers who communicated only in English

Hopungia

Level 2

Pre-schoolers who communicated mainly in English but with some M¯aori

Tukuna kia Rere

Level 1

Pre-schoolers who communicated mainly in M¯aori

Standard M¯aorimedium school assessments

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the Hopungia program was enjoyed by students and able to be implemented by tutors working within the classroom setting. Further, the Hopungia program was able to increase individual oral language opportunities and improved student performance at each of these quite diverse sites. (Berryman et al. 2002: 14) The Tukuna kia Rere program is still being trialled. However, the authors conclude that the overall implementation of Kia Puta ai te Reo appears highly promising and argue that it is one means of overcoming the past and present practices of M¯aori having to implement assessment tools which have been developed by non-M¯aori, and without M¯aori ways of knowing and understanding being an integral part of it (see also Rau 2005). Therefore, this set of programs marks a change from this pattern, as it was developed with te reo M¯aori me o¯ na tikanga (M¯aori language and culture) as the central resource, ‘from within the context of equitable powersharing … and from the child’s own culture’ (Berryman et al. 2002). Berryman and Glynn (2003) Berryman and Glynn (2003) have also conducted a small-scale intervention study in one community primary school where M¯aori-medium students were experiencing difficulties in their English language skills after transferring to the local English-medium high school (see also Glynn et al. 2005). In addressing this concern, Berryman and Glynn asked the following key questions: 1. What impact does transition to English have on the lives of the students and their wh¯anau? 2. Are current transition practices to mainstream English-medium effective, or even adequate? 3. How have students benefited from these types of practices? 4. How can we do better? (Berryman and Glynn 2003: 10) Berryman and Glynn observed that, to date, most teachers in M¯aorimedium contexts have implemented one of three options when attempting to prepare their students for (English-medium) secondary school. They would typically either: 1. Do nothing to interfere with the ongoing M¯aori-medium education and wait until the student enters the English-medium context before dealing with any issues that might arise following transition

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2. Teach English transition once students reach a specific age group, or 3. Teach English transition to all students within a specific class. None of these options, Berryman and Glynn argue, is optimal, as they do not take into consideration the identified level of language proficiency of the individual student. All the options assume, they say, that the students share the ‘same level of preparedness’ (Berryman and Glynn 2003: 9–10). To address these concerns, Berryman and Glynn (2003) developed and implemented a 10-week reading and writing transition program in English for the students in this M¯aori-medium setting, in Term 4 of their final year, immediately prior to transferring to high school. Despite the relatively short time frame, the results appear to have been highly successful, with the preparedness of the students for academic instruction in English markedly increasing. Subsequently, this program time has been extended, to further build on its effectiveness (see also Glynn et al. 2005).

Extrapolating indicators of good practice for Ma ¯ ori-medium education In light of the research undertaken to date on M¯aori-medium education, and in relation to attested principles of good practice in the wider literature on bilingual/immersion education,11 this chapter concludes with implications for the further development of M¯aori-medium education. For reasons of space, only two key issues will be highlighted here: levels of immersion, and addressing the L2 language base of the majority of students in M¯aori-medium education (see May et al. 2004 for further discussion). Levels of immersion in M¯aori-medium education In relation to the wider literature on bilingual/immersion education, the four levels of immersion identified in the New Zealand context can be situated as follows. Level 1 (81–100 per cent) programs equate with high-level immersion programs, most notably, 90/10 maintenance and immersion models. Level 2 (51–80 per cent) programs equate with effective ‘partial immersion’ programs, including 50/50 models. Level 3 (31–50 per cent) equates with ineffective partial immersion programs, since 50 per cent instruction in the target language is regarded as the minimum necessary to achieve eventual bilingualism and biliteracy for students in the program.12 Level 4 (12–30 per cent) equates with the level of instruction most often found in foreign language teaching programs. This hierarchy of immersion is reflected in associated funding arrangements for these levels, as Table 4.2 indicates. This budget differential

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Table 4.2 New Zealand Ministry of Education M¯aori language factor funding allowances Immersion level

Program delivery

Funding per M¯aori student 2002

Funding per M¯aori student 2003

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

81–100% immersion 51–80% immersion 30–50 % immersion Less than 30% but at least 3 hours per week

$886.69 $443.34 $221.67 $53.81

$902.65 $451.32 $225.66 $54.78

Source: Resource Division of the New Zealand Ministry of Education (2002).

provides additional resources for New Zealand schools on the basis of the added costs involved in staffing and resourcing bilingual/immersion programs. Higher levels of immersion involve more cost, in terms of staffing, resources, and wider infrastructural support, and therefore gain greater funding. Given the particular history of M¯aori-medium education, and its symbiotic relationship with the K¯ ohanga Reo movement from which it emerged, Level 1 immersion programs are most often (but not exclusively; see below) associated with Kura Kaupapa M¯aori. These schools have also been the ones most often associated with the success of M¯aorimedium education, both nationally and internationally. As discussed at the outset of this chapter, the widespread adoption of a full-immersion approach among M¯aori-medium programs emerged out of a specific commitment to additive bilingualism, an associated awareness of the limitations of transitional bilingual education, and a wider social and political commitment to reversing language shift and loss of te reo M¯aori. This history of M¯aori-medium education is consequently reflected in the predominance of students in full immersion M¯aorimedium programs. In 2000, just over 11,000 M¯aori students were involved in Level 1 M¯aori immersion, while less than half this number of M¯aori students (5117) were involved in Level 2 or Level 3 (5480). Level 1 programs accordingly are also predominantly separate wholeschool programs, while Level 2–4 programs are predominantly associated with bilingual units within mainstream (English-medium) schools. This is also an important resourcing issue, since the teachers who are most committed to M¯aori language revitalization and/or are the most fluent speakers have also tended to teach in Kura Kaupapa M¯aori contexts. The international research literature on bilingual/immersion education clearly indicates that a high level of immersion is entirely appropriate

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for the wider goal of revitalizing te reo M¯aori, and the more specific goal of fostering the highest levels of language proficiency possible among students in te reo M¯aori,13 if the school or program have the appropriate staff and resources to accomplish this. However, the international research literature also clearly highlights that effective additive bilingual programs may also be partial immersion programs, as long as the minimum level of instruction in the language is at least 50 per cent – equating to Level 2 M¯aori-immersion (see May et al. 2004 for further discussion). This has not been a view that has been widely held in Aotearoa/New Zealand up until now. Indeed, what seems to have transpired in Aotearoa/New Zealand is a widespread view that only full immersion programs (Level 1) can be described as ‘authentic’ additive bilingual programs – hence, the regular distinction in Aotearoa/New Zealand still made between immersion and ‘other bilingual’ programs. Consequently, all partial forms of immersion (Levels 2–4), including the burgeoning number of bilingual units within mainstream school contexts, have tended to be viewed far less favorably – often being simply equated or elided with subtractive and/or transitional programs. It is equally clear from the international research literature, however, that many partial immersion programs are ineffective. These programs are almost always those that have less than 50 per cent instruction in the target language and/or do not teach the target language sufficiently as a language of instruction – that is, the equivalent of Level 3 and Level 4 M¯aori-immersion in the Aotearoa/New Zealand context. Consequently, the basis of differentiation between M¯aori-medium programs needs urgently to be reconsidered. Rather than differentiating between Level 1 full immersion programs and all other partial immersion programs, as is currently the case, the differentiation should be clearly between programs at Levels 1–2 and Levels 3–4. Thus, partial immersion programs that exceed 50 per cent – that is, Level 2 programs – should continue to be specifically fostered in Aotearoa/New Zealand along with Level 1 full immersion programs. Level 1 programs that move to more equivalent levels of instruction in M¯aori and English over time (for example 90/10 to 50/50 over 6 years), as is common in bilingual programs internationally, should also not be penalized financially. For example, if the minimum level of immersion in M¯aori is maintained above 80 per cent for the first 2–3 years, these programs should still be regarded as Level 1 programs. Meanwhile Level 3 and Level 4 programs should be encouraged to meet these higher immersion levels, if possible, perhaps within a specified period of time. If they cannot – and one might expect this to be the case for the majority of current Level 4 programs, and at least some of the Level

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3 programs – these programs should be redesignated as M¯aori language support programs, rather than as bilingual or M¯aori-medium programs, and funded under a different basis (see also below). The redesignation of Level 3 and Level 4 programs is particularly important for any meaningful ongoing national evaluation of M¯aori-medium programs, since only Level 1 and Level 2 programs are regarded as being comparable to effective additive bilingual education programs elsewhere, as identified consistently by the research literature (see May 2008 for a useful summary). Such redesignation would also avoid the confusion that has characterized the debates on the effectiveness of bilingual education in the USA, where the less effective results from programs with less than 50 per cent instruction – the majority of US programs, in fact – were included alongside the significantly and consistently more effective results from maintenance and enrichment programs with more than 50 per cent instruction. Consequently, undifferentiated national results on the effectiveness of ‘bilingual education’ in the USA were inevitably diminished overall. This has allowed the anti-bilingual campaign in the US to continue to fuel public misunderstandings about bilingualism and bilingual education, a development that has actually led to the disestablishment of many of the most effective bilingual programs (see Crawford 2000; May 2007). If the emphasis on the further development of M¯aori-medium education was to be eventually concentrated and/or consolidated at Levels 1–2, this would also address a related concern with the current proliferation of M¯aori-medium programs across the sector, many of which are at levels of immersion that are not considered to be effective. In other words, the further development of M¯aori-medium education should concentrate on quality or depth, not coverage or breadth – consolidating focus and resources on those programs that have been identified as the most effective in achieving bilingualism and biliteracy for their students. This would also make best use of the limited staffing and resources currently available to M¯aori-medium education (although the latter should be extended wherever possible). In all instances, however, schools, parents and the wider wh¯anau (extended family) would need to be advised accurately on the significant benefits of higher levels of immersion, not least because of the ongoing misconceptions among many that ‘too much’ concentration on the target language will detrimentally affect the acquisition of English (see also below). This requires, in turn, a wider educational campaign aimed at highlighting the benefits of bilingualism and bilingual education, and addressing the many myths and misconceptions still surrounding them. This approach to the further consolidation of M¯aori-medium education – concentrating support on programs that exhibit clear indicators of good

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practice – also highlights the relevance and importance of school or program profiling. That is, programs could be evaluated or assessed in relation to the degree to which they have incorporated and/or are cognizant of key indicators of good practice in bilingual/immersion education. This would address another pressing current concern – the ad hoc development of many bilingual units in mainstream schools, often with little knowledge of, or consistency in, appropriate pedagogical approaches, particularly with respect to teaching a target language such as te reo M¯aori as an L2 (see below). This is not to suggest in any way that such programs have been developed in a deliberately cavalier fashion. Rather, their development has most often been as a result of wh¯anau, community and/or school-based initiatives. However, as this chapter makes clear, such initiatives may actually prove to be counter-productive if they are not carefully developed and resourced in relation to good practices identified in the wider research literature, and in relation to bilingual programs that have been identified as effective. Finally, consideration also needs to be given to the particular school context in which bilingual/immersion programs are situated. As has already been indicated, the majority of Level 1 or full-immersion programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand are Kura Kaupapa M¯aori – that is, separate whole-school te reo M¯aori programs. As Table 4.3 indicates, however, there are also a considerable number of other whole-school M¯aorimedium programs, at varying levels of immersion – 154 in total. In addition, there are 276 schools that have bilingual units, or classes, within them – again, with widely different levels of immersion. Whole-school bilingual/immersion programs have several advantages over other options, not least in their potential to create an overall additive environment that is more conducive to learning the target language Table 4.3 Number of Kura Kaupapa M¯aori and other M¯aori-medium schools Number of schools

Year 2000

Kura Kaupapa M¯aori Other immersion schools Bilingual schools Schools with immersion classes Schools with bilingual classes Total

59 16 79 104 172 430

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Education (2002: 28).

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and attaining high academic levels in their subjects. In contrast, bilingual/immersion programs within English-medium schools will experience a number of challenges not experienced by whole-school programs. When the target language program is situated within a context where the majority language dominates, any additive bilingual context fostered by the program may be potentially undermined by a wider subtractive view of the target language, and of the program itself. Consequently, it is crucial to establish an additive environment towards the target language, and the program itself, throughout the whole school (Johnson and Swain 1997). In this regard, Met and Lorenz (1997) make the point that effective bilingual programs also place high emphasis on integrating all the students within the total school program. This is demonstrated in the New Zealand context by the success of such schools as Richmond Road Primary School (see May 1994, 1995) and Finlayson Park Primary School (McCaffery and Tuafuti 1998, 2003; Tuafuti and McCaffery 2005). Successful bilingual/immersion programs are also those that enjoy a high amount of parental support and involvement. Indeed, bilingual programs are often created because of parental pressure on educational authorities to establish such a program. The initial establishment of K¯ ohanga, and subsequently Kura Kaupapa M¯ aori, demonstrates this clearly, as do many other M¯aori-medium programs. This is also a characteristic of the initial Canadian French immersion programs, for example, and Indigenous language education programs more broadly (May 1999; Cloud et al. 2000). The L2 language base of M¯aori-medium education In Aotearoa/New Zealand, L1 maintenance models of bilingual education are uncommon. Some of the Pasifika14 bilingual programs, particularly in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest and most Pasifika city, will include students already fluent in their L1 to age-appropriate levels, particularly, but not exclusively, if they are Samoan or Tongan speakers. However, the vast majority of bilingual programs – including those in M¯aori-medium education – are likely to have, at the very least, a mix of L1 and L2 students within them and, more likely, a predominance of L2 speakers. Add to this the fact that many teachers in M¯aori-medium education are themselves L2 speakers,15 and the language base of M¯aori-medium education takes on even greater importance. This is particularly relevant to the rapid expansion of M¯aori-medium programs – particularly within mainstream (English-medium) school contexts – in recent years. As Jacques’ (1991) research highlighted early on, there is a high likelihood that many of these programs are not teaching

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sufficiently through te reo M¯aori as the target language for the programs to achieve bilingualism and biliteracy for their students, particularly those Level 3 and Level 4 programs that fall below the 50 per cent immersion threshold. Given the significant and ongoing dearth of fluent M¯aori-speaking teachers in Aotearoa/New Zealand, serious and urgent consideration needs to be given to developing pre-service and inservice programs that combine the specific development of M¯aori language proficiency with the specific requirements of teaching in bilingual/immersion contexts. Consistent use of other fluent speakers in the classroom should also be encouraged wherever possible, perhaps via the use of kai¯arahi reo (language assistants). This team-teaching approach is widely evident in good models of bilingual education elsewhere (Cloud et al. 2000; LindholmLeary 2001), as well as in English second-language education (Bourne 2001). It would also be particularly useful where the teacher’s language fluency is in need of further development, allowing the teacher, as well as the students, access to fluent models of te reo M¯aori. Again, however, it would be important to ensure that M¯aori was consistently used as an instructional language in the classroom. The L2 base of many of the students in M¯aori-medium education also has another important implication – programs need to account specifically for the widely recognized second-language learning delay with respect to the acquisition of academic language proficiency in an L2 (see, for example, Cummins 2000; Corson 2000). In this respect, wider indicators of the most effective bilingual education program types highlight the fact that students need to remain in bilingual programs for a minimum of 6 years, ideally 8 years. Shorter programs do not allow for the full development of literacy in the target language (see Ramírez 1992; Thomas and Collier 2002) – particularly when it is an L2, as will be the case for the majority of M¯aori-medium students. The particular concern that this raises for M¯aori-medium education relates to the misplaced assumption among many parents and wh¯anau that 2–3 years of K¯ ohanga, where some conversational M¯aori has been acquired, is ‘sufficient’, and that students’ English language learning needs are then best served by transferring to English-medium contexts. Similarly, many parents of primary-level M¯aori-medium programs withdraw their children after only 1–2 years for, one suspects, much the same reason – the (misplaced) assumption that ‘too much’ M¯aori may undermine English language proficiency.16 Parental decisions such as these not only waste the already overstretched resources of M¯aori-medium education programs, which have invested

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considerable time educating these children, but are, ironically, the least effective means of achieving parental aims. The students concerned will almost certainly have had insufficient time in M¯aori-medium contexts to have acquired literacy in te reo M¯aori to age-appropriate level, given that the second-language learning delay inevitably sees such students at lower than equivalent grade level in the L2 in the initial years of instruction, before then beginning to catch up. This feature was recognized by the NEMP studies discussed above, for example. As such, these students will (possibly) have conversational competence in te reo M¯aori, but not academic language proficiency in it. The students will also therefore not be at a sufficient bilingual threshold to be able to transfer literacy skills effectively from one language to the other, the principal advantage of additive bilingual education. As Baker (2001: 210) asserts, ‘classroom teaching transfers relatively easily between languages [but only] when such languages are sufficiently developed to cope with concepts, content and curriculum materials’. In short, students who arrive in English-medium school contexts without a sufficient literacy basis in te reo M¯aori are highly likely to struggle with academic English and learning more generally. They will be having to start again in a new language-learning context and, given their prior involvement in M¯aori-medium education, will also be behind their peers in relation to age-related learning activities in English. English-medium schools may, in turn, view these students and their M¯aori-medium experience from a deficit perspective, a pattern that Flores et al. (1991) have identified in the US context, further contributing to the potential difficulties experienced by such students in Englishmedium contexts. A similar, but more easily managed consideration has to do with the transition to English-medium secondary education for M¯aori-medium students. Again, this relates to the issue of academic language proficiency – albeit, this time in English. The early predominant view of many Kura Kaupapa M¯aori was that total immersion in M¯aori could be pursued because many of the students were L1 English speakers anyway – as a result of the pervasiveness of English elsewhere – and because of the related assumption that students would ‘naturally’ acquire the English necessary for instruction in English-medium instruction. These views were also influenced at the time by the predominance in secondlanguage teaching circles of natural approaches to language learning, which espoused language programs that imitated as closely as possible the process of learning the first language as the best means of achieving bilingualism (Lindholm-Leary 2001).

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However, academic language proficiency in any language, even one’s L1, never occurs automatically. The particular and additional complexities of classroom-based academic discourse – including its more decontextualized nature, its more complex grammar, and its subject-specific vocabulary (see Cummins 2000) – have to be specifically taught. The research by Berryman and Glynn (2003) is therefore extremely important in this regard (see also Glynn et al. 2005). It highlights that students who move from a primary school M¯aori-medium context to a secondary school English-medium context, without any formal instruction in academic English, may also experience issues of transition to a different language context, and may be similarly construed in deficit terms by their new schools. However, unlike those who leave M¯aori-medium contexts too early, these students have the considerable advantage of being able to transfer the literacy skills acquired in te reo M¯aori to the task of learning academic English. And, as Berryman and Glynn demonstrate, this process can also be managed relatively straightforwardly. However, it does require M¯aori-medium contexts to directly address academic English at some point prior to the end of their program, something that many M¯aori-medium programs remain reluctant to do. It is this ongoing pattern of resistance to the teaching of English in fullimmersion M¯aori-medium contexts that has led Jim Cummins (2000: 194) to observe specifically of M¯aori-medium education: The rationale is that the minority language (M¯aori) needs maximum reinforcement and transfer of academic skills to English will happen ‘automatically’ without formal instruction. Although there may be instances where this does happen, in my view, this assumption is seriously flawed. ‘Automatic’ transfer of academic skills across languages will not happen unless students are given opportunities to read and write extensively in English in addition to the minority language. Cummins emphasizes the importance of formal explicit instruction in order to teach specific aspects of academic registers in both languages and the utilization of both languages to promote students’ awareness of language and how it works (for example, focusing on similarities and differences between the two languages). He proceeds to argue that if one of the two languages is ignored instructionally, with the expectation that it will ‘take care of itself’, students may experience significant gaps in their knowledge of, and access to, academic registers in that language, particularly in areas related to writing. Furthermore, if one language is completely excluded, students are given much less opportunity and

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encouragement to engage in the ‘incipient contrastive linguistics’ that Lambert (1984) reported was such a successful feature of French immersion programs. This kind of enriching metalinguistic activity is much more likely to occur and exert positive effects if it is actively promoted by instruction. There is far less consensus in the wider research literature on the best timing for, and method of, such instruction in English – although usually bilingual/immersion programs have introduced instruction in both languages by Year 4 (Baker 2001). In contrast, many Level 1 M¯aori-medium programs do not begin English language instruction until Year 4 or 5, and often then only for one or two hours each week, while others may leave it until as late as Year 7 and 8, as we saw in Berryman and Glynn’s (2003) intervention study. Given the importance of biliteracy to the academic achievement of bilingual students, it would seem that an earlier introduction of academic English in M¯aori-medium Level 1 programs might thus prove to be advantageous. However, this is where the wider aims of M¯aori language revitalization and the need to ‘ring-fence’ M¯aori from English within the educational system may well run counter to the best educational interests of the students. Finally, how effectively teachers understand and address the complex issues that attend teaching in an L2 as an instructional language, and the teaching of academic literacy in both an L1 and L2, is pivotal to the success or otherwise of bilingual/immersion programs. Specifically, teaching in a bilingual program requires specialist training in immersion pedagogy, curriculum, materials and resources, and L2 or target language assessment. This must include pre-service and ongoing inservice training in: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Bilingual theory and research The bilingual program model the school uses Second language acquisition and development Instructional strategies in second-language development Bicultural, multicultural, and educational equity training Cooperative learning strategies17

Not only do M¯aori-medium teachers need to be skilled practitioners, an important element is also their ability to reflect critically upon their instruction and the curriculum. According to Cloud et al. (2000), effective instruction occurs when teaching is modified in response to the results of formal and informal assessment of student progress, to feedback from students during activities, and to teachers’ observations of the appropriateness of curriculum materials and activities. In order to be able to do this

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competently, particularly in an L2 minority language context, teachers must have a repertoire of appropriate and effective assessment techniques that they are able to use to obtain regular feedback about the effectiveness of their teaching and the learning of the students. Research in Aotearoa/New Zealand – particularly Hollings et al. (1992) and ERO (2002) – suggests that this repertoire among M¯aori-medium teachers is still in need of further support and development (although, see Rau 2005 for recent further developments here). And yet, an integrated approach to pre-service training and inservice professional development for M¯aori-medium education, along the lines suggested, is only just now beginning to be countenanced in Aotearoa/New Zealand, despite consistent advocacy by M¯aori-medium teachers for just such an approach, for well over 15 years.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed the key characteristics and trends currently evident in M¯aori-medium education, with particular reference to biliteracy and academic achievement. It has also attempted to situate these characteristics and trends within wider, attested indicators of good practice in bilingual/immersion education worldwide. In highlighting these issues, it has not been our intention to present an overly negative picture of current issues facing M¯aori-medium education. Indeed, what M¯aori-medium education has managed to achieve over the last 20 years is quite remarkable, particularly given the generational loss of te reo M¯aori which preceded it. Rather, we have wanted to highlight that these issues and concerns constitute, crucially, the next phase in its development. This, in turn, requires a closer, more consistent, examination of the specific pedagogical issues attendant upon M¯aorimedium education. In particular, issues surrounding levels of immersion and its predominantly L2 language base need to be seriously addressed, in order to ensure the achievement of biliteracy, and the best possible academic outcomes for students. Such emphases also provide an important basis for the development of effective bilingual/immersion education models for other language minority groups in Aotearoa/New Zealand, particularly for Pasifika students. However, the extent of the effort required to establish M¯aori-medium education to even this level, coupled with the New Zealand state’s spectacular lack of interest in pursuing bilingual education for other groups, suggest that this latter possibility remains some way off.

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Notes This is a slightly revised and updated version of an article first published in International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(5): 377–403 (2005), with permission from Multilingual Matters Publishers, Clevedon, UK. 1. That said, this demarcation is not quite as clear cut as it is sometimes made out to be; see the later discussion on levels of immersion. 2. For an extended discussion of the key principles underlying Ko ¯hanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Ma ¯ori, see May (2004). 3. At the risk of rehearsing what is already widely known, subtractive educational approaches aim to move students from their minority L1 to a majority L2, usually as soon as possible. In contrast, additive bilingual education approaches include those that teach in students’ L1, if this language is different from the majority language – as, for example, with L1 Spanish-speakers in the USA – in order to promote eventual bilingualism and biliteracy. Additive bilingual education also includes those programs that teach in a minority or target language that is an L2 for many students – as is the case for immersion educational approaches. This is because the specific aim of such programs is to maintain the target language (thus ensuring bilingualism and biliteracy) in the face of a majority language that would otherwise swamp it – hence, the need to teach through the medium of the target language to ‘ring fence’ the language. 4. Interestingly, other forms of bilingual/immersion education in Aotearoa/ New Zealand are much less prevalent, except for a few school-based bilingual programs for Pasifika students. However, the limited research available on Pasifika bilingual education has already focused explicitly on the issues of biliteracy and academic achievement in relation to these programs (see May 1994; McCaffery and Tuafuti 1998, 2003; Tuafuti and McCaffery 2005). 5. Interestingly, Baker 2006 has since modified his typology to account for this criticism. 6. In light of her previous observations, Jacques’ assessment here is highly likely to have been accurate. However, given the researcher’s own lack of fluency in te reo Ma¯ori, and the related lack of an accurate and appropriate M¯aori language assessment measure, some caution still needs to attend this conclusion. 7. Although levels of immersion had not been formalized at that time, it is likely that all the bilingual programs examined by Jacques would have equated with only Level 4 immersion (12–30 per cent) – a level of instruction not that dissimilar to foreign language teaching. 8. Running records are used extensively by New Zealand primary teachers to get reliable information about their students’ reading skills and fluency. A student reads aloud while the teacher records exactly what the student reads or does. After completing the record the teacher scores it. Through observation, scoring, and interpretation, the teacher gains an insight into the student’s reading behavior. Running Records are mainly used in the early years of schooling until a student becomes a fluent reader. The six-year net refers to the use of an observation survey in Year 2 – observing students as they carry out specific

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

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tasks associated with identifying letters, understanding print concepts, reading text, recognizing words, writing vocabulary, and hearing and recording sounds in words. It helps teachers to identify students who appear to be making slow progress and who may thus need more specialized support. Both approaches derive from the pioneering work in reading of Marie Clay. Nga¯ Kete Ko ¯rero is a Ma¯ori language method of organizing reading materials into various levels of reading difficulty that was developed in the mid-1990s, although this does not currently extend beyond beginning and early reading texts. Aromatawai Urunga-a¯-Kura (AKA) is a standardized assessment tool to assess literacy and numeracy at school entry in te reo Ma¯ori and has been available since 1997. The Educational Review Office is responsible for auditing the organizational and educational effectiveness of all New Zealand schools (and pre-schools). It is broadly equivalent to OFSTED in Britain. General research principles are discussed at length in May et al. (2004); see also May (2008). However, given that these principles are widely known by those working within the bilingual/immersion field, they are not rehearsed here, except by way of implication for the further development of Ma¯orimedium programs. Level 3 programs are highly likely to be operating at the lower percentage levels in terms of immersion – that is, nearer the 30 per cent mark than the 50 per cent. Those that operate at the 50 per cent threshold would almost certainly opt for Level 2 immersion recognition. The only proviso is that some form of specific academic English language instruction should occur before the end of the program (see also below). Pasifika (sometimes spelt Pasefika) is the term now used to describe Pacific Island migrants to New Zealand from the principal islands of Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and Tuvalu, as well as other smaller Pacific nations. It replaces the term Polynesian. Of course, second-language learners can also be fluent speakers and writers of the language. However, the second-language base of teachers in Ma¯orimedium education does present a possible further challenge, since language fluency is a central prerequisite for successful bilingual programs and a sine qua non for discussions of bilingual/immersion education in the wider literature. In particular, good models of the language are essential, particularly when the target language is an L2 for students, if students are to have modeled to them cognitively stimulating instruction (Lindholm-Leary 2001). These trends are supported by New Zealand Ministry of Education data. In 2000, for example, over 30 per cent of Ma¯ori children were enrolled in Ko ¯hanga Reo at the highest level of immersion, Level 1 (81–100 per cent), but only 7.5 per cent of Ma¯ori children subsequently moved on to the same level of Ma¯ori immersion education at the primary school level. Out of the remaining three levels of Ma¯ori medium education, 3.5 per cent were involved in Level 2 (51–80 per cent immersion) and 3.7 per cent in Level 3 (31–50 per cent immersion). Level 4 immersion (12–30 per cent) was not addressed (New Zealand Ministry of Education 2002). For further discussion, see Day and Shapson (1996), Skutnabb-Kangas and García (1995), Met and Lorenz (1997), Cloud et al. (2000).

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References Baker, C. (2001), Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3rd edn, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baker, C. (2006), Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 4th edn, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baker, C. and S. Prys Jones (1998), Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Benton, R. (1979), Who Speaks Maori ¯ in New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Benton, N. (1981), The Flight of the Amokura, Wellington: NZCER. Berryman, M. and T. Glynn (2003), Transition from Maori ¯ to English: a Community Approach, Wellington: NZCER. Berryman, M., R. Walker, M. Reweti, K. O’Brian and S. McDonald (2002), ‘Kia puta ai te reo: an essential foundation for literacy’, paper presented at the NZARE conference, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Bourne, J. (2001), ‘Doing “what comes naturally”: how discourses and routines of teachers’ practice constrain opportunities for bilingual support in UK primary schools’, Language and Education, 15: 250–68. Cloud, N., F. Genesee and E. Hamayan (2000), Dual Language Instruction: a Handbook for Enriched Education, Boston: Thomson Heine. Corson, D. (2000), Language Diversity and Education, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Crawford, J. (2000), At War with Diversity. US Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2000), Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Day, E. M. and S. Shapson (1996), Studies in Immersion Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Education Review Office (2000), Literacy Education in Kura Kaupapa Maori. ¯ Wellington: ERO. Education Review Office (2002), The Performance of Kura Kaupapa Maori, ¯ Wellington: ERO. Fishman, J. (1976), Bilingual Education: an International Sociological Perspective, Rowley MA: Newbury House. Flores, B., P. Cousin and E. Diaz (1991), ‘Transforming deficit myths about learning, language and culture’, Language Arts, 68: 369–77. Glynn, T., M. Berryman, K. Loader and T. Cavanagh (2005), ‘From literacy in M¯aori to biliteracy in Ma¯ori and English: a community and school transition programme’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8: 433–54. Hinton, L. and K. Hale (2001), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego: Academic Press. Hollings, M., R. Jeffries and P. McArdell (1992), Assessment in Kura Kaupapa Maori ¯ and Maori Language Immersion Programmes: a Report to the Ministry of Education, ¯ Wellington: Ministry of Education. Hornberger, N. H. (1991), ‘Extending enrichment bilingual education: revisiting typologies and redirecting policy’, in O. García (ed.), Bilingual Education: Focusschrift in Honor of Joshua A. Fishman on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishers, pp. 215–34.

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Jacques, K. (1991), Community Contexts of Maori-English Bilingual Education: a Study ¯ of Six South Island Primary School Programmes, Christchurch: University of Canterbury. Johnson, R. and M. Swain (1997), Immersion Education, Cambridge: Cambridge Applied Linguistics. Lambert, W. (1984), ‘An overview of issues in immersion education’, in Studies on Immersion Education. Sacramento: Office of Bilingual Bicultural Education, California State Department of Bilingual Bicultural Education, California State Department of Education. Lindholm-Leary, K. (2001), Dual Language Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (1994), Making Multicultural Education Work, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (1995), ‘Deconstructing traditional discourses of schooling: an example of school reform’, Language and Education, 9: 1–29. May, S. (ed.), (1999), Indigenous Community-based Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (2000), ‘Accommodating and resisting minority language policy: the case of Wales’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3(2): 101–28. May, S. (2004), ‘Medium of instruction policy in New Zealand’, in J. Tollefson and A. Tsui (eds), Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 21–41. May, S. (2008), ‘Bilingual/immersion education: what the research tells us’, in J. Cummins and N. Hornberger (eds), Bilingual education, The Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd edn, Volume 5, New York: Springer, pp. 19–34. May, S. and S. Aikman (eds) (2003), ‘Indigenous education: new possibilities, ongoing restraints’, Comparative Education, 39, Special Issue: 2. May, S., R. Hill and S. Tiakiwai (2004), Bilingual/immersion Education: Indicators of Good Practice: Final Report to the Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education, available online at http://www.minedu.govt.nz/ index.cfm?layout!document&documentid!9712&;data!l. McCaffery, J. and P. Tuafuti (1998), ‘The development of Pacific Islands bilingual education in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, Many Voices, 13: 11–16. McCaffery, J. and P. Tuafuti (2003), ‘Children’s bilingual language and literacy development in a Samoan-English bilingual unit’, in R. Barnard and T. Glynn (eds), Case Studies in Bilingualism, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. McCarty, T. (2003), ‘Revitalising Indigenous languages in homogenizing times’, Comparative Education, 3(2): 147–63. Met, M. and E. B. Lorenz (1997), ‘Lessons from US immersion programs: two decades of experience’, in J. Cenoz (ed.), Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. National Educational Assessment Research Unit (2000), Assessment Results for Maori ¯ Students 1999: Science, Art, Graphs, Tables and Maps, Dunedin: National Educational Assessment Research Unit. National Educational Assessment Research Unit (2001), Assessment Results for Maori Students 2000: Music, Aspects of Technology, Reading and Speaking, ¯ Dunedin: National Educational Assessment Research Unit. New Zealand Ministry of Education (2002), Nga haeata matauranga: Annual Report on Maori ¯ Education 2000/2001, Wellington: Ministry of Education, Group Ma¯ori.

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Paulston, C. (1993), ‘Language regenesis: a conceptual overview of language revival, revitalisation and reversal’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 14: 275–86. Ramírez, J. (1992), ‘Executive Summary’, Bilingual Research Journal, 16: 1–62. Rau, C. (2003), A Snapshot of the Literacy Achievement of Year 2 students in 80–100% Maori ¯ Immersion Programmes in 1995 and 2002–2003 and the Impact of Teacher Professional Development on that Achievement, Wellington: Ministry of Education. Rau, C. (2005), ‘Literacy acquisition, assessment and achievement of Year Two students in total immersion in M¯aori programmes’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8: 404–32. Rau, C., I. Whiu, H. Thomson, T. Glynn and W. Milroy (2001), He ara angitu. A Description of Success in Reading for Five-year Old Maori ¯ Medium Students, Wellington: Ministry of Education. Richards, J. and T. Rodgers (1986), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, New York: Cambridge University Press. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981), Bilingualism or Not: the Education of Minorities, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. and O. García (1995), ‘Multilingualism for all: general principles’, in T. Skutnabb-Kangas (ed.), Multilingualism For All, European Studies on Multilingualism, Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger, pp. 222–56. Thomas, W. and V. Collier (2002), A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-term Academic Achievement, Santa Cruz: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence (CREDE). Tuafuti, P. and J. McCaffery (2005), ‘Family and community empowerment through bilingual education’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8: 480–503. Valdes, G. and R.A. Figueroa (1994), Bilingualism and Testing: a Special Case of Bias, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Wilson, W. (1999), ‘The sociopolitical context of establishing Hawaiian-medium education’, in S. May (ed.), Indigenous Community-based Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 95–108.

5

Learning with Differences: Strengthening Hñähñö and Bilingual Teaching in an Elementary School in Mexico City Nicanor Rebolledo Recendiz

Introduction This chapter centers around the problematic experiences of schooling undergone by the Hñähñö1 residents of Mexico City, and in particular, addresses the case of the Alberto Correa Evening Elementary School (EPVAC) and the Predios de la Colonia Roma or Roma Housing Projects (hereafter, Predios) close to the school, presenting a description of the objectives of an experience in bilingual education recently set in motion there. Given that the bilingual education project began only at the start of the school year in August of 2004 and is currently in development, it is not possible to make judgments, much less propose any evaluations; however, one may present some reflections on the outline, methodology and fundamental direction of the project, whose development is underpinned and guided by Indian identity and bilingualism. The term ‘indianidad’ is understood as a pan-Indian ideology, constitutive of traditional Indian identity and invoked by the Indigenous intelligentzia, whose main content is strategic withdrawal by a population that has suffered extreme marginalization and exclusion (Favre 1998: 131–2). In cities such as Mexico City, discrimination towards the Indian population continues to be a phenomenon that, instead of being eradicated, each day grows stronger; there continue to exist a series of prejudices and negative attitudes toward the way of life and the languages spoken by the different Indian groups residing in the city. The Indian is considered to be of an inferior status, atavistic, and reluctant to embrace the cultural integration of the city. Discrimination towards Indians manifests itself in labor, culture and the mass media, in education, and in the arts. 99

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Indigenous schooling poses a series of challenges for educational investigators and planners, because the Indian culture, while apparently disintegrating in the face of crude contact with the cosmopolitan values of the city and in the face of the harmful effect of social marginalization, stays alive in congealed form. On occasion it is revived, like a stubborn reactionary behavior that penetrates the city institutions and way of life. The Indian language, supposedly overwhelmed by Spanish, crops up in the most unexpected of public places and regains vitality.

The Hñähñö population in Mexico City In the last 50 years in Mexico, there have been strong waves of migration by the Indian population to the large cities, mainly to Mexico City. Indian migration is in fact a fundamental element of urban growth and rural exodus caused by land shortage and the lack of investment and production in the countryside. In this situation two phenomena stand out: the Indian adjustment to the big city and the pressure brought to bear by this population on housing, health, and educational services there.2 In most cases the main characteristic of this mass migration has been the creation of networks of strong ties between the communities of origin and the city, through family relationships and various ceremonial bonds, a situation that puts educators in the difficult position of being unable to give the children a sense of place or to assist them with conventional tools. With the growing population of Indians in Mexico City – as in other cities – many of the myths which considered Mexican Indians to be atavistic conglomerates and residues of a marginal rural population situated in the so called ‘regions of refuge’ are being demolished. However, it is still not properly understood that the Indigenous population – however marginalized and poor – is a vital part of large urban concentrations and transnational circuits, and of an important sector of production, as well as a factor in the transformation of the multicultural and multilinguistic map of cities and the countryside.3 Since precolonial times the Hñähñö population has lived in the high central Mexican plateau, in a vast region extending through the current states of Hidalgo, Querétaro, the State of Mexico, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Veracruz and Michoacán, and in recent times including the Federal District (Lastra 2001). According to official data from 2000, the population of Hñähñö speakers is 291,722. It is one of the most numerous Indian groups in the country, occupying sixth place, after Náhuatl, Maya, Mixteco, Zapoteco, and Tsotsil. The increase in the Hñähñö population during the last two decades has been less than that of the rest of the Indian

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population, nevertheless, there has been a notable increase in the last few years; for example, from 1980 to 1990 there was an increase of barely 0.2 per cent against an increase of 0.9 per cent in the Indian population of Mexico, and from 1990 to 2000 there was an increase of 0.4 per cent compared to an increase of 1.4 per cent in the total Indian population (Valdéz 1995). Presently the Hñähñö population is concentrated mainly in the states of Hidalgo (114,043), Mexico (104,357), Querétaro (22,077), Veracruz (17,584), and the Federal District (17,083) (Ukeda 2003). Of 22,077 Hñähñö speakers in the state of Querétaro, 10,042 live in Santiago Mezquititlán, in the municipality of Amealco, which is to say, a little less than half of the total population registered in the state are concentrated in that community. What is more, we believe that the main part of the Hñähñö population living in Mexico City comes from Santiago Mezquititlán and that they maintain strong ties with their community. The Hñähñö people began to arrive in the Federal District in the 1940s, settling in areas such as Mixcoac, Roma, Tasqueña, and Iztapalapa, almost always on properties without deeds. During the 1970s large contingents of families occupied Insurgentes and Reforma Streets to sell dolls, candy, and gum, and to beg. They were easily distinguished from ‘Las Marías’ of Mazahua origin who sold fruit and handiworks; on occasion they shared the same areas, but they were distinguishable precisely because they preferred to beg. A survey taken by Lourdes Arizpe (1975: 94) found that of 20 beggars interviewed, 12 were Hñähñö from Santiago Mezquititlán. In addition to the chosen occupations and places of residence, the Hñähñö maintain ethnic nucleuses in familial communities scattered along a vast area stretching through La Roma, Tasqueña, Iztapalapa, Coyoacán and Mixcoac. At the present time the Hñähñö from Santiago Mezquititlán live concentrated in seven areas located in Colonia Roma, Nativitas, and Cuauhtemoc. The public works department of the city government employs some of the men; others are windshield cleaners and walking vendors of gum and candy. The women make dolls and sell them in the Zona Rosa and Coyoacan; they also sell candy and gum on Insurgentes and Monterrey Streets. The majority of the santiagueros have been living in Mexico City for several decades; some of them, who are considered second generation inhabitants, no longer follow a straight line of residential affiliation, rather migration has had the effect of dispersing family groups into nonestablished residential units while the cycle of rituals fulfills the function of periodically regrouping them in defined places such as Santiago

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Mezquititlán and the Colonia Roma in the Federal District. Those who suffer the consequences of group scattering are the elementary school students, who are constantly forced to interrupt their studies because of being absent from school for long periods of time. This apparently simple situation affects schooling and, of course, the conservation of the Indian language. In regards to schooling, as they cannot fulfill school requirements, school ties become very weak. In reference to the conservation of the language, community and family visits, both long and short, reinforce the familiar bonds and encourage feelings of identity by involving the children in the daily use of the language and in the values the older people construct around their mother tongue.

Schooling and Indian status Of 12,519 Indian children aged between 5 and 14 years of age, both migrant and native to the Federal District, 10,785 attend school, which is to say 95.17 per cent (see Table 5.1). The first diagnosis by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) in 2002 identified a little over 200 Table 5.1

Population of Indian children who attend school

Delegation

Alvaro Obregón Aztcapotzalco Benito Juárez Coyoacán Cuajimalpa Cuauhtemoc Gustavo A. Madero Iztacalco Iztapalapa M. Contreras Miguel Hidalgo Milpa Alta Tlahuac Tlalpan V. Carranza Xochimilico Total

Population of Indian children 5 to 14 years old 977 437 47 691 276 289 1,494 536 3,870 416 201 320 821 932 498 791 12,596

Population of Population of Indian children Indian children who do not who attend school attend school 26 11 0 27 3 14 69 6 191 21 1 23 35 52 20 48 547

Source: Situación de la Niñez Indígena en el Distrito Federal, GDF (2002).

870 372 39 593 227 250 1,238 468 3,361 339 191 259 709 787 430 652 10,785

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schools where students of Indian origin from the majority of the IndoMexican languages attend. The greater proportion of these schools are located in the delegations of Iztapalapa (100 schools), Gustavo A. Madero (20 schools), Cuauhtemoc (12 schools), Milpa Alta (5 schools), Benito Juárez (4 schools), Álvaro Obregón (2 schools), Venustiano Carranza (2 schools), and Coyoacán (2 schools). The data show that the majority (95.7 per cent) of bilingual Indian children of school age attend school; it also indicates that the problem of school coverage is in some way solved; so, where are the problems of Indian schooling found? Alongside this data on school coverage, there are other encouraging elements in the education of Indian children. These elements are: (1) the new national educational policies which have proposed satisfying the educational necessities specific to the Indian population, taking into account linguistic and cultural diversity; and (2) an educational law in the Federal District, put in motion by the local government, which contemplates a series of cultural and educational rights, such as the protection of the Indian languages.4 However, in spite of the good will on the part of the authorities, Indian schooling continues to be the Achilles heel of Mexico City education. Quite rightly, Luis Enrique López, referring to the case of Latin America, argues that nowadays concern is centered not on the educational rights of the Indian people – that they be the main actors in their own education – but rather on means of bettering and guaranteeing the quality of the education aimed at the Indian sectors (Jung and López 2003: 15). Despite advances in school coverage, there are still reports of high levels of desertion, failure and absenteeism and low levels of educational attainment upon completion. In Mexico City schools a high degree of ethnic discrimination in the school environment, proliferation of drug addiction and a high risk of homelessness are reported in the Indian population. Moreover, there are also problems in record-keeping, as much for the purposes of the official census as of school records, in that many children, although they speak an Indian language, do not identify themselves as Indians. Thus the accuracy of the figures used have to be qualified. The SEP made a first count in 2001 and found that in 64 elementary schools, there were a little over 1604 bilingual Indian students originating from different ethnic groups in the country. The majority of these schools have registered up to 8 different Indian languages, and in very few can one find strictly bilingual and bicultural patterns, such as in the case of the EPVAC, where, unusually, only Hñähñö children originating from the community of Santiago Mesquititlán attend (Rebolledo 2001, 2002).

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Our analysis points to at least two factors that notably affect Indian schooling: (1) the national monolingual educational model imposed on bilingual students; and (2) what anthropologists call Indigenous cultural resistance. The first is intimately linked to a series of conventional teaching patterns and the curricular rigidity of basic education: school has been designed for a culturally homogeneous population, within which Indian characteristics do not fit. The curriculum of elementary education has been elaborated on universal, rational principles, and not on principles of diversity and multiculturalism, more typical of social reality. This has frequently led teachers to fail to consider the ethnic origin of their students; if they do consider their origin – identifying them because the children speak a language other than Spanish or because they are materially poor – they identify them as culturally deficient and label them as ‘problem students’ because they do not speak nor understand Spanish well. Being bilingual is viewed as an obstacle for learning, and, as such, teachers attempt to erase it by imposing ‘correct ways of speaking Spanish’. In addition the content of what is learned does not include the culture of the students in its most comprehensive sense; it expresses an evident contempt for things Indian, is discriminatory, and opposes Indian culture. The second point, Indigenous cultural resistance, is well reflected in the Indian’s gregarious sociability and capacity for social negotiation, and in Indigenous strategic withdrawal. Indigenous cultural resistance sometimes appears to be a passive and uncritical reaction to cultural assimilation, while at others it gives rise to more highly-charged Indigenous feeling, often motivated by resistance movements or social outbreak such as the present-day Zapatista movement. Cultural resistance is not always part of a strategy of cultural opposition, though; rather it has basic discrete principles with a focus on the struggle to keep separate the contours of the culture, by limiting itself within restricted confines, such as the Colonia Roma and the EPVAC. A clear case of Indian resistance is presented, for example, in the ambivalence that the Hñähñö manifest towards school education: where the school is seen as a no man’s land within the boundaries of a harrowing social experience. That is why they build a fatalistic vision of social success and maintain a divergent posture towards the value of education. Many parents are not truly convinced of the benefits of a school education, neither do they know where it will lead them; at times they withdraw their children from attendance, preferring to involve them in their daily chores rather than have them tied to the school and its schedules; however, they also believe that if they stop sending their children to school the children will lose the opportunity to better their lives.

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In this way, Indian schooling is subject to a double contradiction: while the educational system and institutional practices impose a monolingual cultural and educational model, the Hñähñö construct strategies of resistance and opposition. One of the main goals of the new policy of intercultural bilingual education is precisely to overcome this contradiction through the ‘softening’ of the school mechanism and the possibilities of acquiring an effective functioning of schools. Recently, the SEP, through the Undersecretary of Educational Services for the Federal District (SSEDF), and the General Coordination of Intercultural Bilingual Education (CGEIB) put into motion a Program of Educational Attention for the Indian Population in the Federal District. In March 2003 in the presence of the President of the Republic, the CGEIB, with the participation of other institutions including the National Pedagogical University (UPN), formally established a Program of Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Federal District (PEIBDF) in the EPVAC in which we are working. Initially, the program will apply to 76 schools, 20 pre-schools and 56 elementary schools, located in 11 of the delegations in Mexico City. The PEIBDF has as its objectives: (1) to establish an intercultural educational focus for all of the public schools in the basic education system in the Federal District; and (2) to offer educational quality and equality to the Indian children who attend public schools in the Federal District. This requires: (1) the design of specific organizational and pedagogical strategies for the development of intercultural bilingual education (EIB), consisting of the orientation of teachers and administrators to know, respect, value, and appreciate diversity as a pedagogical advantage; (2) the offering of theoretic and methodological tools of EIB through courses and seminars with the goal of generating an awareness of diversity and the reorientation of pedagogical practices; (3) developing scholastic and extracurricular activities with children from all of the public pre-schools and elementary schools in the Federal District so that they will learn about and value the cultural contributions of the Indian people; and (4) the development of specific academic activities with the purpose of helping Indian children to conserve and strengthen their Indian identity and mother tongue.5 The program proposed expanding for 2005 to 190 schools (100 schools in the Iztapalapa Delegation), and incorporating the participation of the teachers of the Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo (CONAFE) in pre-schools and elementary schools (first and second grade) that have large numbers of Indian students. As one may observe, the PEIBDF does not go beyond the transformation of the educational apparatus; nevertheless, it has placed emphasis

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on the introduction of concepts, strategies, and reasonings about intercultural education through the proposed activities with teachers. The value of the proposal lies in the recognition of the reality of Indians within the public schools of the Federal District in an approach which tries to recover Indian cultures and languages, recognizes the value of diversity, and presents strategies for the transformation of Mexican education. The approach towards the education of the Indigenous populations of Mexico City through the PEIBDF nonetheless raises some problems and concerns: although there are data on the high levels of desertion, and failure, and low levels of educational formation upon completion, and in general, the main causes for them are known, no specific actions to overcome these problems have been taken, such as attending to diversity and bilingualism.

Mezquititlán: a network village Santiago Mezquititlán is a village located in the municipality of Amealco, in the state of Querétaro. According to the 2000 census, the population of the community comprises 10,042 inhabitants older than the age of 5, of which, 7774 speak the Hñähñö language and are bilingual (81.1 per cent). Family units have been dispersed and divided across six neighborhoods since 1947. More recently, the economy of the population is associated with intense migratory movements with the population moving to very different sites, mainly large urban areas such as Mexico City, Querétaro, Monterrey and Guadalajara, but also to the United States. Santiago Mezquititlán displays unusually varied and rich relationships between territory and culture, bilingualism and monolingualism; it also disrupts sociocentric interpretations rooted in anthropological tradition, with their parallelistic analyses of culture and community and of one-toone correspondences between language and culture. As such, it exhibits a complex emergent organization condensed into cultural diversity and in the construction of a habitat in which social agents find resources, activities, life objectives and also constraints, both in the community and in the place they migrate to. The habitat extends and contracts; it stretches from the city to the community and from the community outward, identifiable in individuals just as much as in collectivities (Hannerz 1996). The migration of the santiagueros to Mexico City dates from the 1940s. Arizpe (1975) suggests that the population’s migration to Mexico City is a product of the lack of employment in the community, as is the tendency to opt for sub-occupations such as begging, which is how the majority of the migrants make a living. According to Arizpe (1975), the santiagueros

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began leaving the village in 1935, motivated by problems relating to the communal land grant and by internal neighborhood quarrels. In 1944 they were stripped of their water grant, and in 1947 the scourge of foot and mouth disease left the people without cattle or working animals. Finally, the division of communal land (of 2 to 4 hectares) was not enough to support the heirs of the families. Seasonal migration was a way of obtaining income to survive. In the 1950s, this flow of migration increased in the direction of Mexico City. The temporary and permanent migration of this community has followed a regular pattern of behavior, and it seems that in current conditions, it is repeating itself once again. It begins with the shortage of economic resources, the lack of land, inter-neighborhood and inter-ethnic rivalries, and shortages of water. A study by Ukeda (2003) on the socioeconomic dynamics of the population of Santiago Mezquititlán and its relationship with education, points out that from 2000 to 2003 there is a notable change in the composition of the family unit; its dissolution, its permanence, and its recomposition. Of 1641 family units registered in the year 2000, only 90 units remained by the year 2003. Such data might suggest that the village almost emptied itself during that period, but one must take into account the fact that there is an intense movement of family units; on occasion they are in the Federal District, at other times in Guadalajara, Monterrey or elsewhere, and then they reappear in Santiago Mezquititlán. Table 5.2 shows the composition of the six existing neighborhoods. If we stop to observe the table, we can see there is a high percentage of family units and members that migrate. We can also infer, based on other quantitative information, that the families that reside in the community Table 5.2

Composition of six neighborhoods in Santiago Mezquititlán

Neighborhood

I II III IV V VI Total

Domestic Population Domestic units units (2000) (2000) (2001–02) 245 245 201 216 267 519 1,641

Source: INEGI (2001), in Ukeda (2003).

1,543 1,194 1,226 1,228 1,711 3,140 10,042

14 10 11 13 15 27 90

Members of domestic units (2001–02) 111 84 69 85 106 163 618

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are those of lowest socio-economic status, less schooling, possessing less land, and with fewer opportunities for productive employment. We also find marked interethnic differentiation between the population of Indigenous origin in the community and the mestizo population in the neighboring villages, as well as within the different neighborhoods of the community. For example, we found at one point that of the 1066 residents of neighborhood IV only 418 spoke Spanish (25.5 per cent). The greatest interethnic discrimination between the population of Hñähñö origin and the Spanish-speaking mestizos is found not within the neighborhoods, however, but with the neighboring mestizo communities. In the Federal District the santiagueros live on invaded land and on properties which are not deeded in the colonias of Mixcoac, Coyoacán and Roma. They have the meanest, lowest-paid jobs; in general, the men are employed as bricklayers and the women as housekeepers, and they tend to choose sub-occupations such as selling candy and gum on the streets or begging. In the city they find an environment permeated with discrimination and in reaction to this, they tend to cut themselves off from the rest of the city population, maintaining themselves in family units and in an ethnic nucleus spatially delimited. There are strong ties of familial and ceremonial unity between the people of the community and those of the ‘properties’ of the city. The family members constantly move from one place to another without abandoning the basis of domestic unity. The religious and civic festivals of the community and of the city plot the annual cycle of prolonged visits by the residents of both; likewise, school vacations facilitate the communication between the residents of the Federal District and Santiago Mezquititlán. The Predios, focus of this project, are located on the streets of Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Chapultepec and Cuauhtemoc, in the Colonia Roma; on average 20 to 25 families live there. The Predios are considered habitational and organizational units. Around the existence of the Predios the Hñähñö have formed a complex organizational structure, managing services and channelling demands for education, housing, and health, and bringing together and maintaining ties of identity.

School: niche of bilingualism Alberto Correa School,6 like few elementary schools in the Federal District, serves students who are in the majority bilingual HñähñöSpanish (80.8 per cent). The first question, then, is: Why are there bilingual students of Hñähñö origin in this school? The answer is that a little over 10 years ago, the Colibrí Center began working with the Indigenous

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population and in particular with the Hñähñö of the Colonia Roma;7 among their activities we find a marked emphasis on the promotion of education for children of school age, for, as already mentioned, parents resist sending their children to school. The association has directed its attention towards this resistance and has worked towards convincing parents of the benefits of school education; they have taken it upon themselves to negotiate with the educational authorities for the acceptance of the Hñähñö children into this and other schools. Registration levels have increased gradually since 1994 when the Colibrí Center started work, at which point around 8 students were registered. The next year this number doubled and by 2003–04, there were 127 students registered, of whom 104 were of Hñähñö origin, 21 non-Indians, 1 Mazateco and 1 Mazahua. In this period of time they had practically taken over the school and made it a bilingual, bicultural space (see Table 5.3). If it is true that Hñähñö is being seriously threatened and is losing vitality to Spanish, at least in this school the figures show that the Hñähñö population, along with increasing and establishing a homogeneous culture, is popularizing the practice of Indigenous bilingualism in the school environment. Although the Indian children tend to speak more Spanish, they do not stop speaking Hñähñö, especially at recess time and in the open spaces of the school. Hñähñö as a language survives in refuge within the confines of the home; it expands in a discreet and subordinate manner towards other zones of social experience, and on the street and in school it is extensively heard. The children themselves see a resurgence, where their parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are considered the ‘superheroes’ of the rescue in the majority of

Table 5.3

Students registered at Alberto Correa Elementary School, 2004–05

Grade

Boys

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Total

10 13 18 11 11 13 76

Girls

Bilingual Boys

Girls

10 10 14 9 9 9 61

12 16 10 9 8 2 57

16 18 11 12 12 4 70

Source: School registration, 2004–05.

Non-Indigenous

Total

4 5 5 5 6 3 28

26 31 29 23 23 14 146

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the stories that spread anecdotes about their language. They argue that Hñähñö is a ‘very pretty’ language compared to Spanish, it ‘sounds better’ than Spanish, and connects in a better way classmates of the same social class, whether in play or even ‘for understanding books’. The school has a teaching staff of 1 principal, 6 group teachers, 3 substitute teachers, 1 swimming teacher, 1 physical education teacher, and 1 teacher in charge of the Unit of Service and Attention for Regular Students (USAER); none of them understand, speak, much less write in Hñähñö. Neither do they have any experience of working with bilingual Indigenous students; nor do they have any specialized pedagogical knowledge in bilingual education. On the other hand, the concern of the teachers about the drug use of some of the Indigenous students is remarkable; they are equally concerned that they do not know how to attack this problem. Street abuse and discipline in the classroom are also topics that concern the teachers. So, then, what are the main problems the teachers face in daily work with Hñähñö children? In the first rapprochement, we found a variety of problems: the teachers expressed concern at the low levels of competence in Spanish and found it extremely difficult to act on the bilingualism of the students; students’ absentee levels are very high which causes serious problems in scholastic organization. They report cases of extreme non-attendance of 20 to 30 days every two months. The students do not take part in academic activities outside of school; they do not do their homework and the teachers have not been able to create study habits. There have been several cases of students with addiction problems, a situation about which the teachers have been able to do little. There persists in the school environment a climate of discrimination against all things Indian and against Hñähñö as a language; even the children of Hñähñö origin themselves contribute to raising levels of such racist aversions by insulting classmates with a higher degree of Hñähñö monolingualism. What explanations can we offer with respect to the high levels of absenteeism and low academic performance? To generalize somewhat, it appears that the absenteeism and desertion are caused by the incorporation of the majority of the children in the work of their parents on the streets or in informal commerce, or by the constant movement of whole families to the community of origin, motivated essentially by the inclusion of the children in the ritual cycles. Just as the high level of absenteeism affects academic performance, we also know that the low level of progress is due in large part to the direct teaching of Spanish, and to the fact that education is always given in Spanish and from the perspective

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of integration into homogeneous patterns of culture and language. A stark illustration of low scholastic expectations is given by the fact that only 2 of every 10 graduating students continue on to secondary school.

From monolingualism to bilingualism As a result of the official establishment of the PEIBDF in 2003, we proposed to the federal educational authorities a series of activities with the aim of establishing in the school a policy of revitalization of Hñähñö and of creating a model of bilingual Hñähñö-Spanish teaching for the EPVAC.8 Our proposal for the revitalization of Hñähñö includes the extended use of Hñähñö in the school by way of specific activities, such as providing a Hñähñö language course for the non-Indigenous teachers and the introduction of Hñähñö into academic and civic activities. The proposal was received by the educational authorities with much skepticism. First because they believed that the teachers would not accept having to learn Hñähñö, a language which even the Indian speakers themselves do not value; and second, because they perceived studying it as an important language as inherently absurd. Put this way the proposal really does appear strange, and if teachers were to study the language in an uninterested way and with only the intention of achieving a satisfactory interaction in the classroom it could equally seem fantastic. Nevertheless, we glimpsed a distinct reality and we harbored hope with respect to the transformation of educational practices; upon drawing near to the teachers, we could observe an interest that went beyond a simple concern for improving their teaching skills. The teachers – of course none of them Indigenous, nor bilingual – recognize the enormous difficulty in working with students of Hñähñö origin; and they understand that if they maintain separation from the Hñähñö language it will be difficult for them to advance pupils in other academic areas and thus improve upon the low academic performance which has so affected the school. Also, we note a sensibility towards the need to carry out an education specific for this population; an education in which the mother tongue of the students is developed, while at the same time they learn Spanish. This represents a great advantage for our purposes and an irrefutable advance; the desire to learn some of the Hñähñö language with the purpose of being able to communicate with their students. In a way it was from here that the idea of proposing activities to change the subordinate situation of Hñähñö came about, as well as the implementation of intercultural activities with the intention of moderating the discriminatory school environment.

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What to do with Hñähñö in the school? The first difficulty was the official educational program, that is, the formal curriculum and the scholastic organization. The contents to be taught and the curricular focus – including the scholastic norms and work hours – do not always allow for cultural diversity, nor recognize the importance of the mother tongue of bilingual students, but any attempts at change cause controversy. The proposal had to take this into account and specify with precision the limits of the authority and of the area of educational innovation; we had to find fissures left by the institution and take advantage of them so as to articulate some of the possible work channels. First, we had to respect the official program, not propose different contents to be taught, nor interrupt classes – these interruptions are already very frequent in schools and classes are canceled for many reasons: for union meetings, conferences on health and human rights, meetings with parents, visits from governmental institutions and so on. The problems for administrators, teachers and even parents caused by these types of distractions from work time is evident. We appreciated the importance of not altering the school’s rhythm of work and we realized we should not add to the workload of the teachers nor the students, nor substitute some contents for others since the strategy we were proposing basically starts with the objectives and organization of the school and from there advances towards the recognition of the bilingualism of the students and the proposal of alternatives. What, then, is the margin we had to work with for the development of the proposal for the revitalization of Hñähñö and of bilingual education? As we have observed, the formal curriculum is very restrictive. However, we had the raw material necessary to make a start: (a) the interest of the teachers in learning Hñähñö and their disposition to attend to the cultural and linguistic needs of their students; (b) the intercultural educational policies and the interest of the educational authorities in promoting educational innovations make up an adequate institutional framework; (c) the students’ profound feeling of identity and affection towards their mother tongue (of the 118 students of Hñähñö origin, only 11 said they did not like Hñähñö – they preferred Spanish – while 107 preferred Hñähñö over Spanish, because they considered it a ‘very pretty language’); (d) the parents’ emerging interest in ‘the type of Hñähñö’ we are teaching in the school, reasoning that it is not their Hñähñö, but viewing it with affection. When there is an adequate judicial framework of protection for Indian languages, a political field propitious to linguistic and educational

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development, a scholastic environment sufficiently attractive and stable and where practitioners are conscious of the advantages of using the students’ mother tongue academically as well as using Spanish, the only thing that remains is to outline the path by which to guide the curricular changes – naturally we refer to the de facto curriculum – to begin to take the necessary step of transition from the monolingual to the bilingual and from the monocultural to the intercultural and transcultural. The second major obstacle was deciding who would give the Hñähñö course; there are no Hñähñö teachers in Mexico City, and there are probably no specialists in the teaching of Hñähñö as a second language anywhere in the country. The few linguists of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (ILV) who are dedicated to the study of the written systems of Hñähñö work in areas far distant from the specialized task of teaching Hñähñö to non-Indian people. Indigenous teachers and writers are often wrapped up in regional discussions and disputes about the form of writing. Those who do write in Hñähñö would appear to be the best candidates, but they tend to work according to their own versions and dialectical variations, which does not contribute to the policies of standardization. On the contrary, they exacerbate the ethnocentric positions typical of Indian teachers and cultivate further splits. Choosing a teacher native to Santiago Mezquititlán or to Tolimán – both located in the state of Querétaro – would help to manage the dialectical variant in a better way and would be more reasonable if we speak of a teaching proposal designed to benefit people from the same region as the teacher. But, this would still be adding fuel to the fire, for we would be contributing nothing to the policies of writing standardization. The Querétaro Hñähñö teachers have suffered many impositions from the Hidalgo teachers of the Valle del Mezquital, which explains why they now have their own initiatives of writing and try to carry them out independently of specialists. Finally, we have to strategically separate this type of regional polemics from the proposal of revitalizing Hñähñö and instead put the need to work on an alphabet and standard of writing as indispensable elements for bilingual education on a different level.9 Support has also come from linguist colleagues who work with the Hñähñö language in the state of Querétaro, developing proposals for writing and participating in the revitalization initiatives in the rural Indigenous environment.10 The program of the Hñähñö course for non-Indigenous teachers is divided into three parts: the first includes the study of the standardized spelling for the regional variants; the second covers grammatical, phonological,

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and morphological, and syntaxical aspects of Hñähñö; and the third includes the development of reading and writing. Initially the proposal was to be carried out during three consecutive school cycles, in such a way that each part of the program would be perfectly matched to one school year. As part of the objective we considered it important that practical exercises of conversation with the students and parents take place. For the development of the course we had to negotiate with the Section Coordination and the Scholastic Council to decide on work schedules and the type of product we were hoping for. The agreement was to work from 13:00 to 15:00 o’clock; as a show of goodwill the teachers offered to begin one hour before normal classes and the authorities, following this reasoning, granted the other hour thus starting normal classes at 15:00. To avoid suspension of work they asked substitute teachers to take over the classes during that hour. The knowledge acquired would be applied to daily activities, which is to say, the results of the course should be reflected in the substantial improvement of classroom interaction and through a clear demonstration of better academic advancement in the students. We sought to raise the level of use of Hñähñö in and out of the classroom and, at the same time, to obtain better academic levels, and reduce failure and absenteeism. These objectives have been supported by activities such as the holding of ‘intercultural gatherings’ which offer opportunities to exchange academic experiences and strengthen the ties between the students of Santiago Mezquititlán and the Hñähñö residents of the Colonia Roma. For example, in April of 2004, with the excuse of uniting the ‘choirs’ of the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano School of neighborhood I of Santiago Mexquititlán and the Alberto Correa School of the Colonia Roma, a joint rehearsal to sing the national anthem in Hñähñö was organized, in such a way that it would be sung in the official ceremony honoring the flag on Monday in the morning shift. After this first experience, the Scholastic Council made the decision to continue practicing the national anthem in Hñähñö with all the groups at school.11 Other channels for strengthening the ties have also been explored, such as taking advantage of the computer equipment of the school to do schoolwork and to practice writing in Hñähñö. In these cases the students themselves, with the support of their teachers and using the existing Hñähñö dictionary, have created vocabulary lists, class journals, geographic locations for places in Querétaro, names of the parts of the body, and have made interactive games to practice the writing and pronunciation of Hñähñö.

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The complexity of the bilingual proposal The third great challenge lies in the ongoing project of Hñähñö-Spanish bilingual teaching; perhaps this is one of the topics of greatest complexity and controversy, as much because it involves aspects of educational policy and of language policy, as because it also touches the very heart of the fundamental focuses of basic education and the methodologies of pedagogical work. In the initial stages, we began with some difficulty; inherent difficulties have attended the rhythms, sequencing and deepening of our bilingual teaching project. In its first stage, it covers only the development of a model of bilingual teaching for first and second grades and of support for the use of L1 in reading and writing activities for third through sixth grade. The proposal takes as a foundation some experiences in bilingual education, some theoretical discussions of bilingualism, intercultural education and the Indigenous appropriation of educational projects. On the level of educational experiences, for example, in the bilingual Indigenous education of the rural environment, it has been common to teach directly in Spanish and also to teach first in L1 and then gradually introduce L2, until achieving the displacement of the L1 – showing some traces of the transitional model.12 To advance we must penetrate the quagmire in which these practices are embedded. Even today there is a continued belief in the idea of teaching L1 and L2 separately, because it is thought that this is the correct way to teach literacy skills and is the best guarantee of successfully picking up the second language. But from this idea other proposals have also been issued which try to show that the teaching of a second language forms a specific pedagogical field and a specific field of attention (Jung and López 2003; López 2003). These proposals look for support in discussions centered on the dichotomy of bilingual addition/subtraction. Additive bilingualism is considered the form in which students can add one or more languages to their linguistic repertoire and in this manner acquire abilities and competence – cognitive, social and academic; this process is usually associated with a high level of competence in both languages, appropriate to selfesteem, and with positive intercultural attitudes. Subtractive bilingualism, on the other hand, refers to the situation in which students are forced to put aside their own language, and use another language that is considered more useful and of higher national prestige; it is a process associated with low levels of second language acquisition, and of academic achievement, and marked psychological problems (Lambert 1958, 1967). An impressive theoretic development is taking place in bilingual education; we are constantly seeing a growth in successful experiences. In Latin

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America, intercultural bilingual education begins to give fruit with a harvest not yet weighed. We should perhaps recognize the contributions of the linguistic interdependence of L1 and L2 (common underlying proficiency model) and the threshold hypothesis, developed by Jim Cummins, which we believe have exercised an enormous influence on the designing of bilingual Indigenous educational programs. The theory, although still in debate, assumes that those bilingual students who develop both languages in school obtain better academic results, skills and abilities in both languages, and have abilities of transference from one language to another without affecting their academic and linguistic development (Cummins 2000: 174). In a way we take up Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis, but we also incorporate the notion of bi-reading and bi-writing continua developed by Nancy Hornberger (2001, 2003) for the construction of our proposal. The theory of interdependence helps one to understand that the use of both languages opens an immense field of pedagogical work and the possibility of generating a metalinguistic consciousness favorable toward bilingual development. It is not a simple mechanical scheme for the comprehension of the dimensions of pedagogical discourse, rather it offers a repertoire of theoretic resources for rethinking the great variability of bilingual Indigenous situations. The notion of bi-reading and bi-writing continua offers a holistic explanation of the bilingual development in context.13 The wealth of the notion of the continua helps to break the parallelistic schematics about the separate development of L1 and L2 in teaching, and invites consideration of the complex interrelationship that exists along the length of the continua. Currently many empirical investigations show that the continuous use of both languages generates positive academic attitudes and abilities; students experience important advances in metalinguistic, cognitive, and academic terms, developing ‘cognitive verbal capacities’ (knowledge of vocabulary, concepts, metalinguistic understanding, and deductive verbal reasoning). We start with the fact that the students are bilingual, possessing an oral mastery of Hñähñö and of Spanish, at various points along the continua.14 The Hñähñö first-grade students, with whom we began the proposal, enter with different levels of bilingualism; they present distinct levels of oral mastery of L1 and L2. With all the limitations that face any applied researcher and the implications that come with the fact of working with instruments to obtain information on the daily use of the language, the data show a higher oral mastery of L2 than of L1 and the mastery of L2 is markedly more uniform; on the other hand, in the oral mastery of L1 we observe more diverse levels, more heterogeneity and fewer lexical resources deployed.

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By way of conclusion: Yoho Ya Näte/Ñhu Ya Näte15 The Yoho Ya Näte/Ñhu Ya Näte (meaning in Hñähñö 40/60) proposal seeks to be a cross-cultural project, which takes as its starting point the diverse linguistic needs of the students, bilingual and non-bilingual, the necessity of the transformation of the school system and Indigenous cultural resistance. We began the project, which consists of the use of 40 per cent Hñähñö and 60 per cent Spanish, with the help of the teacher in charge of the first grade and a Hñähñö teacher. Why 40 per cent Hñähñö? In the first place, it was a political decision to introduce the mother tongue into the basic education curriculum, as a teaching and learning language, backed by the idea of revitalizing its social and academic use, thus lessening the risks of substitution and loss. Second, it is related to educational and linguistic rights, enabling students to learn to read and write in their mother tongues. Third, because in accord with modern educational research, we know that the education of bilingual children offers great cognitive, linguistic, and academic advantages. But why in lesser proportion than Spanish? We begin with the idea that both languages have the same level of importance in teaching and the pedagogical discourse covers different levels and functions.16 However, the proposal not only recognizes the subordinate position of Hñähñö compared with Spanish, but also has the goal of reversing this positioning. Hñähñö has restricted social and economic functions (it is spoken at home, but very little on the street even between the Indigenous members of the group themselves, and there are no written documentary resources to help with reading, and so on); Spanish, on the other hand, is the language of intercommunication and of economic and educational development. Frequently parents’ scholastic objectives for their children begin with their interest in learning Spanish and mathematics, and not with the specific desire to know how to write in their own language. These existing conditions influenced our decision. The process of the acquisition of reading and writing, and teaching in both languages, consists of: (1) The oral and written use of Hñähñö (40 per cent) and of Spanish (60 per cent) in the classroom. Both languages are integral to the underlying framework of the subject, to instructional and academic development, and to intercultural communication. Students will be able to read the world around them long before learning to read and write, through activities that promote the use of L1 and L2. Teaching should seek the active participation of the students through the exchange of knowledge between the children

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themselves and between them and the teacher, emphasizing values in relationships of equality and cultural and linguistic differences of people and groups. (2) Oral and written acquisition of Hñähñö and Spanish, through simultaneous learning of both languages. In this objective we attempt to stimulate the students so that they read literature and write in both languages. Introducing the student to the world of writing through a process involves different stages: (i) previous knowledge regarding writing (the knowledge students bring about writing at the moment they enter school); (ii) stimulating writing; and (iii) demonstrating that the students can write, and read what they write, without rigorously applying the rules of writing, at least not at this point. Bilingual reading and writing should be relevant to the students, and provide, at the same time, a systematic organization of knowledge, through activities and exercises in relation to text/word, word/ letters, word/syllables, and text/phrases. Relevant bilingual reading and writing means that the students will try to discover meaning, sense, and understanding in what they write. The systematizing of the linguistic aspects of writing should be taken into account at the same time: the diverse structural components (letter, word, syllable, phrase, text), and the functional aspects (types of text, uses and functions of writing), as well as the semantic aspects of language. (3) The study of the contents to be learned, development of abilities and values in L1 and L2. In spite of the widely accepted principle of separating the languages, giving each its own curricular space, we believe it convenient to develop activities with tendencies, above all, to generate an inter- and cross-cultural mutual process of the creation of learning and knowledge, and of the use of both languages consistent with a conscious, useful distribution within a multicultural framework. Bilingual reading and writing should be directly related to the life of the students and for that it is necessary that they understand their uses and functions: (i) activities should be contemplated which promote relevant experiences and the necessary communication in daily social interaction, giving special emphasis to their different uses and functions, with topics that form part of the children’s environment; (ii) exploring the children’s cultural traditions, selecting different types of texts, poems, stories, songs, notices, announcements, letters, recipes, and so on.

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This is the methodology that we have followed in developing the proposal. To have ample and detailed knowledge of the process we have kept a registry, written and recorded (on some occasions and for some events). This registry attempts to be a class journal in the strictest sense of the word,17 which is to say it aims to fulfill a dual role, as an instrument of critical reflection and a means to process the construction of scholastic knowledge, and as a register of daily school life. Both dimensions presuppose the comprehension of the activities of the teachers and students and the manner in which they are undertaken, the means and instruments which enable these actions, the pedagogical reflection which intercedes in the teaching, the situations which provoke the reflections and the scholastic learning itself. Given that one of the objectives is to build a bilingual intercultural pedagogical program for the first grade that incorporates intercultural learning and the acquisition of bilingual Hñähñö-Spanish (40/60) reading/writing, the journal is invaluable in facilitating such work, in organizing the content to be learned, the variety of activities, didactic elements and study materials, and in providing a logic for pedagogical reflection. In this way the journals simultaneously provide a tool and a methodology, in that they can help to generate the intercultural bilingual program, systematize it, and nurture it from the foundations. To recall what we said at the outset, the proposal began with the school year in August of 2004 and we still do not have sufficient elements for an overall evaluation; once the program has been in operation for a few years, we will have the first results and a space to rethink its future orientation.

Notes The work reported here is part of an applied educational investigation that is currently taking place under the auspices of Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), and with support from the Undersecretary of Educational Services for the Federal District (SSEDF), with the participation of María del Pilar Miguez, Arturo Alvarez, Severo López, Alejandra Ortiz, Cristina Pérez, Karla Espinosa, Evelyn Mejía, Karla Monroy and Manuel Ortiz. We would like to thank the principal and teachers of the Alberto Correa Evening Elementary School for their generous support. 1. Hñähñö is a term used mainly by Indian leaders, intellectuals and professionals of Otomí origin to refer to the speakers of Otomí, and has served as an expression of group reference meaning one who speaks the language. 2. Oscar Lewis (1960) explains the effects which cause Indian and rural migration to Mexico City, the economic and cultural conditioning, the socio-cultural

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3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? changes which take place in the villages of origin, the responses the city unleashes, and other aspects. The Population Census of 1995 registered 125,313 inhabitants who speak an Indian language, including children under the age of four. By 2000 this figure had grown to 172,558. In the first level of the new educational policy is the National Program of Educational Development 2000–2006; an integral part of this program is the creation of the General Coordination of Intercultural Bilingual Education and the National Institute of Indian Languages. Also, there is a new Law of Education of the Federal District that recognizes the rights of the Indian people, migrant and native. During the 2003–04 and the 2004–05 school years the following have taken place: four workshops on ‘The Administrative Function in Building a Quality School with an Intercultural Focus’ aimed at administrators, supervisors, and section heads as well as civil servants of the General Management of the Operation of Educational Services in the Federal District; 50 workshops on ‘A Quality School with an Intercultural Focus’ aimed at 1100 teachers; a training workshop (six sessions) on ‘The Function of the Technical Pedagogical Support (ATP) Department in Service of Diversity’ for 40 members of the personnel of the ATP; and weekly meetings of the inter-institutional technical team (with a lecture prepared by Lourdes Acosta, Cecilia Mendiola, Juan José Ramírez, Rebeca de los Santos and José Francisco Lara entitled ‘The Program of Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Federal District’, and presented at the Second Forum of Analysis and Proposals on Education in the Federal District in October of 2004). Located at Colima Street No. 221, in the Colonia Roma. The Interdisciplinary Center for Social Development (CIDES), known as the Colibrí Center. In view of the petition of support by the SSEDF, the National Pedagogical University offered to train the teachers in the use of computer equipment and educational technology, linguistic assistance in Hñähñö, and pedagogical accompaniment by the Indian Hñähñö students who study in the Indian Education bachelor’s degree program. In the last two assemblies of Hñähñö professionals and non-Indigenous linguistic specialists in Hñähñö for the standardization of the language, in 2003 in Querétaro and in 2004 in Veracruz, basic accords have been taken on the writing of Hñähñö. For this reason, we invited Ewald Hekking of the Autonomous University of Querétaro and Alejandro Gonzalez of the Indian Education Department belonging to the Unit of Basic Educational Services for the State of Querétaro to give the Hñähñö course to the teachers of the Alberto Correa School. Later they offered a workshop on the writing of Hñähñö to a group of Hñähñö studentprofessors from the National Pedagogical University for the purpose of educating specialists in standardized writing. Alejandra Ortiz Salas, student in the eighth semester of Educational Psychology at the National Pedagogical University. This matter has been widely studied by Hamel and Muñóz (1982, 1986, 2004), Muñóz (1981, 1987) and Coronado (1989, 1999) in the Valle del Mezquital, Hidalgo.

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13. Hornberger tells us that the notion of continua includes the context (macromicro, monolingual-multilingual, literate-oral), development (oral-written, production-reception, and transference from L1 to L2), content (minoritymajority, vernacular-literary, and contextualized-decontextualized) and the media (simultaneousness-succession, similarity-difference, and convergencedivergence) – read as components of the ecology of the language – all of which characterize the dimensions of bilingualism (2003: 3–25). 14. On a scale of applied self-appraisal we observe variations in the mastery of L1 and L2. 15. The participation of the first-grade teacher, Karla Monroy, and of Severo López, companion teacher responsible for the development of Hñähñö, has been vital. 16. Von Gleich (2003) tells us that the principal functions of language in the process of teaching and learning are as tools of thought and communication/action. In this last function the pedagogical discourse presents distinct levels (philogenetic, behavioral, self-conceptual, instrumental, emancipational, and technical-educational); the didactic discourse has distinct functions (cultural codifier, experiential mediator, cognitive developer, and pragmatic organizer); and the relational discourse regulates the dynamics (of general relationships, classroom interaction, and new relational contacts), all of which play a role in processes of teaching and learning. 17. We use as a model Lindenberg Monte’s (2003) experience of authorship developed with class journals.

Bibliography Arizpe, Lourdes (1975), Indígenas en la Ciudad de México: El caso de las Marías, Colección SEPSETENTAS 182, México: Secretaria de Educación Pública. Coronado, Gabriela (ed.) (1989), De la realidad al deseo. Hacia un pluralinguismo viable, Cuadernos de la Casa Chata No. 169, México: CIESAS. Coronado, Gabriela (ed.) (1999), Porque hablar dos idiomas … es como saber más …: Sistemas comunicativos bilingües en el México plural, México: CIESAS-CONACYT. Cummins, J. (1981), ‘The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students’, in California State Department of Education (ed.), Schooling and Language Minority Students: a Theoretical Framework, Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, pp. 3–49. Cummins, J. (2000), Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Favre, Henry (1998), El indigenismo, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Hamel, Enrique and Héctor Muñóz (eds) (1982), El conflicto lingüístico en una zona bilingüe, Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Serie Cuadernos de Información y Divulgación para Maestros, SEP. Hamel, Enrique (1986), ‘Perspectivas de un proceso de desplazamiento lingüístico: el conflicto otomí español en las prácticas discursivas y la conciencia lingüística’, Estudios Sociológicos, 4 (11) (Mexico). Hamel, Enrique (2004), ‘Qué hacemos con la castilla? La enseñanza del español como segunda lengua en un currículum intercultural bilingüe de educación indígena’, Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, 9/20: 83–107.

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Hannerz, Ulf (1996), Conexiones trasnacionales: cultura, gente, lugares, Spain: Frónesis, Cátedra, Universidad de Valencia. Hornberger, Nancy H. (2001), ‘Criando contextos eficazes de aprendizagem para o letramento bilingüe’, in M.I.P. Cox and A. A. de Assis-Peterson (eds)’, Cenas de sala de aula, Campinas, Saõ Paulo, Brasil: Mercado de Letras, pp. 23–50. Hornberger, Nancy H. (ed.) (2003), Continua of Biliteracy: an Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research and Practice in Multilingual Settings, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Jung, Ingrid and Luis Enrique López (eds) (2003), Abriendo la escuela: Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas, Madrid: Editorial Morata. Lambert, Wallace E. (1958), ‘The influence of language acquisition context on bilingualism’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 56: 239–44. Lambert, Wallace E. (1967), ‘A social psychology of bilingualism’, Journal of Social Issues, 23/2: 91–109. Lastra, Yolanda (2001), ‘Otomi language shift and some recent efforts to reverse it’, in J.A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 142–65. Lewis, Oscar (1960), ‘México Since Cardenas’, in Richard Adams (ed.), Social Change in Latin America Today, New York: Vintage Books, pp. 285–345. Lindenberg Monte, Nietta (1996), Escolas da Floresta: Entre o passado oral e o presente letrado, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Multiletra. Lindenberg Monte, Nietta (2003), Novos frutos das escolas da floresta, Rio Branco, Brasil: Organizaçao dos Profesores Indígenas do Acre, OPIAC/Associaçao do Movimento dos Agentes Agroflorestais. López, Luis Enrique (2003), ‘¿Donde estamos con la enseñanza del castellano como segunda lengua en América Latina?’ in I. Jung and L.E. López (eds), Abriendo la escuela: Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas, Madrid: Editorial Morata, pp. 39–71. Muñóz, Héctor (1981), ‘Asimilación o igualdad lingüística en el Valle del Mezquital’, Nueva Antropología, 22: 25–64. Muñóz, Héctor (1987), Funciones sociales y conciencia del lenguaje: estudios sociolingüisticos en México, Jalapa Veracruz, México: Universidad Veracruzana. Rebolledo, N. (2001), ‘Educación indígena y neozapatismo’, in T. Bertussi (ed.), Anuario Educativo Mexicano: Visión Retrospectiva, México, D.F.: Universidad Pedagógica Nacional/La Jornada Ediciones, pp. 55–69. Rebolledo, N. (2002), ‘Autonomía indígena y educación intercultural’, in T. Bertussi and R. Gonzales (eds), Anuario Educativo Mexicano: Visión Retrospectiva, Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Pedagógica Nacional/La Jornada Ediciones, pp. 182–207. Ukeda, Hiroyuki (2003), ‘Schooling, language and poverty: education and Indigenous people in México’, manuscript, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Valdéz, Luz Maria (1995), Los indios en los Censos de Población, Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Autónoma de México. Von Gleich, Utta (2003), ‘Lenguaje, lenguas y procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje’, in I. Jung and L. E. López (eds)’, Abriendo la escuela: Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas, Madrid: Editorial Morata, pp. 105–17.

Part II Commentaries: International Perspectives on the Case Studies

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Revitalization through Indigenous Education: a Forlorn Hope? Leena Huss

Introduction The present situation of the Nordic Sámi is the result of a long, conscious struggle for linguistic, cultural and political rights. The Sámi movement began in the early 1900s and gradually grew in strength, weathering the period of overt assimilation policies which lasted almost until the 1970s, witnessing then a growing tolerance, and since the 1990s, benefiting from a certain advocacy on the part of the authorities vis-à-vis the strivings of the Sámi.

The Norwegian Sámi: a success story? During the past few decades, the Norwegian Sámi have reached the best political position among the Sámi populations of the Nordic countries, reflected for instance in the fact that the Norwegian Sámi Parliament has more political power than do the neighboring ones in Sweden and Finland. Norway has also ratified the ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples which the other two countries have not. The Sámi Parliament is consulted in matters pertaining to the education of Sámi children and the integration of a ‘Sámi perspective’ in classroom work is an important part of the Sámi Curriculum, motivated as follows in the ‘Principles’ section of the modified curriculum text of 1998: ‘Norwegian and global cultures everywhere surround the Sámi society. Thus, the Sámi perspective is of crucial importance in education in order for the Sámi culture and traditions to be equal with the dominant culture’ (KUF 1998/816: 2). Especially in the case of the North Sámi living in the Sámi core area in Norway, language shift to Norwegian has been stopped and partly 125

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reversed. In several municipalities, the status of the Sámi language is today almost equal to the status of Norwegian, and Sámi is used in all spheres of municipal life (see Hirvonen, Chapter 2). As to Sámi-medium education, Sámi youth culture, literature, media and many other areas, the Norwegian Sámi are also leading the development in the Nordic countries. In this way, they serve as models and sources of inspiration for the rest of the Sámi who find themselves in a much more precarious position, with smaller numbers, much weaker official support and a continuing large-scale language shift to the surrounding majority languages. In the light of all this, the recent school surveys presented by Vuokko Hirvonen in this volume are alarming. In spite of a comprehensive legal framework supporting education in and through the medium of Sámi, the elaborated National Sámi Curriculum with high linguistic and cultural goals including the transmission of traditional Sámi knowledge to the pupils, the willingness of several municipalities to make Sámi obligatory for all students, and many other kinds of affirmation, the results in practice still remain far from satisfactory. All too few children take part in predominantly Sámi-medium education, and in many schools with only a few non-Sámi pupils, Norwegian tends, in practice, to dominate by far as a medium of instruction. Many teachers still struggle to overcome prejudices in the school environment and parents still tend to move their children to Norwegian-medium instruction after a few years in a Sámi-medium class, fearing that their children will otherwise end up with fewer opportunities in higher education or on the labor market. May and Hill (Chapter 4) report similarly on Ma¯ori parents in Aotearoa/New Zealand, many of whom think that the oral fluency in M¯aori given by the Ko¯hanga Reo is enough and choose English-medium education in school for their children. Also similarly to the Ma¯ori situation, second language learners of Sámi dominate among Sámi pupils. This is problematic because the special courses designed and available for them, ‘Sámi as a second language’ and ‘Sámi language and culture’, are found to be weak forms or ‘non-forms’ of bilingual education (see Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 578ff), hardly ever leading to a satisfactory competence in Sámi. As the schools catering for the Sámi do not have any official language policies, the meaning of ‘Sámi-medium education’ varies considerably from school to school and does not always imply a strong bilingual model at all; the share of Sámi-medium instruction sometimes being far less than 50 per cent of the total. Hirvonen (2004: 153) notes that a Sámi school within the Sámi Administrative Area can be a school where only one of the teachers is Sámi-speaking and does

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not even teach in Sámi, or a school where Sámi is only taught as an optional subject, with as few as one pupil out of four taking part in this instruction. Difficulties in assessing the outcome in terms of bilingual competence or school achievement for the students, and lack of proper pre- and inservice training for teachers are problems in Sámi as well as Aotearoa/ New Zealand (May and Hill, Chapter 4). In her evaluation study on the implementation of the Sámi Curriculum of 1997 Hirvonen (2004: 154) mentions that neither school leaders nor teachers have been provided with the systematic training needed to fulfill the educational objectives of the new Sámi school. She reports that less than half of the teachers are Sámi-speaking and about a half of them have no competence in Sámi culture. Moreover, she states that knowing the Sámi language does not always mean that a teacher consciously promotes Sámi culture in his/her teaching. Hirvonen’s interviews with Sámi teachers show that the high proportion of non-Sámi-speaking teachers is considered a serious problem, and she quotes her critical interviewees asking her: ‘How can Norwegian-speaking Norwegian teachers help Sámi pupils strengthen their identity, if they themselves do not show the slightest interest in Sámi culture?’ (Hirvonen 2004: 77) It is also problematic that the existing predominantly Sámi-medium education does not seem to be readily accessible for students speaking Sámi as a second language, and there are virtually no Sámi immersion programs especially targeting pupils with weak or no competence in Sámi. The consequence of this on Sámi languages in a longer perspective is obvious: while probably promoting favorable attitudes towards Sámi culture, the present kind of education does not contribute to a long-term revitalization of the language. Pupils without first-language competence in Sámi, the already dominant and steadily growing category, are left aside, without a fair chance of acquiring ‘functional bilingualism’ as promised by the curriculum. The opportunity of second-language speakers of Ma¯ori to enrol in a strong model of bilingual education (see May and Hill, Chapter 4) is hardly present for the Sámi. The only really strong model in Hirvonen’s survey (Chapter 2), indeed designed for those speaking Sámi as their first language, appears to be Sámi-medium education in a Sámidominant school, where the personnel as well as the pupils have native or otherwise high competence in the language, and where the atmosphere distinctly favours Sámi culture. Hirvonen’s survey shows that such schools are few and far between; there are four of them in all, for a Sámi population of some 40,000 or 50,000 people in Norway. In addition, there are a couple of schools where a strong model of bilingual education

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is applied for grades 1–7, while in grades 8–10, Norwegian-medium education becomes prevalent. All of these schools and classes are situated within the core areas of the Sámi Administrative Area.

Sámi outside the core area However, the trend among the Sámi, as in many other Indigenous populations, is that people – especially young people – are leaving the traditional areas in search of work, further education and the like (see López, Chapter 3, on the increasing presence of Indigenous populations in capitals and other cities; and Rebolledo, Chapter 5, on a specific such case in Mexico City). Through this out-migration, large populations, mostly consisting of young adults (with their possible future children), end up far from the Indigenous communities and language and culturally-competent elders, overwhelmed by a strong majority culture. Some of them may return later, in search of their roots or for other reasons, but all too many are gone for good, perhaps returning to their former home regions during their holidays, but living elsewhere during most of the year. This is also typical of the Sámi in all three countries. There are proportionally very large numbers of Sámi living in the bigger Nordic cities or the capitals of Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm. According to various estimations, one in three Finnish Sámi lives in Helsinki, one in eight Norwegian Sámi in Oslo and one in ten Swedish Sámi in Stockholm (see Lindgren 2000). This poses special problems for revitalization movements which are often carried out other than in the big cities. AikioPuoskari (2006: 120) observes in her recent report on Sámi education in the three Nordic countries that Sámi-medium education outside the Sámi Administrative Area is very limited and even teaching the Sámi language as a subject is often difficult to organize – a very alarming situation considering her estimation that as many as half of the Nordic Sámi may live outside the Sámi areas. She even states1 that 70 per cent of Finnish Sámi children under the age of ten live outside the Sámi area. The corresponding numbers in the neighboring countries might not yet be as dramatic as that, but we can expect that if the current trend prevails, the numbers of Sámi children outside Sápmi will continue to grow steadily. Nevertheless, as Lindgren (2000) has shown in her investigation of the Sámi living in Helsinki, a lot of enthusiasm and interest in linguistic revitalization can be found among the urban Sámi, or other Sámi outside Sápmi, who are sometimes regarded as ‘less authentic’ by those who have

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remained in the traditional Sámi areas and who are still pursuing traditional Sámi occupations. In fact, some of those whose authenticity has been frequently questioned are also those who have been the most active and successful in the revitalization movement (Lindgren 2006). What is authentic and in which ways Sámi culture and ways of expressing individual ‘Sámi-ness’ should be allowed to develop is continuously under discussion in Sámi circles. In the title of Chapter 2, Hirvonen gives the quote ‘Out on the fells, I feel like a Sámi’, and she also quotes a teacher in a lower secondary school who emphasizes the importance of using the language in its ‘natural’ settings, outside the school, in nature, while working with handicraft and the like, because the pupils then ‘have this Sámi feeling’ and ‘like to use the language there’ (Hirvonen 2004: 90–1). Here, the teacher refers to the situation in the border areas of Sápmi, where Sámi is only taught as a school subject and the Sámi language and culture have a marginal status in the school environment.2 This would seem to point to the fact that at least among Sámi youngsters in the border areas, ‘Sámi-ness’ is still intimately connected to the nature and occupations of the Sámi core area and speaking Sámi appears most natural in that context. The fact remains, however, that ‘urban Sámi-ness’ and other forms of Sámi-ness outside the core area are no longer exceptions to the rule, but very common phenomena, which may have both favorable and negative consequences for the revitalization movement. A big step forward in Norway in this respect was the Education Act of 1998 which gave all Sámi pupils an individual right to be educated in or through the medium of Sámi, irrespective of the geographical area where they are living. As shown by Hirvonen, a great majority of the Sámi pupils taking part in this education outside the Sámi Administrative Area have chosen the two weakest programmes available, ‘Sámi as a second language’ or ‘Sámi language and culture’. This means that the Sámi living outside Sápmi have the weakest exposure to Sámi language and culture in their environment while also receiving the weakest forms of Sámi education. Hirvonen mentions that in the schools where the Sámi are in a minority – and this of course, is the predominant situation outside the Sámi core area – the status of Sámi is markedly lower – another obstacle to the development of a strong bilingual model. There is a similar concern about English-dominant units within Ma¯ori education in Aotearoa/New Zealand (May and Hill, Chapter 4). Considering the increasing numbers of Sámi and other Indigenous populations living outside their core areas, there is an urgent need for strong revitalization efforts targeting these groups.

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The minorities within a minority: the most endangered Sámi languages Another major challenge for the Sámi revitalization movement is to improve the situation of the minor Sámi languages. Although small in numbers,3 the Nordic Sámi population consists of at least five distinct groups with their own standardized languages taught in school and used as media of instruction: North Sámi (the biggest of them, spoken in Finland, Norway and Sweden), Lule and South Sámi (spoken in Norway and Sweden) and Inari and Skolt Sámi (spoken in Finland). The minor Sámi languages, with numbers of speakers ranging from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand, are today extremely endangered. The figures given in Table 2.1 on the number of children in Sámi-medium education in the school-year 2004/05 (Hirvonen, Chapter 2) show this clearly: of the total of 1021 being educated through the medium of Sámi, 986 were educated in North Sámi, 34 in Lule Sámi and 1 pupil in South Sámi! The five Sámi languages are not all mutually intelligible and although the idea of creating a common, or ‘unified’ (see the discussion on the impact of language ‘normalization’ and Unified Quichua, López, Chapter 3), written Sámi standard based on several varieties has occasionally been discussed, the issue is not of current concern among the Sámi. A sense of a common ‘Sámi-ness’ transcending linguistic differences and national borders is very strong within Sápmi, although, in practice, the smaller Sámi languages are getting much less official attention and protection than the dominant North Sámi. Still, there are presently efforts being taken to bolster the small pockets of South and Lule Sámi speakers in Sweden and Norway by widening the Sámi Administrative Areas in both countries. Both governments have also recently given special funding for revitalization projects among the South Sámi. Among the Inari and Skolt Sámi in Finland, there have been strong local revitalization efforts, including the founding of language nests inspired by the Ko ¯hanga Reo in Aotearoa/New Zealand (see May and Hill, Chapter 4). The extremely precarious situation of the minor Sámi languages has been taken up by the Council of Europe Committee of Experts, which has the task of monitoring the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Norway as well as other countries who have ratified the charter. A strong, high-level recommendation on the part of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers was given in 2003 to the Norwegian government, reading as follows: ‘… the Committee

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of Ministers … [r]ecommends that the Norwegian authorities take account of all the observations of the Committee of Experts and, as a matter of priority … increase their efforts to protect and promote Lule and South Sámi’ (ECRML 2003:2: 36). Similar recommendations to promote the smaller Sámi languages have also been given to the Swedish and Finnish governments. In this way, the international community chooses to support the view that minor Sámi varieties have the right to exist as languages in their own right.

What have we learnt? What is there then to be learnt from the studies on Indigenous educational efforts in this volume? Is there a limit to what we can accomplish with the help of the school system, even in states which at least on the surface profess protection and promotion of Indigenous languages and cultures? How can we see to it that the bilingual models developed really lead to a functioning bilingualism and a good competence in the Indigenous language on a large scale? Furthermore, even in cases where the Indigenous languages appear to be strong, as among several South American Indigenous peoples (see López, Chapter 3), other problems remain unsolved. For instance, whose knowledge is actually chosen to be transmitted through this education? In various parts of the continent, as reported by López, Indigenous leaders have increasing doubts as to the contents and knowledge base of Indigenous education: it is found by many still to reflect the ways and values of the colonizers, rather than Indigenous knowledge and philosophy. Is what is perceived as Indigenous education Indigenous only on the surface, while transmitting mostly majority values and knowledge to the young? This has also been a concern in several international conferences organized by Indigenous peoples during the last decade, some of them even held in Sápmi.4 The founders of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP), the M¯aori of Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Nordic Sámi, have been and continue to be very active in international Indigenous cooperation. For the Sámi, a comparatively early access to ‘mainstream’ education, and the possibilities offered by the welfare state and democracy, resulted in assimilation for many but also in the opportunity for some to use their education and experience in favour of the Indigenous movement and revitalization. This also enhanced their opportunities of being active in international Indigenous cooperation, which offers an important discussion forum for common Indigenous goals and problems.

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If groups like the M¯aori, the Norwegian Sámi and several South American Indigenous peoples, in spite of a comprehensive legal framework favoring revitalization, as well as decades of conscious attitudinal work among the populations themselves to ‘decolonize their minds’ (Thiong’o 1986) still find themselves struggling with problems which should have been solved a long time ago – what should be done? There is an interesting case of a Hñähñö community in Mexico City (see Rebolledo, Chapter 5) where Indigenous values as well as the native language appear to be transmitted efficiently in a very precarious situation characterized by strong oppression, severe economic problems, social adversity and poor educational opportunities. This can be compared to the situation of the younger generations of Sámi, living in a typical Nordic welfare state with equal educational opportunities with Norwegians, and who have in many cases become linguistically and even culturally Norwegian-dominant. It remains difficult for the school system to give them a satisfactory competence in Sámi; and the integration of Sámi knowledge and values in all classroom work, a responsibility of the school according to the Sámi Curriculum, is still often seen as an unsolvable question. The paradox described above reminds us of John Edwards’(2002) view on language maintenance. He claims that minority languages are best maintained in circumstances characterized by self-segregation and the absence of literacy, formal education, modernity and globalization. He states that there are not many people who would be willing to pay such a high price for language maintenance. According to him, people should be allowed to decide whether they want to maintain their original language or not. Not everybody chooses to maintain his or her original language and they should have the right to make that choice, Edwards concludes.5 He sees bilingualism in the original language and the majority language as a possible solution to the question of minority language maintenance, but bilingualism according to him remains just a transitional phase between monolingualism in L1 and monolingualism in L2, seldom anything stable. He admits that big and small languages can live side by side for some time, but isolationalism is needed in order to avoid language shift from the small to the big ones – and then, as stated earlier, this price can be too high. ‘Stable bilingualism remains both a desirable outcome and one often difficult to achieve and maintain. It is … a forlorn hope’ (Edwards 2002: 40). Are we to accept the view that bilingualism in a longer perspective really is a forlorn hope? What kinds of measures are needed to counterbalance the unequal positions of languages and to create circumstances

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where Indigenous languages, even small ones, have a fair chance of survival? Or are we to see the solution in the creation of isolated areas where the contacts with majority language and culture are minimized by law? This is by no means impossible in modern society, as shown by the example of the Åland Islands. These islands belong to Finland but have a certain self-autonomy which includes a legally-based monolingualism in Swedish, with the official use of Finnish forbidden by law. A somewhat distressing fact for those who prefer linguistic pluralism is that the internationally-praised, high-level protection of Swedish in the Finnish mainland has not been able to curb the ongoing language shift to Finnish among the speakers of Swedish (see Spiliopoulou Åkermark 2006: 593), and there are, in fact, some Finland Swedes who have claimed that the Åland Islands model is the only one that is really able to protect the Swedish language in Finland. The Finnish example would seem to support Edwards’ idea of isolation being the only way to minority language maintenance in the long run. But along with Edwards, we should ask if this is what Indigenous leaders, scholars and others should advocate, or if it is what Indigenous parents would prefer? As far as the Nordic Sámi are concerned, this is hardly the case. Maintaining an endangered language through banning the use of the majority language in society would appear dangerously similar to the former overt assimilation policies, albeit reversed. The idea of thus separating speakers of the two languages and creating a legally monolingual Sámi environment in some parts of the Sámi area would not only seem impossible but also separatist in a way that few Sámi families or individuals would accept. Is there a way then to combine Indigenous education based on Indigenous languages and Indigenous knowledge with bilingualism and equal educational and occupational opportunities in ‘mainstream’ society? Obviously, many Indigenous leaders and educationalists believe that the answer is positive. In addition, we must not forget that the struggle for revitalization, even in circumstances where the pressure from majority society on language and culture is overwhelming, is still for many individuals and groups a rehabilitating, healing and empowering experience (see Dorian 1987). Revitalization can be seen as the emancipation of minorities and their cultures on their own terms rather than on the terms of the larger society as has long been the case. For the young, it opens the possibility of feeling pride and confidence in the future, without the pain of having to choose one language and culture and abandon the other.

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A struggle without end Still, the problem remains. What to do then about the obvious shortcomings of Indigenous education at the present stage, when we already thought that a lot had been accomplished? Maybe we have to recognize more fully that success in replacing former models of assimilationist and subtractive education by Indigenous and, at least in principle, additive models, led by the Indigenous community, does not mean that those engaged in linguistic and cultural revitalization can now lean back and take a breather; rather, the work must go on and be intensified if the struggle is not to be lost. The title of the famous book by Ranginui Walker (2004), the legendary fighter for M¯aori rights in Aotearoa/New Zealand, is Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End. Maybe it is time for us all to understand that revitalization is just that, a struggle – sometimes onerous and frustrating, often healing and empowering – but still a struggle, without an end in sight.

Notes The title of this chapter was inspired by John Edwards’ (2002) article. 1. 2. 3.

4.

5.

Ulla Aikio-Puoskari, personal communication 5 July 2006. Vuokko Hirvonen, personal communication 15 July 2006. The total number of Sámi is commonly estimated to be some 70,000–80,000 persons. Here, some 2000 Sámi in the Kola Peninsula, in Russia, are included. Half of the Sámi population is estimated to speak Sámi. For example, a conference organized by the Sámi with the title ‘From Generation to Generation – From People to People’, which was held in Kautokeino, Norway 21–24 September 1993, with Diné, Inuit, M¯aori and Sámi participants discussing the topic ‘Traditional child upbringing in transition among Indigenous peoples’. In this connection, note the view of, for example, Nancy Dorian (1998) on ‘free choices’ in a language shift situation.

References Aikio-Puoskari, U. (2006), Raportti saamelaisopetuksesta Pohjoismaiden peruskouluissa. Pohjoismainen vertailu opetuksen perusedellytysten näkökulmasta [Report on Sámi education in the comprehensive schools of the Nordic countries. A Nordic comparative study from the perspective of the basic prerequisites of instruction], Inari: Saamelainen Parlamentaarinen Neuvosto/Saamelaiskäräjät. Dorian, N. (1987), ‘The value of language-maintenance efforts which are unlikely to succeed’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 68: 57–67.

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Dorian, N. (1998), ‘Western language ideologies and small-language prospects’, in L.A. Grenoble and L.J. Whaley (eds), Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–21. ECRML (2003), The Committee of Experts Report on the Application of the Charter in Norway, 2003:2, Strasbourg: The Council of Europe. Edwards, J. (2002), ‘Forlorn hope?’ in L. Wei, J. Dewaele and A. Housen (eds), Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism, Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 25–67. From Generation to Generation – From People to People (1992), Rapport fra konferansen og kulturmønstringa i Kautokeino, 21–24 September 1992, Kautokeino, Norway. Hirvonen, V. (2004), Sámi Culture and the School: Reflections by Sámi Teachers and the Realization of the Sámi School. An Evaluation Study of Reform 97, Research Council of Norway/Sámi University College, Kárášjohka: CálliidLágádus. KUF 1998/816, Forskrift: prinsipper og retningslinjer for opplæringen etter Det samiske læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen [Principles and guidelines for teaching in comprehensive schooling according to the Sámi Curriculum], Oslo: Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research. Lindgren, A.-R. (2000), Helsingin saamelaiset ja oma kieli [The Sámi in Helsinki and their own language], Helsinki: SKS. Lindgren, A.-R. (2006), ‘Authenticity: special focus on Kven, Meänkieli and Sámi’, paper given at the Georgetown University Roundtable on Language and Linguistics, 3–5 March 2006, Washington DC. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000), Linguistic Genocide in Education – Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Spiliopoulou Åkermark, S. (2006), ‘Conclusions’, in S. Spiliopoulou Åkermark, L. Huss, S. Oeter and A. Walker (eds), International Obligations and National Debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea, Mariehamn: Åland Peace Institute, pp. 589–96. Thiong’o, N.W. (1986), Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature, Oxford/Portsmouth: James Currey/Heinemann. Walker, R. (2004), Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End, rev. edition, NZ: Penguin Books.

7

Commentary from an African and International Perspective Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu

Introduction Vernacular or Indigenous languages, be they in the Americas, Europe, Asia or Africa, are what Nettle and Romaine (2000: 69) call ‘verbal botanies’. They not only carry within them a wealth of knowledge about the local ecosystem, but they also act, as Crystal (2000) observes, as a repository of a polity’s history, traditions, arts and ideas. When a language is lost, much of the wealth of knowledge it embodies is also lost, a point that contributors to Grenoble and Whaley’s (1998) book, Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response, also make in their discussion of the complexities of Australian Aboriginal, Native American and Alaska Native languages. Skutnabb-Kangas (2000), Crystal (1997), Dorian (2004) and others have expressed concern about the possibility of the disappearance of at least half of the world’s 6000 or so languages by the middle of this century. Most of these language deaths are likely to take place in post-colonial settings, where various factors, such as the lack of resources and of community and institutional support mitigate against Indigenous language maintenance. But how can society ensure that it preserves the Indigenous languages and the knowledge they embody for the benefit of both current and future generations? Can education through the medium of Indigenous languages, or mother-tongue education for that matter, be the answer? This chapter addresses these questions from an African and international perspective. It does so, on the one hand, against the background of mother-tongue education ideologies and, on the other hand, in the light of the case studies of Indigenous language revitalization presented in the foregoing chapters: the Sámi language in Norway (Hirvonen), the M¯aori language in New Zealand (May and Hill), the Hñähñö language in Mexico (Rebolledo), and the visions of bilingual intercultural education 136

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in Latin America (López). In particular, this chapter compares and contrasts the role of mother-tongue education in the cases under consideration with efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages through schooling in Africa and globally. Education, says Kennedy (1983: iii), is universally recognized not only as a powerful instrument of change, but also as a vital site for social and linguistic reproduction, and the inculcation of relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes; it is therefore particularly central in processes of what Phillipson (1997: 240) calls linguistic hierarchization. Inglehart (1990, cited in McGroarty 2002: 21) concurs, noting that education is ‘probably the singlemost factor shaping one’s life: educational level sets the limits of career one enters, how much money one earns, and how much social prestige one possesses and influences the communication networks one is exposed to throughout life’. Endangered-language communities turn to schooling, as Nancy Dorian (2004: 455) points out, for the relatively rapid multiplicative effect it can produce: a handful of dedicated and well-trained teachers, using only the minority-group language in the classroom, can produce scores of new minority-language speakers over a period of several years. In the section that follows I examine the role of minority language or mothertongue education in Indigenous language revitalization. The section thereafter comments on the cases of Indigenous language revitalization covered in this volume. The last section considers the challenges facing Indigenous language revitalization especially in the post-colonial settings.

Indigenous language revitalization and mother-tongue education In this section I will argue for the revalorization of ‘mother-tongue education’ and with it, the construct of ‘mother tongue’, which some analysts have dismissed as essentially vacuous and a mystique that should be dropped from the linguist’s set of myths about language (Ferguson 1992: xiii–xvii). Language revitalization has been defined as ‘a conscious effort to curtail the assimilative development of a language which has been steadily decreasing in use and to give it a new life and vigor’ (Huss 1999: 24). Efforts to give an Indigenous language a new life can be undertaken individually or collectively by the stakeholders, for example, the government, nongovernmental organizations, the community, the school, religious institutions, and so on. When Indigenous language revitalization involves the school, it entails the use of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction. The construct of ‘mother tongue’ has attracted a lot of attention especially with respect to language issues in education in various parts of the

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world, and particularly in post-colonial settings, where an ex-colonial language dominates virtually all the higher domains of language use. But as Pattanayak (1998: 124) observes, ‘the concept of mother tongue’ has been so taken for granted that between the debates on language acquisition and language learning scholars have not found time to examine it carefully’. The term ‘mother tongue’ is used here in the sense of UNESCO (1995), defined as ‘the language which a person has acquired in early years and which normally has become his natural instrument of thought and communication’. The mother tongue, as Pattanayak (1998: 129) would put it, is that language with which one is emotionally identified. It is the language through which the child recognizes and organizes his [her] experience and environment around him [her]. It is the language used to express one’s basic needs, ideas, thoughts, joys, sorrows and other feelings. [It is the language that,] if one gives it up, one may remain intellectually alive but would grow emotionally sterile. At the heart of the debate around the concept of ‘mother tongue’ has been the issue of ‘mother-tongue education’. UNESCO (1995) defines mother-tongue education as ‘education which uses as its medium of instruction a person’s mother tongue’. In Africa discussions about ‘mothertongue education’ date back to the colonial era and have been going on since African countries became independent states in the early 1960s. The colonists themselves did not agree on how to resolve this issue, nor have those to whom they handed over power when colonization ended. Two ideologies informed then, as they do now, the debate on the issue of mother-tongue education. There is the ideology of development on the one hand, and that of (mental) decolonization on the other. The former requires continual use of the colonial languages in education because, it is assumed, development is possible only if education is imparted through the medium of former colonial languages, for example, French, English, Portuguese and Spanish. The latter requires replacing ex-colonial languages with Indigenous languages as media of instruction because, it is argued, colonialism deprived the African child of his/her cultural heritage (Mfum-Mensah 2005). A study by Whitehead (1995), from which I will quote at length, provides telling insights into how these two opposite ideologies informed colonial thinking about the issue of mother-tongue education. Whitehead notes that in a draft memorandum entitled ‘The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education’, for distribution to colonial governments in Africa, a Swiss-born British linguist, Hanns Vischer, highlighted the value of the

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mother tongue as the medium of instruction, especially in the early years of schooling. Some British linguists working on African languages noted at the time that ‘a man’s native speech is almost like his shadow, inseparable from his personality. Hence in all education, the primary place should be given to training in the exact and free use of the mother tongue’ (Whitehead 1995: 3). This is because, it was argued, by taking away a people’s language we cripple or destroy its soul and all its mental individuality … If the African is to keep and to develop his own soul and is to become a separate personality, his education must not begin by inoculating him with a foreign civilization … the vernacular … is the vessel in which the whole national life is contained and through which it finds expression. (Westermann, cited in Whitehead 1995: 4) Other colonists, however, viewed mother-tongue education in African languages with contempt. Sir Rivers-Smith, Director of Education in what was then Tanganyika, now Tanzania, claimed that to insist on the use of the mother tongue would set back the clock of progress for many African tribes: The vast majority of African dialects … must be looked upon as educational cul de sacs [sic] … From a purely educational standpoint the decent interment of the vast majority of African dialects is to be desired, as they can never give the tribal unit access to any but a very limited literature. (Whitehead 1995: 7) Also, in Sir River-Smith’s view, use of the vernacular could isolate a tribe from commercial intercourse. For him, to limit a native to a knowledge of his tribal dialects is to burden him with an economic handicap under which he will always be at a disadvantage when compared with others who, on account of geographical distribution or by means of education, are able to hold intercourse with Europeans or Asiatics. (Whitehead 1995: 8) As we will see below, the aforementioned ideologies continue to inform policy debates on the mother-tongue education issue in the post-colonies. The renewed interest in mother-tongue education appears to have been triggered by recent theoretical developments in language-in-education policy and practice, especially the language ecology model (Mülhlaüsler

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1996; Hornberger 2003), where language is viewed as a resource. In addition, interest in mother-tongue education derives from UNESCO’s model of mother-tongue literacy, reviewed recently by Tabouret-Keller et al. (1997), and from the findings, documented in several studies around the world, that children perform better at school when they are taught through the medium of their mother tongue rather than through the medium of a second language/foreign language (for example, Akinnaso 1993; Auerbach 1993). Akinnaso (1993), for instance, cites several case studies of mother-tongue literacy in Africa, Europe, and America as well as pronouncements by world bodies such as UNESCO and the World Bank which show that there exists a positive correlation between the medium of instruction and the quality of cognitive and academic achievements: ‘Not only have the children instructed in the mother tongue been found to make better gains than those instructed in a second language; a correlation has also been found between development of literacy skills in the mother tongue and the development of similar skills in a second language’ (Akinnaso 1993: 269). Further, the issue of mother-tongue education features in language policy debates due to the unrealized expectations in the post-colonies that in retaining former colonial languages as official languages, they would bring about national unity, develop into viable media of national communication, and spread as lingua franca and perhaps eventually as first language by replacing local languages, as was the case in large parts of Latin America (Heine 1990: 176). Finally, the debate around the mother-tongue education issue is being rekindled by the widening gaps between the elite, who overtly profess the promotion of Indigenous languages as medium while at the same time sending their own offspring to schools where the medium of instruction is a former colonial language, and the masses, who not only have no access to but are also illiterate both in the colonial language and in their own Indigenous languages. When the masses have no access to information, that is, if they have no functional literacy in the economically dominant language, not only will they be controlled by a small elite minority who have access to that language – in most cases, a metropolitan European one (Nettle and Romaine 2000: 172) – but they will also be excluded from political participation and opportunities for social advancement (Francis and Kamanda 2001: 236). It is no coincidence, then, that in Western societies and some Asian and Arab countries, mother-tongue education is the norm rather than the exception. As Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) points out, all over the world, the majority of dominant-linguistic group children are educated through

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the medium of their own (dominant) languages. However, most Indigenous and economically minority children, particularly in the post-colonies, learn through a language that is not their own. What distinguishes mother-tongue education in African countries from mother-tongue education in Western (and some Asian) countries is that the latter is an education that is enabling rather than disabling, empowering rather than disempowering. That is, it ensures its consumers upward social mobility, allows them access to employment and to economic resources, and facilitates their participation in the social and political development of the state. Indeed, in advocating mother-tongue education and the usefulness of the concept of mother tongue, one must consider, as Ricento (2002) points out, the political agendas attached to mothertongue education ideologies that might serve the interests of one group at the expense of the aspirations of other groups. Also, Tollefson (2002) warns that sociolinguists must be cautious about generalizations regarding the impact of mother-tongue promotion policies; for advocates of mothertongue use in broad areas of social life tend to use public sympathy for mother-tongue education as part of larger political strategies, as was the case in the former Republic of Yugoslavia during the period 1980–91 or in apartheid South Africa. While agreeing with both Tollefson’s and Ricento’s remarks, I must also, however, caution sociolinguists against a blanket rejection of the construct of mother tongue and mother-tongue education, for the rejection tends to be based on language data drawn from metropolitan areas – areas that house only a small percentage of a polity’s population. As is well known, the majority of the population in post-colonial settings live in rural areas. A blanket rejection of the construct of mother tongue contributes simultaneously to the further hegemonization of former colonial languages and the continual marginalization of local languages (Kamwangamalu 2005). Also, before one rejects the construct of mother tongue, and with it, mother-tongue education, one must consider the following questions: what is the rationale for mother-tongue education? Is it for political mobilization or for mother-tongue maintenance and revitalization against threats from dominant languages? The case studies analyzed in this volume have more to do with the latter than the former. Still, there seems to be nothing wrong with the mother tongue being used for political mobilization, especially if such mobilization not only empowers speakers of Indigenous languages to participate in the social, political and economic development of the nation of which they are citizens, but also opens up avenues for access to resources, education, employment, and upward social mobility.

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To conclude this section, it seems to me that arguments against ‘the mother tongue’ and ‘mother-tongue education’ are clearly arguments for monolingual education in former colonial languages only. These arguments suggest that teaching in former colonial languages is incompatible with the use of local languages as a medium of instruction in post-colonial settings. Such arguments and the policies resulting from them must be challenged, for they represent a serious threat to the very existence of Indigenous languages. As Hyde (1994: 302) notes pointedly, ‘to be able to select, accept, or reject ideas, concepts, and pressures, especially those emanating from dominant cultures, people have to be equipped with a good knowledge of their own culture and history’. To argue otherwise is counterproductive for minority language revitalization particularly in post-colonial settings.

Case studies of Indigenous language revitalization In post-colonial Africa, language policy debates have been concerned mostly with vernacularization (Cobarrubias 1983), an ideology whose objective is to promote Indigenous languages by substituting them for former colonial languages such as English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, especially in the educational system. Unlike countries in Latin America and other parts of the world, post-colonial African countries have been little concerned with the issue of Indigenous language revitalization because Indigenous languages are widely spoken as vernaculars. Vernacularization was intended to remedy the negative results and high rates of illiteracy and school dropouts resulting from the use of former colonial languages as the medium of instruction. The ideology of vernacularization has generally failed, but some success stories can be identified: Somali in Somalia, Amharic in Ethiopia, Arabic in North Africa and, to a limited extent, Swahili and Malagasy in Tanzania and Madagascar, respectively. To my knowledge, minority language revitalization in Africa comparable to the case studies discussed in this volume, to which I will turn shortly, is arguably a rare phenomenon. Two examples of this phenomenon come from South Africa. The first concerns the Khoisan languages, most of which are now extinct as a result of contact with majority Indigenous languages such as Zulu and Xhosa, and colonial languages such as English and Dutch (later, Afrikaans). The constitution of postapartheid South Africa provides for the protection of the Khoisan languages: Nama, Xu and Khwe. Nama, for instance, is offered as a subject in schools that have a high population of Nama speakers. Also, recently the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has launched a radio

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station in the Northern Cape Province to promote the Khoisan languages. The second example concerns the maintenance of German, a minority non-Indigenous language in a rural German-speaking enclave community of Wartburg in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (de Kadt 2000). As de Kadt explains, the community has managed to maintain German for the past 140 years due to the contribution of various factors, among them the school, the church, a strong desire for ethnic self-identity, family histories, cultural events, financial support from prominent wealthy South African Germans, and the ‘difference’ ethos of the apartheid system which was supportive of the efforts of the Germanspeakers to maintain their language (de Kadt 2000: 69, 85). The case of German in KwaZulu-Natal is similar in many respects to the case of the Sámi language in Norway, as reported by Hirvonen in Chapter 2. Hirvonen observes that as a result of intensive Norwegianization, an ideology that led to severe suppression of the Sámi language and culture, the Sámi language was not used in education in much of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. However, in 1959 a language policy was adopted authorizing the use of Sámi in schools. While the German case is clearly community-driven, it is not clear from Hirvonen’s analysis how the policy of Sáminization came about, whether it was community- or governmentdriven. Whatever the rationale for its adoption, the policy aimed at and achieved its objective of revitalizing the Sámi people’s language, culture and identity. This is evident from the fact that for the school year 2002–03, for instance, the number of schools teaching Sámi increased by 20 per cent, while the number of students studying Sámi also increased, from 2640 to 3023 (12.7 per cent). The success of the Sámi schools is also highlighted in the following quote by a Sámi teacher: [In the schools] Sámi is the language the children learn through, and they speak Sámi during the breaks. The Sámi language is the main language. I must say that you seldom hear Norwegian in the primary school. In that way, I don’t think that Norwegian is getting stronger than Sámi … Most of the teachers are Sámi who speak Sámi … All our meetings are held in Sámi and interpreted into Norwegian. The administration consists of Sámi-speaking people. The parents get the letters in Sámi and Norwegian. The children prefer to study Sámi rather than Norwegian … It was really weird for me – the fact that Sámi is considered the most prestigious language and Norwegian is nothing. (Hirvonen 2004: 140) Compare the enthusiasm for Sámi as expressed in the above passage with the responses of the participants in de Kadt’s study to the question

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‘Why, in your opinion, are German-speakers determined to maintain their language and culture [in South Africa]?’: ‘This is because it’s what I am’; ‘I wouldn’t exist without German’. These positive attitudes, in concert with the factors listed earlier, have contributed significantly to German maintenance in the enclave community of Wartburg. Another similarity between Sámi in Norway and German in South Africa is that, aside their cultural value, both languages play no role in higher domains, such as government and administration, the economy, the media, tertiary education, and so on. These seem to be the preserve of the Norwegian language and English. Nevertheless, Sámi speakers and German speakers are bilingual in Sámi and Norwegian and German and English, respectively. Accordingly, they have access to the resources that the knowledge of the official language offers, for example, employment, education, political participation, and so on. This kind of bilingualism, where minorities have functional literacy in their Indigenous language and in the official language, hardly obtains in the African context. Here, African languages are used as the medium of instruction only in the first three years of elementary education, years during which – and depending on the policy prevailing in a polity – a former colonial language is taught as a subject. Thereafter the former colonial language takes over as the medium of instruction for the remainder of the entire educational system including tertiary education. The limited exposure to mother-tongue education makes it difficult for students to acquire literacy in the mother tongue, and this impacts negatively on literacy acquisition in the second language. Literacy, says Street (1984: 28), is a social construction, not neutral technology, whose uses are embedded in relations of power and struggle for resources. To engage in this struggle, one must be able not only to read and write, but to use reading and writing to achieve societal goals (Kaplan 1992: 289), develop one’s full potential and, as Bock (1996: 32) observes, participate in the social, economic and political life of the country through lifelong learning.

Challenges to Indigenous language revitalization The case studies of language revitalization discussed in previous chapters indicate that mother-tongue education has not always been welcomed by all, either in the Indigenous or mainstream communities. For instance, drawing on research in far northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland, Dorian (2004: 453) remarks that minority children are under pressure to make as rapid a shift to the national language as possible because, it is believed, ‘a child’s head (especially a minority child’s head) would not have space for two languages’ (Huss 1999: 129). Even the Sámi language, which is an

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exemplary case of successful Indigenous language revitalization, is said not to receive a great deal of support in all spheres of society. Romaine (2004: 399), citing Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas (2001: 26), points out that even in traditional (or in legally designated) Sámi areas, where there is one Norwegian speaker in a class, it is assumed that all teaching must be done in Norwegian. The same is true for Ma–ori-medium programs in New Zealand, as reported in May and Hill (Chapter 4). These programs, whose aim is to promote students’ self-esteem, self-confidence and cultural identity, and which provide culturally sensitive and safe environments and include families in school activities, have been resisted by some, including ‘staff and community’. Unlike the Sámi case discussed earlier, but like most cases of Indigenous language revitalization in Africa, the Ma–ori-medium educational programs have had to cope with the inadequacy of pre-service and inservice training for associate teachers; and the lack of adequate and appropriate teaching and learning resources. Another case of resistance to Indigenous language revitalization is reported by Rebolledo (in Chapter 5) with reference to the Hñähñö language in Mexico. Rebolledo points out that the members of the Hñähñö community have ambivalent attitudes towards the use of their language in education. On the one hand, the community is said to resist the national monolingual educational model imposed on bilingual students; but on the other hand, they are aware that if their children do not attend school they will not be able to better their lives. Besides these challenges, the use of Indigenous languages in education has raised lingering questions and suspicion among parents and community leaders, particularly in the post-colonies in Asia (for example, Gupta 1997; Li 2003), Africa (Kamwangamalu 1997; Fasold 1997; Brock-Utne and Holmarsdottir 2001; Mfum-Mensah 2005), and Latin America (for example, Escobar 2004; López, Chapter 3; Hornberger 1987, 1988, 2002). For instance, commenting on bilingual intercultural education (EIB) in Latin America, López (see p. 50) observes that community leaders reject this educational model because, they argue, ‘if EIB is as good as state employees and academics state – mostly members of the culturally hegemonic sector of society – why do they not apply it in urban schools and with their own children?’ Also, since the dominant ideologies across Latin America have long held that Indigenous languages were inferior to Western languages and inadequate for academic purposes (King 2004: 337), Indigenous community leaders wonder why ‘the school [would] be interested in … knowledge that had been ignored, if not denigrated, before? … Was it not possible that, having

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noted the political progress made by Indigenous people, the groups in power were seeking ways of ensuring that the Indigenous populations remain in their communities?’ (López, Chapter 3: 58). Hornberger (1987, 1988) earlier documented similar community resistance toward bilingual education in her ethnographic study in Puno, Peru; and in a later comparative essay (2002) on implementational challenges facing multilingual language policies in Bolivia and South Africa, key among them was the challenge posed by popular demand for the language of power. Similar sentiments can be found in reports both in Asia and Africa on minorities’ attitudes toward the use of Indigenous languages as the medium of teaching and learning. In an article aptly entitled ‘When mother tongue education is not preferred’ Gupta (1997) reports that Tamil parents in Malaysia and Singapore do not encourage their children to learn Tamil, despite the existence in these polities of official policies promoting the use of Tamil in education. Rather, parents prefer their children to attend English-medium schools, for English is the language of power, prestige and upward social mobility. A further example of resistance to Indigenous language revitalization in Asia comes from Li’s (2003) study of the ongoing loss of the aboriginal languages in Taiwan. In particular, Li (2003: 43) reports that the prospects of maintaining these languages are dim mainly because young members of aboriginal groups are reluctant to use the language of their forefathers and parents for everyday communication, despite the current government’s efforts to promote ethnic identities through education. Li explains that to the aboriginal populations in Taiwan today, linguistic human rights appear to be a matter of small concern, understandably it seems, when a person is fully preoccupied with making a living and doing what it takes to survive. In Africa, the situation is no different. For instance, Kamwangamalu (1997) reports that in South Africa, as a result of past apartheid policies, Black communities view mother-tongue education as a lure to selfdestruction and as an attempt by policy-makers to deny the mass access to English, the language of power and prestige and the language through which the elite reproduces itself. Likewise, Fasold (1997) cites a study by Etim (1985) which shows that in the multilingual Plateau State in Nigeria, primary school teachers have negative attitudes towards the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction. The study found that, on a scale of preference, English was ranked higher than Hausa, the major lingua of the state, which in turn was ranked higher than the mother tongue for speakers of six of the state’s languages: Angas, Ankwai, Beron, Eggon, Mwaghavul, and Tarok (Fasold 1997: 264). It is explained that, although for both English and Hausa instructional materials are readily available,

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English was preferred over Hausa and the mother tongue due to the fact that in the higher institutions, English is used and teachers in the primary schools have to prepare their pupils for this. Also, for many Nigerians, and I should add Africans in general, literacy is associated with knowledge of a Western language, in this case English, and not with the mother tongue. The term literacy, then, is said to ‘account for the hypocritical attitude of the policy-maker who sends his children to English-medium private schools, whilst extolling the virtues of vernacular literacy which is to be found only in the public system’ (Fasold 1997: 268). In a related study on mother-tongue education in the neighboring state of Ghana, Mfum-Mensah (2005: 80) found that the attitudes of community members, parents, schools, and so on towards this type of education are generally negative. The attitudes, it is explained, stem from the stakeholders’ deep-seated perception about the diglossic position of both the mother tongue and English in Ghanaian society, where English is the high language and the mother tongue is the low language. Accordingly, mothertongue education is seen by many as ‘a subtle strategy to perpetuate the communities’ marginalization from the mainstream society’, a point that López (in Chapter 3) and Kamwangamalu (1997) have also made, as observed earlier, with regard to Indigenous language revitalization in Latin America and South Africa, respectively.

Conclusion I would like to return to the questions I raised in the introduction to this chapter, and which are the theme of this volume: How can society ensure that it preserves Indigenous languages and the knowledge they embody for the benefit of both current and future generations? Can education through the medium of Indigenous languages, or mother-tongue education for that matter, be the answer? Whether or not schools succeed in saving Indigenous languages depends on the contribution of several, interconnected, factors: the political will, economic returns, grassroots support, involvement of non-governmental organizations, availability and allocation of human and material resources, and so on. When most of these factors are met, as seems to be the case in at least some instances in Latin America and in Europe, then it is most likely that schools can save Indigenous languages. For instance, Le Page (1997: 16) draws attention to the Spanish Basques, where a very considerable political will has been exerted to ensure the success of policies favoring the use of the Basque language not only in education but also in every domain alongside Spanish, and where financial resources have not been lacking to implement those

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policies. Likewise, Escobar (2004) points to the success of the Miskitu language revitalization efforts in Nigaragua, noting that this has been possible thanks to the support for the language at the grassroots and government levels. The literature including that cited above and throughout this chapter suggests that attempts to save Indigenous languages via schooling have been more successful in Latin America and other parts of the world than in Africa. This is perhaps due to the type of polities or post-colonies in which these attempts have been made. It is instructive to note that countries in Latin America, for instance, belong to what Mufwene (2003) calls ‘settlement colonies’, whereas those in Africa are categorized as ‘exploitation colonies’. In Africa the main goal of European colonists was to exploit the colonies economically, primarily to profit the metropole. In settlement colonies, however, the colonists’ objective was to live permanently in and spread their languages over the conquered territories, as is the case for Portuguese and Spanish in much of Latin America, and Arabic in North Africa. It is not an accident that in Latin America the Indigenous populations, particularly the younger generations, speak Portuguese or Spanish as first language, and their Indigenous languages as second languages. The knowledge of the mainstream languages allows these populations to participate in the social, economic and political development of their countries. They learn the mother tongue, arguably, to preserve the cultural value and knowledge it embodies. In Africa the situation is quite different. Although there is concern that African languages are losing the battle against ex-colonial languages (for example, Portuguese, English, Spanish, French) particularly in urban centers, there is also resignation to the fact that Indigenous languages are not breadwinners. When asked to choose between an Indigenous language and a former colonial language for use particularly in education, Indigenous communities have consistently picked the latter over their native languages. As Laitin (1994: 625) points out with respect to the medium of instruction in Ghana, the payoffs for educating one’s child in the medium of a former colonial language, here English, when 100 per cent of official business is conducted in English, are far higher than the payoffs for educating one’s child in an Indigenous language. This explains why in countries such as Namibia and South Africa, for instance, there has been a sharp drop in the number of students studying African languages. Concerning Namibia, Brock-Utne and Holmarsdottir (2001: 293) remark that in 1995 there were 100 students studying Oshindonga, one of the country’s national languages. In the academic year 1999–2000, however, there was only one student left. In South Africa,

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the University of South Africa (UNISA), the only institution that offers courses in all nine official African languages, reports that the number of undergraduate students registered for these courses has dropped from 25,000 in 1997 to 3000 in 2001. The number of graduate students registered for courses taught in African languages has also decreased, from 511 to 53 in the same period (Sunday Times, 4 March 2001). The desire to survive in mainstream society, where the instrumental value of a language weighs far more than its cultural value, impinges on language revitalization and remains the main conduit for language shift and loss in many Indigenous communities around the world, and in Africa in particular.

References Akinnaso, F. Niyi (1993), ‘Policy and experiment in mother tongue literacy in Nigeria’, International Review of Education, 39 (4): 255–85. Auerbach, E.R. (1993), ‘Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom’, TESOL Quarterly, 27: 9–32. Bock, Z. (1996), ‘Uswe’s development-driven ABET curriculum’, Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies (SAJALS), 4(2): 32–49. Brock-Utne, Birgit and Halla B. Holmarsdottir (2001), ‘The choice of English as medium of instruction and its effects on the African languages in Namibia’, International Review of Education, 47 (3–4): 293–322. Cobarrubias, J. (1983), ‘Ethical issues in status planning’, in J. Cobarrubias and J.A. Fishman (eds), Progress in Language Planning, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 41–86. Crystal, David (1997), English as a Global Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, David (2000), Language Death, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Kadt, Elizabeth (2000), ‘“ In with heart and soul”: the German-speakers of Wartburg’, in Nkonko Kamwangamalu (ed.), Language and Ethnicity in the New South Africa, a special issue of International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 144: 69–93. Dorian, Nancy (2004), ‘Minority and endangered languages’, in T. Bhatia and W. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 437–59. Escobar, Anna M. (2004), ‘Bilingualism in Latin America’, in T. Bhatia and W. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 642–61. Etim, J.S. (1985), ‘The attitude of primary school teachers and headmasters towards the use of some mother tongues as the medium of instruction in primary schools in Plateau State, Nigeria’, in K. Williamson (ed.), West African Languages in Education, Vienna: Beitrage Zur Afrikanistik 27, pp. 39–54. Fasold, Ralph (1997), ‘Motivations and attitudes influencing vernacular literacy: four African assessments’, in A. Tabouret-Keller, R. Le Page, P. Gardner-Chloros and G. Varro (eds), Vernacular Literacy: a Re-evaluation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 246–70. Ferguson, Charles A. (1992), ‘Foreword to the First Edition’, in B.B. Kachru (ed.), The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd edn), Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. xiii–xvii.

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Francis, David J. and Mohamed C. Kamanda (2001), ‘Politics and language planning in Sierra Leone’, African Studies, 60 (2): 225–44. Grenoble, L.A. and L.J. Whaley (eds) (1998), Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gupta, A. (1997), ‘When mother tongue education is not preferred’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18: 496–506. Heine, Bernd (1990), ‘Language policy in Africa’, in B. Weinstein (ed.), Language Policy and Political Development, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, pp. 167–84. Hirvonen, Vuokko (2004), Sámi Culture and the School: Reflections by Sámi Teachers and the Realization of the Sámi School. An Evaluation Study of Reform 97, trans. Kaija Anttonen, Karasjohka: Calliid Lagadus. Hornberger, Nancy H. (1987), ‘Bilingual education success, but policy failure’, Language in Society, 16 (2): 205–26. Hornberger, Nancy H. (1988), Bilingual Education and Language Maintenance: a Southern Peruvian Quechua Case, Berlin: Mouton. Hornberger, Nancy H. (2002), ‘Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: an ecological approach’, Language Policy, 1(1): 27–51. Hornberger, Nancy H. (ed.) (2003), Continua of Biliteracy: an Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Huss, Leena (1999), Reversing Language Shift in the Far North: Linguistic Revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland, Uppsala: University of Uppsala. Hyde, M. (1994), ‘The teaching of English in Morocco: the place of culture’, ELT Journal, 48(4): 295–305. Inglehart, Ronald (1990), Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kamwangamalu, Nkonko M. (1997), ‘Multilingualism and education policy in post-apartheid South Africa’, Language Problems and Language Planning, 21: 234–53. Kamwangamalu, Nkonko M. (2005), ‘Mother tongues and language planning in Africa’, TESOL Quarterly, 39 (4): 734–8. Kaplan, R.B. (1992), ‘Summary comments (on literacy)’, in W. Grabe et al. (eds), Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 12: Literacy, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 285–91. Kennedy, C. (ed.) (1993), Language Planning and Language Education, London: George Allen & Unwin. King, Kendall (2004), ‘Language policy and local planning in South America: new directions for enrichment bilingual education in the Andes’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7 (5): 334–47. Laitin, David (1994), ‘The Tower of Babel as a coordination game: political linguistics in Ghana’, American Political Science Review, 88 (3): 622–34. Le Page, Robert B. (1997), ‘Political and economic aspects of vernacular literacy’, in A. Tabouret-Keller, R. Le Page, P. Gardner-Chloros and G. Varro (eds), Vernacular Literacy: a Re-evaluation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 23–81. Li, David C. (2003), ‘Between English and Esperanto: what does it take to be a world language?’ International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 164: 333–63. Magga, Ole H. and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (2001), ‘The Sámi languages: the present and the future’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 25 (2): 26–31, 51.

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McGroarty, Mary (2002), ‘Evolving influences on educational language policies’, in J.W. Tollefson (ed.), Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 17–36. Mfum-Mensah, Obed (2005), ‘The impact of colonial and postcolonial Ghanaian language policies on vernacular use in schools in two northern Ghanaian communities’, Comparative Education, 41 (1): 71–85. Mufwene, Salikoko (2003), ‘Language endangerment: what have pride and prestige got to do with it?’ in B.D. Joseph, J. DeStefano, N.G. Jacobs and I. Lehiste (eds), When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence, Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, pp. 324–45. Mühlhaüsler, P. (1996), Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region, London: Routledge. Nettle, Daniel and Suzanne Romaine (2000), Vanishing Voices: the Extinction of the World’s Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pattanayak, D.P. (1998), ‘Mother tongue: an Indian context’, in R. Singh (ed.), The Native Speaker: Multilingual Perspectives, New Delhi: Sage, pp. 124–47. Phillipson, Robert (1997), ‘Realities and myths of linguistic imperialism’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18 (3): 238–47. Ricento, Thomas (2002), ‘Introduction’, Revisiting the Mother-tongue Question in Language Policy, Planning, and Politics, a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 154: 1–9. Romaine, Suzanne (2004), ‘The bilingual and multilingual community’, in T. Bhatia and W. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 385–405. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000), Linguistic Genocide in Education – or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Street, B.V. (1984), Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tabouret-Keller, Andree, Robert Le Page, Penelope Gardner-Chloros and Gabrielle Varro (eds) (1997), Vernacular Literacy: a Re-evaluation, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tollefson, James W. (2002), ‘Language rights and the destruction of Yugoslavia’, in J.W. Tollefson (ed.), Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 179–99. UNESCO (1995), The Use of the Vernacular in Education, Paris: UNESCO. Whitehead, Clive (1995), ‘The medium of instruction in British colonial education: a case of cultural imperialism or enlightened paternalism’, History of Education, 24 (1): 1–15.

8

Riding the Tiger Bernard Spolsky

In studies of the loss of Indigenous languages, the common villain is the government or missionary school, an alien transplant that weakens local culture and moves rapidly to proclaim the greater worth of the conquering or colonial or national language. In my own studies, I have traced two such cases – the effect of schools on the shift from M¯aori to English in New Zealand (a phenomenon that started in the 1870s and achieved its goals over the next 90 years), and the shift from Navajo to English in the American Southwest (a process that started when mission and government schools were first opened in the nineteenth century, but the effect of which was delayed until compulsory education became widespread on the Navajo Nation after the Second World War). This volume asks a challenging question: Can the instrument of defeat be turned around into a method of defense? Can schools preserve rather than weaken the heritage languages of Indigenous peoples? Can those who wish to preserve their heritage language and culture ride the educational tiger that is working so hard to consume it? Before I start my discussion, I need to clarify a few terms. First, the concept of saving a language is commonly sloppily presented. Fishman (1990, 1991, 2001) makes it somewhat more precise with his popular label ‘reversing language shift’, a metaphorical claim that a process in which speakers of one language who are shifting to another may be induced not just to stop the process but also to start it going in another direction. This is commonly referred to as language revival a term which I find somewhat vague. I prefer Fishman’s revernacularization for the process, as with Hebrew (Fishman 1991), where a written language is restored to daily life, or revitalization – based on Stewart (1968) – (also true for Hebrew) where vitality (meaning natural intergenerational transmission) is restored to a language that was preserved only by school 152

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teaching; I also use Hohepa’s (2000) regeneration for the school-based teaching of a dying language as part of an ethnic movement not necessarily accompanied by success in revitalization or revernacularization or even standardization. Interestingly, each of the language situations described in the chapters in this volume suggest different processes, different goals (apart from assertion of identity and mobilization of ethnic movement around a language), and different levels of achievement. The second term that fascinates me is Indigenous or its even fancier version, autochthonous. Who gets to use the label? After all, the Spanish arrived in the southwestern US before Navajo, and African languages seem to have moved around a great deal and their present distribution was not set at the time of colonization. Is there a key date? The concept is perhaps most clearly expressed by the M¯aori notion, relevant of course to May and Hill’s study, of tangata whenua. This is defined as ‘people of the land; home tribe; local people; descendants of a specific M¯aori kin group organized according to a common ancestor. Kin group which holds exclusive customary authority over specifically defined estates’ (Tapsell 2002: 291). The anthropologist Metge expanded on this definition: Those who are tangata whenua in a place do not necessarily live there: many in fact do not. But they can fully enjoy the benefits of their status only in the district itself, while living there or on visits, and their standing in the community depends at least partly on – active participation in its affairs … Maoris who have no ancestral con– nection with and hence own no ‘Maori land’ in the district where they live are identified as ‘immigrants’, even when locally born. (Metge 1967: 86) The application of the principle has many interesting effects. Samoan parents whose children were the majority in an Auckland school refused to have their own bilingual program until the M¯aoris, whose role as tangata whenua other Polynesians in New Zealand recognize, had started their own (Spolsky 1991b). The Polynesian languages are now starting to get support with the Pasifika programs, and New Zealand sign language has just received recognition as an official language, but as May and Hill note, New Zealand does not have a language policy, but a M¯aori language policy. One highly successful and traditional Kaupapa M¯aori school I visited had only one local M¯aori family represented among its students (the rest came from other tribal areas) so only the father from this family could conduct welcoming ceremonies.1 In ceremonial matters, the claim of local origin is recognized, but in the more serious

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world of land claims, I am told that it is not considered decisive, for it is common for several tribes to claim to be Indigenous to any piece of disputed land. Coming from a country where two peoples2 claim that their historical association with the land should give them political rights as well, I am particularly sensitive to the issue. In practice, it seems to be some minorities – in the Paulston (1994, 1997) sense of the word, powerless rather than small groups – that can be recognized as Indigenous, thus claiming special treatment from the majority and priority over other minorities – especially anyone identified as an immigrant. The UN defines ‘Indigenous or aboriginal peoples’ as those who were ‘living on their lands before settlers came from elsewhere’ and who are ‘descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at a time when people of different cultures or ethnic groups arrived’. This would give the Hopi priority over the Navajo, recognized by the US government when it expelled Navajo families from land they had lived on for nearly a century, in order return it to the Hopi – but there was no evidence that the US planned to restore its own nineteenth-century conquests to their original owners. For the M¯aori, it raises questions about the Morioris who left or were driven out before the main settlement by M¯aori. Perhaps the complexity of definition explains why the UN declaration remains a draft, and why only a handful of Indigenous organizations out of several hundred have been recognized. In Europe, minority rights have been restricted to Indigenous minorities recognized by the sovereign founding members of the EU. The exceptions are the Russianspeakers in Baltic countries, who are protected in spite of being immigrants,3 and the Roma who have no acknowledged homeland. So I take Indigenous to mean a usually self-identified minority whose earlier rule of the territory is meant to give them a stronger claim to recognition than other more recent immigrants. The best argument for special status is probably that they never chose to come to the country,4 like recent immigrants or the conquering or colonizing majority, or it was long enough ago to be ignored. But given the enormous growth of migration and population movement from countryside to town and from one country to another (true of the M¯aori, most of whom no longer live close to their tribal marae, and of the Hñähñö discussed by Rebolledo in Chapter 5), I wonder if there are still strong grounds for granting the Indigenous special rights, as against all the other minority groups in a society. Although I am not convinced then by an overwhelming universal claim for special priority for the autochthonous, I can certainly sympathize with the desire of the groups discussed in this volume to bind themselves

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together and to seek allies in their struggle for maintaining a heritage way of life and a heritage language while demanding full civil rights and access to economic advancement. These are not the religious extremists like the Amish and the Hasidim that Fishman (1966) identified, who preserved their language and way of life by excluding themselves from the educational and economic integration that was a prerequisite for upward social mobility. Rather, they are the groups who were excluded by prejudice and discrimination, who are working to catch up, and who have chosen to include mobilization around a heritage language in their effort for regeneration. What unites them in this is that they are consciously swimming against the tide, trying to maintain or re-establish their heritage languages at a time when most of the world is busy giving in to the pursuit of economic and educational success by accepting a major language (or even a world language) as an acceptable replacement5 or trying to build a form of bilingualism that lets its two or more languages operate side by side in a functionally divided relationship.6 Advantageous as bilingualism may be to individual cognitive development – and Bialystok (Bialystok and Martin 2004) is slowly producing evidence that tends in this direction – the cost can be high and deserves respect. This was certainly granted in these chapters, where the enthusiasm of the language activists is potentially tempered by the widespread attraction to the official language at the grassroots level. The recognition of the needs of forgotten minorities that accompanied the ethnic revival of the 1960s (Fishman et al. 1985) had important results for the Sámi, a people spread over Nordic nations, whose own efforts at regenesis started, Hirvonen reminds us in Chapter 2, in the 1960s. The central feature of this was to mobilize the school to offer Sámi-medium education, confirming that school-based reversing language shift activities can and do help. Not unlike the analogous case of M¯aori in New Zealand, schooling for Sámi until 1959 was intended for Norwegianization. Only then did a new regulation permit the Sámi language into school. Since then, there has been a slow but steady improvement in the legal status of the language, accompanying a series of political actions (the establishment of the Sámi Parliament in 1989, amendments to the Norwegian Constitution, and the 1987 Sámi language act). In Sámi areas, pupils had the right to education in the language, and similar programs could be set up where there was demand from at least three pupils. The programs were supported by a Sámi curriculum, which also defined a ‘Sámi school’ as an integral component of Norwegian education. Further reforms in 1998 added individual rights for Sámi children throughout Norway to study the language and for

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programs in municipalities wherever ten children asked for it. As a result, there has been a continued growth in the numbers of schools offering and pupils studying the language, many of whom are not themselves Sámi. On the surface, then, there has been considerable progress. Looked at more closely, however, Hirvonen finds that there has not been a fundamental change in attitude, so that Sámi remains low in status in school as in society. Most of the programs are at best weak forms of bilingual education. There is no real commitment to language and culture but simply an external framework that requires serious implementation. López (in Chapter 3) tackles a whole continent rather than a single case. Spanish and Portuguese, we know, worked harder and more successfully than almost any other conquering languages (except Arabic in the Middle East and North Africa) to wipe out autochthonous languages, but while Arabic shows no signs of regret yet,7 in Latin America there has been a reversal of attitude, with the rights of linguistic minorities starting to be recognized (Hornberger and King 2001). Perhaps it is too late, and the task of remedying centuries of policy is certainly enormous. The numbers are high too. Indigenous peoples make up 10 per cent of the region’s population, but of course with major variation in intensity in the various countries, some seventeen of which are reported to be implementing some form of bilingual education, often limited to a few years of primary mother-tongue use and sometimes intended for (but not offered yet) throughout primary years. All are in public education, sometimes in response to demands of Indigenous peoples and often dependent on international agency support. The programs are regularly compensatory or remedial, but do also represent political victories for Indigenous groups. But López identifies an unanticipated problem, not just opposition from the establishment, but questioning of programs by Indigenous leaders and community. He interprets this as a call for radicalization, a wider implementation and more fundamental reform than the classical model of bilingual education accepts. He provides a sensitive and intelligent analysis of the changing ideological position of the Indigenous leadership. But López notes that ‘reactions against this type of education have begun to emerge, from both the hegemonic and subaltern sectors of these multiethnic societies’. Here, the analogy with the M¯aori case is striking, as May and Hill’s chapter shows, producing the same ambivalence in both the ‘hegemonic’ or official and ‘subaltern’ or ethnic groups. This might explain why the South American programs have not yet made a major contribution to saving languages; at the same time, they have confirmed the value to Indigenous and minority groups of language as a focus of ethnic and community mobilization.

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A third study is a detailed analysis of a single language case and a single school. In Chapter 5 Rebolledo reports on the schooling of a single group, the Hñähñö, but not in the high central plateau where nearly 300,000 live as the sixth largest Indigenous group in Mexico, but in the districts of Mexico City where a good number have been living for some decades. Of course, migration to the city has been one of the major features of twentieth-century demography, with consequent mixing of populations and loss of contact with the original land and village where their rights of tangata whenua were established. In a sense, they have the worst of two statuses, the lower status of the immigrant and of the Indigenous at one and the same time. It is further, as Rebolledo demonstrates, the poorer and weaker members who migrate to the city and naturally cluster in ghettoized situations. Schooling and school are alien – poverty and culture conspire to discourage attendance. Rebolledo describes one small school that works to overcome this challenge but without any benefit of a bilingual program (for none of the teaching staff know the language). The remainder of the chapter presents a proposal (just starting to be implemented) of how to overcome the challenges and describe a bilingual program that can start to bridge the enormous gap. May and Hill (Chapter 4) provide a useful analysis of the growth and development of the M¯aori language program in schools and its current programs. They note the distinction between the 100 per cent immersion approach of the Kura Kaupapa (something that I also found in existence in the public school-based bilingual programs in the 1980s – Spolsky 1987) and the various modified ‘bilingual’ programs ranging from 80 per cent to 30 per cent. They further correct a number of regular misconceptions. First, they note that there is little or any solid evidence of the educational effectiveness of the programs. Second is the fact that the pupils are almost all native speakers of English, so some would presumably describe them as submersed rather than immersed in the M¯aori medium of the school ( Johnson and Swain 1998). Third, while most of the chapter concentrates on the limited professional preparation of the teachers in these programs as immersion or bilingual teachers, the authors also note the key fact that many teachers are themselves second-language speakers of M¯aori. The chapter then documents both the enormous advance in the growth of M¯aori education in New Zealand and the large effort required to raise the pedagogical standard of the program.8 Is the language safe? The changing demographic pattern of those who claim to know M¯aori is exciting confirmation, as the younger M¯aori who have completed schooling in M¯aori fill out the bottom of the triangle and match the older native speakers, leaving the middle sparse. But this remains language knowledge and not use.

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My usual image when talking about language management is King Cnut’s demonstration that political power does not give control of the waves, or of language beliefs and practices (Spolsky 2006). The four chapters in this volume do not show ‘success’, but document that, with sufficient commitment, and when majority governments or international bodies can be persuaded to help, Indigenous minorities can ride the tiger by harnessing the proven language shifting function of school systems in the direction of language maintenance. If this succeeds, they can swim against the raging tide of swamping of small languages by larger, and even of larger by the largest, and pursue ways to maintain their own language and identity. While school can help in this pursuit, it is not enough. Fishman’s by now well-known GIDS scale identifies two especially significant levels. One is the language of the family, and in particular the willingness and custom of speaking the language to one’s children and so helping assure natural intergenerational transmission. This is the vitality that Stewart (1968) identified; with it, the future seems safe. The second is the use of the language in school, preferably as language of instruction, or at least as a major school subject. It is rare for school use to lead to revitalization or revernacularization; that this happened in the exceptional case of Hebrew is surely misleading for other cases (Spolsky 1991a, 1996; Spolsky and Shohamy 2001). It is true that Hebrew was preserved for at least 1500 years as a result of its teaching within the schools of Jewish communities (in much the same way that Latin was long preserved by Western European schools), but its revitalization and revernacularization depended on a unique combination of ideological and sociodemographic factors in Eastern Europe and Ottoman Palestine in the late nineteenth century. This was not repeated for Irish at much the same time (Ó Laoire 1996) nor does it appear to be working for M¯aori. But these studies show two interrelated if more restricted chances for success. First, language education policy can be a valuable focus for mobilization of an ethnic movement: there is useful rhetoric to support it, a ready-made ideology, an easy appeal to human rights, a clear set of program steps, including the provision of local employment for those who are closest to their heritage. Second, if and when it is implemented, it can preserve at least passive knowledge of a second-language variety of the heritage language, contributing to a sense of identity and connection to tradition, and providing a reservoir tappable in the special conditions of successful re-use of the language. These two results surely permit a modestly positive answer to the question raised by this volume.

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Notes 1. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

For a description of my welcome as a stranger to a bilingual classroom, see Spolsky (1989). The Bible is unusually frank in its statement that the Israelites conquered and expelled the local peoples during the occupation of the land 3000 years ago. Sorting out the dates for Arab occupation is more complex, presumably the invasion 1300 years ago, or the reconquest after the defeat of the Crusader Kingdoms 1000 years ago, or the various immigrations from Syria that many villages still record are relevant. Many will recognize the irony of the Russian government claiming EU support for the language of the Russian speakers it moved to Baltic nations at the same time that it is weakening the recognition of its own linguistic minorities. Although M¯aori myths do make a point about the bravery of their seafaring ancestors who sailed across the Pacific to find land to settle. The list of nations that are adopting English as language of instruction continues to grow – see Cha (2006). The territorial division implemented in India, and in Belgium and Switzerland, and emulated by autonomous regions in Spain and the Celtic periphery of Great Britain, and carried to its conclusion in all the new Balkan nations. Although a recent survey by Benrabah (2005) argues that Algerian Arabic, Tamazight, and French are surviving the post-independence efforts to continue the process of moving to Standard Arabic. When I visit New Zealand, I am often reminded of the failure of the Department of Education to take seriously my proposal (Spolsky 1987) to launch a program to train 1000 teachers for Ma¯ori-medium education. May and Hill’s chapter makes clear this failure. This reminds us of the need to try to understand why our advice is so regularly ignored.

References Benrabah, Mohamed (2005), ‘The language planning situation in Algeria’, Current Issues in Language Planning, 6(4): 379–502. Bialystok, Ellen and Michelle M. Martin (2004), ‘Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: evidence from the dimensional change card sort’, Developmental Science, 7(3): 325–39. Cha, Yun-Kyung (2006), ‘The spread of English language instruction in the primary school’, in Aaron Benavot and Cecilia Braslavsky (eds), Creating Knowledge Societies through School Curricula, Hong Kong: CERC Studies in Comparative Education, pp. 55–71. Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.) (1966), Language Loyalty in the United States: the Maintenance and Perpetuation of Non-English Mother Tongues by American Ethnic and Religious Groups, The Hague: Mouton. Fishman, Joshua A. (1990), ‘What is reversing language shift (RLS) and how can it succeed?’ Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 11(1&2): 5–36. Fishman, Joshua A. (1991), Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.) (2001), Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: a 21st Century Perspective, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Fishman, Joshua A., M.H. Gertner, E.G. Lowy and W.G. Milan (1985), The Rise and Fall of the Ethnic Revival: Perspectives on Language and Ethnicity, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hohepa, Pat (2000), ‘Towards 2030 AD: Maori language regeneration: examining Maori language health’, paper presented at the Applied Linguistics Conference, Auckland, New Zealand. Hornberger, Nancy H. and Kendall A. King (2001), ‘Reversing language shift in South America’, in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 166–94. Johnson, Keith and Merrill Swain (eds) (1998), Immersion Education: International Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Metge, Joan (1967), The Maoris of New Zealand, New York: Humanities Press. Ó Laoire, Muiris (1996), ‘An historical perspective of the revival of Irish outside the Gaeltacht, 1880–1930, with reference to the revitalization of Hebrew’, in Sue Wright (ed.), Language and State: Revitalization and Revival in Israel and Eire, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 51–75. Paulston, Christina Bratt (1994), Linguistic Minorities in Multilingual Settings: Implications for Language Policies, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Paulston, Christina Bratt (1997), ‘Language policies and language rights’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 26: 73–85. Spolsky, Bernard (1987), Maori-English Bilingual Education (research report), Wellington: New Zealand Department of Education. Spolsky, Bernard (1989), ‘Maori bilingual education and language revitalization’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 9(6): 1–18. Spolsky, Bernard (1991a), ‘Hebrew language revitalization within a general theory of second language learning’, in Robert L. Cooper and Bernard Spolsky (eds), The Influence of Language on Culture and Thought: Essays in Honor of Joshua A. Fishman’s Sixty-fifth Birthday, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 137–55. Spolsky, Bernard (1991b), ‘The Samoan language in the New Zealand educational context’, Vox, 5: 31–6. Spolsky, Bernard (1996), ‘Conditions for language revitalization: a comparison of the cases of Hebrew and Maori’, in Sue Wright (ed.), Language and the State: Revitalization and Revival in Israel and Eire, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 5–50. Spolsky, Bernard (2006), ‘Language policy failures – why won’t they listen?’ in Martin Pütz, Joshua A. Fishman and JoAnne Neff-van Aertselaer (eds), ‘Along the Routes to Power’: Explorations of Empowerment through Language, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 87–106. Spolsky, Bernard and Elana Shohamy (2001), ‘Hebrew after a century of RLS efforts’, in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 349–62. Stewart, William (1968), ‘A sociolinguistic typology for describing national multilingualism’, in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Readings in the Sociology of Language, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 531–45. Tapsell, Paul (2002), ‘Partnership in museums: a tribal Maori response to repatriation’, in Cressida Fforde, Jane Hubert and Paul Turnbull (eds), The Dead and their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy, and Practice, London: Routledge, pp. 284–92.

9

Schools as Strategic Tools for Indigenous Language Revitalization: Lessons from Native America Teresa L. McCarty

The question before us in this volume – can schools save Indigenous languages? – requires a nuanced response. As a starting point, I understand ‘save’ to mean more than ‘preserving’ a language by documenting or archiving its lexicon and grammatical structure, although those are certainly critical tasks. To save a language, linguistic anthropologist Leanne Hinton notes, is to cultivate new speakers: ‘to find ways of helping people learn the language in situations where normal language transmission across generations no longer exists’ (Hinton 2003: 45). This includes spoken language, written language, or both. The four cases, and Nancy Hornberger’s introduction, suggest that the best answer to the question of whether schools can achieve this goal may be, ‘No, but…’ No, schools alone cannot do the job, but they are potential sites of resistance and opportunity. No, schools in themselves are insufficient, but they can become strategic platforms for more broad-based language planning, from orthographic standardization, to preparing Indigenous teachers, to elevating the status of oppressed and marginalized languages. No, schools are secondary to the primary language implanting and expanding institutions of family and community, but there are few instances of successful language revitalization in which schools have not played a crucial role.1 Still, ‘No, but’ begs the question of what schools might do to promote, maintain, and revitalize Indigenous languages, and the cases here suggest a host of possibilities in that regard. An equally important question raised in this volume concerns the ways in which Indigenous bilingual/immersion/intercultural education (IBIIE, a covering term for the various usages employed by the authors in this volume) might advance a larger decolonizing and democratizing project. Can schools and 161

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Indigenous-language education become, as Luis Enrique López urges, ‘indispensable instruments to strengthen the construction of an alternative sense of citizenship and democracy’ – one that relocates Indigenous languages from the margins to the center, and in which all citizens have a stake? In this commentary, I consider these questions in light of the four cases and my long-term work with Native American communities and schools. To do this, I frame this commentary around four sub-questions: (1) What is the role of IBIIE in stabilizing and strengthening Indigenous languages? (2) What is the role of IBIIE in enhancing educational opportunities and outcomes for Indigenous children and youth? (3) How can IBIIE advance larger counter-hegemonic transformations that, in López’s words, include ‘Indigenous knowledge for everyone’s … consumption’; or that, as proposed in the Sámi case, ‘make everybody bilingual or multilingual at a high level?’ (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 569, cited in Hirvonen, Chapter 2). (4) Finally, how might these transformations bear the seeds of a socially just, pluralistic citizenship education that makes active use of the linguistic and cultural diversity which is, Nicanor Rebolledo Recendiz reminds us, humanity’s intellectual wealth and ‘social reality’?

IBIIE as a tool for strengthening Indigenous languages Indigenous communities around the world share a history of linguistic, cultural, and physical genocide and oppression. For the Ma¯ori, the population at the time of European contact in 1769 was 100,000. Within a century it had been more than halved to 42,113, and by 1975, only 5 per cent of Ma¯ori schoolchildren spoke M¯aori (Benton 1991; May 2004). As we learn from Vuokko Hirvonen, a systematic program of intensive Norwegianization deprived the Sámi of their language rights for many years; this and similar campaigns in other parts of Sámiland (Sweden, Finland, and Russia) led to the decline of all 11 Sámi languages. One is now extinct, four are considered ‘moribund’ (that is, no longer being acquired by children), and the remaining six are on the ‘endangered’ or ‘severely endangered’ list (Magga and Skutnabb-Kangas 2003; McCarty et al. 2008). In Latin America, where, López tells us, ‘no less than 400 different Indigenous languages are still actively used’, it has only been in the last two decades that these languages have been used as media of instruction, and, as Rebolledo describes for Mexico, ‘Being bilingual is

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viewed as an obstacle to learning.’ Even Quechua, spoken by eight to 12 million people in six South American countries, has been negatively impacted by centuries of linguicidal policies that ‘have long served to repress Quechua and Quechua speakers’ (Hornberger and Coronel-Molina 2004: 28; see also King 2001). Language education policies for Native Americans typify the role of colonial schooling in language eradication. ‘Through sameness of language is produced sameness of sentiment’, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote in his 1887 report: ‘[s]chools should be established which children should be required to attend [and] their barbarous dialects should be blotted out’ (cited in Crawford 1992: 48). This mission was central to the federal boarding school system established to assimilate and ‘civilize’ Native American people. These were ‘arguably the most minutely surveilled and controlled … institutions created to transform the lives of any group of Americans’ (Lomawaima and McCarty 2006: 2). After cleanliness and obedience, ‘No Indian Talk’ was the first rule in many federal Indian schools, and infractions were brutally punished (Spack 2002: 24, emphases in original). As the linguist Michael Krauss (1998) observes, one does not simply ‘get over’ the federally sanctioned abuse inflicted on children for speaking their native language in school. The lingering consequences of these experiences have been well chronicled, but perhaps this comment by a Native American teacher sums them up: ‘What the boarding schools taught us was that our language is second-best’ (cited in Dick and McCarty 1996: 70). Today, of 300! languages Indigenous to what is now the United States, 175 are still spoken. Of these, only 20 (11 per cent) are still being acquired as a first language by children. Language loss is proceeding at such a rapid rate, Krauss (1998) warns, ‘that we stand to lose more Indigenous North American languages in the next 60 years than have been lost since Anglo-American contact’ (p. 10). It is notable, then, that schools in many places have become strongholds for Indigenous language revitalization. These efforts have not come about without setbacks or strife, and, as we see in the four cases here, they face enormous implementation challenges – for example, lack of Indigenous-language teaching materials, limited numbers of teachers fluent in and committed to promoting the Indigenous language, and skepticism by Indigenous and non-Indigenous parents alike. School-based programs have nonetheless had significant language-strengthening effects. We can conceptualize these effects in several ways. The most obvious hoped-for effect is the production of a new generation of speakers. With the exception of Ma ¯ori, which Stephen May and

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Richard Hill rightly describe as ‘an exemplary school intervention that has successfully addressed … the language shift and loss of an Indigenous language’, the durability and extent of this effect remains unclear in the cases here. What we do learn from all the cases is that the greatest language-strengthening benefits are associated with ‘strong’ forms of IBIIE: for the Sámi, maintenance programs; for the Ma¯ori, Level 1 or 2 programs in which 51 to 100 per cent of instruction is provided in Ma¯ori; and for the Hñähñö, a 40/60 distribution of oral and written Hñähño and Spanish, respectively, with content area study in both languages. These findings parallel those for Native American language revitalization programs. The Navajo, for example, have implemented a successful elementary school Native-language immersion program for more than 20 years. An Athabaskan language whose speakers reside primarily in the 27,000-square-mile Navajo reservation in the US Southwest, Navajo has more speakers of all generations than any other Native American language – approximately 178,000 in the 2000 census (Benally and Viri 2005). These characteristics notwithstanding, Navajo is no longer the primary language of a growing number of children. Two major surveys conducted in the early 1990s found that only half the Navajo preschoolers and kindergartners surveyed spoke Navajo (Holm and Holm 1995; Platero 2001). In contrast, a study by Spolsky and Holm in the early 1970s showed that 95 per cent of Navajo six-year-olds spoke fluent Navajo upon entering school (Spolsky and Holm 1977; see also Spolsky 2002). A longstanding Navajo immersion program in one public school district is designed to reverse these trends. In the lower grades, all instruction occurs in Navajo; English is introduced in second grade and is gradually increased until a 50-50 distribution is attained by grade 6 (Arviso and Holm 2001; Johnson and Legatz 2006). A key program requirement is that parents or other caretakers spend time interacting with children in Navajo after school. Longitudinal data show that by the fourth grade, immersion students, not surprisingly, outperformed comparable non-immersion students on assessments of oral and written Navajo. In contrast, nonimmersion students performed lower on assessments of Navajo than they did in kindergarten; they had, in effect, experienced subtractive bilingualism, losing much or all of the Native-language abilities they possessed upon entering school (Holm and Holm 1995; Romero-Little and McCarty 2006). Meanwhile, their immersion peers had the benefit of additive bilingualism, exceeding or performing on par with their non-immersion peers in the mainstream curriculum while acquiring the Native language as a second language. These data clearly show the adverse consequences

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of the absence of strong IBIIE programs, and conversely, their salutary effects on Native language revitalization and maintenance (McCarty 1998, 2003). A statewide Hawaiian immersion movement has demonstrated similar long-term effects. After being banned in public schools for 90 years, Hawaiian had declined to the lowest stage of Fishman’s (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale, in which language users are socially isolated and elderly. In the 1970s, a Hawaiian cultural ‘renaissance’ with a strong language revitalization component took root, resulting in the designation of Hawaiian as co-official with English in Hawai’i in 1978. By this time the ‘number of children speaking Hawaiian was less than 50 statewide’ (Wilson et al. 2006: 42). Aha Pu ¯nana Leo or ‘language nest’ preschools are designed to counter this trend. The full-immersion, family-run pre-schools recreate environments in which the Native language and culture ‘are conveyed and developed … much [as] they were in the home in earlier generations’ (Wilson and Kaman¯a 2001: 151). By 2005, the opportunity for a Hawaiian-medium education extended from preschool through graduate school. According to William Wilson, a cofounder of the Pu ¯nana Leo preschools, Hawaiian-medium education serves approximately 2000 students of Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian ancestry in a coordinated set of schools, beginning with the pre-schools and moving through full Hawaiian-medium elementary schools (personal communication, 6 January 2007; see also Department of Education State of Hawai’i 2005; Warner 2001). As many as 15,000 Hawaiians now use or understand Hawaiian, Wilson reports: ‘The vast majority of these are the products of second language learning in university classes, advanced high school classes, and community classes’ (personal communication, 6 January 2007). It is evident, then, that strong IBIIE programs can do much to strengthen Indigenous-language proficiency and use among the young. But these programs have other language-strengthening functions as well. For the Sámi, Reform 97 grants individuals the right to study in Sámi for the first time: ‘The adoption of the Sámi curriculum … has been the biggest step ever taken in Sámi educational matters’, Hirvonen states: ‘[i]t was the first time in the educational history of Norway and the Nordic countries that the Sámi got a separate curriculum [with] equal status with the national curriculum.’ Thus, the very act of implementation immediately elevates the status of the Indigenous language. ‘The position of the Sámi language has strengthened gradually’, Hirvonen maintains, with significant increases in both the number of Sámi-language schools and of Sámi-language learners.

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Implementation also entails a host of mutually reinforcing corpus and acquisition planning tasks: the development of Indigenous literatures and literacies (Hornberger 1996; Treuer 2006), the preparation of nativespeaking teachers, and the co-involvement of Indigenous parents, many of whom become language learners or teachers themselves. These language planning activities may even extend outward into familial and communal domains, as exemplified by the Ma¯ori and Native American language camps and camp-outs in which school staff and community members work together, using only the native language (for examples, see Burnaby and Reyhner 2002; Hinton and Hale 2001; McCarty et al. 2006), and by native-language sports and theater programs (Warner 1999a, 2001). Equally important is the ethnolinguistic pride and enhanced intergenerational ties these programs generate: ‘I [am] still speaking Hawaiian’, a graduate of Hawaiian-medium schools reports, ‘and it will be so forever … I am very grateful … for this blessing’ (Maka’ai et al. 1998: 121). By ‘reducing the generation gap felt by so many Native [people] who have struggled with enormous cultural changes in the last century’, Hinton (2001: 225) explains, these programs ‘[bring] people back in touch with their roots’.

IBIIE as a tool for enhancing academic achievement In analyzing the educational effectiveness of IBIIE, it is essential to distinguish the learner characteristics and implementation issues faced by programs serving students for whom the Indigenous language is the L1 from those for whom it is the L2. Further, as all four cases here attest, it is highly likely that there will be a mix of student language proficiencies in any given school setting. Sámi children from the core Sámi area, for instance, come to school speaking both the language of wider communication (LWC) and Sámi as mother tongues, whereas those outside the core area speak the LWC as their L1 but have parents (who may or may not speak Sámi) who ‘would want their children to learn their heritage language’ (Hirvonen, Chapter 2). These complexities are overlain by social class, ‘race’/ethnicity, and related language status factors; although Hñähñö children consider their language ‘prettier’ than Spanish, Rebolledo tells us that Hñähñö nonetheless ‘survives in refuge within the confines of the home’. The Indigenous language may therefore be (erroneously) rejected as an ‘academic’ language by children, parents, and/or teachers – another aspect of the legacy of colonial schooling with which language planners and educators must contend. (See also the commentary by Kamwangamalu on these issues in the African context in Chapter 7.)

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There is ample evidence across a wide international literature that mother-tongue maintenance programs produce the most significant and lasting academic benefits for language-minority students. But what about students for whom the Indigenous language is the language of origin and identification – that is, a ‘mother tongue’ – but who lack communicative competence in it? (For definitions of ‘mother tongue’, see Hirvonen (Chapter 2) and Kamwangamalu (Chapter 7) this volume, and Skutnabb-Kangas and McCarty 2008). In one of the most exhaustive longitudinal studies of language-minority student achievement, Thomas and Collier (1997) report that for 700,000 language-minority students representing 15 languages and five US school districts, the most powerful predictor of academic success was schooling for four to seven years in the mother tongue. What is especially noteworthy about the Thomas and Collier study is that these findings held true for children with a range of language proficiencies: those who entered school with little or no proficiency in the LWC (English), those raised bilingually from birth, and ‘children dominant in English who [were] losing their heritage language’ (Thomas and Collier 1997: 15). May and Hill (Chapter 4) turn our attention squarely to these issues, noting the ‘ongoing dearth of information on the factors that contribute specifically to the educational effectiveness’ of IBIIE – particularly those programs, like those for Ma¯ori, designed to teach the Indigenous language as a second language. In their helpful and thorough review of the literature on the effectiveness of Ma¯ori bilingual/immersion education, we find confirmation of the superiority of additive approaches, particularly ‘Level 1’ immersion in which 81 to 100 per cent of instruction is provided in Ma¯ori (see also May et al. 2004). These programs tend to be whole-school efforts that provide an ‘overall additive environment’ – precisely the kind of learning environment shown to produce high levels of bilingualism and school achievement. As May and Hill note, much more research is needed in this area. In this regard, an emerging literature in the Native American context merits close examination. Wilson and Kaman¯a (2001: 158) report on the N¯awah!¯okalani’o¯pu Laboratory School in Hawai’i (called N¯awah!¯ for short), a full-immersion, early childhood through high school affiliation of programs featuring a college preparatory curriculum, but with ‘an explicit understanding that use of the Hawaiian language has priority over … English’ (see also Wilson et al. 2006). Named for a major nineteenthcentury figure in Hawaiian-medium education, the school reflects the ‘Aha P¯ unana Leo philosophy that school achievement is secondary to linguistic and cultural survival. N¯awah!¯ students, many of whom come

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from poor and working-class backgrounds, surpass their non-immersion peers on a variety of measures. Many are concurrently enrolled in university classes and have won prestigious college scholarships (N¯ awah!¯ is affiliated with the University of Hawai’i-Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language). Two students recently were selected to attend a Harvard summer school program. On English standardized texts, N¯awah!¯ students score as well as or better than their non-immersion peers (Wilson and Kaman¯a 2001: 159–160).2 The school has a ‘100 per cent high school graduation rate and a college attendance rate of approximately 80 per cent’ (Wilson et al. 2006: 42). Wilson and Kamana ¯ (2001: 158–9) attribute these successes to an academically challenging curriculum that applies knowledge to daily life and is rooted in Hawaiian identity and culture. According to Wilson: We have succeeded because we have rejected the measure of success used by the dominant society – speaking English and academic achievement – even though our children all can do that … [W]e judge the school on Hawaiian language and culture achievement and holding Hawaiian language and culture high. (Personal communication, 6 January 2007) Arviso and Holm (2001) and Holm (2006) report achievement outcomes for students enrolled in the Navajo immersion program discussed in the previous section. When the program began in 1986, ‘We only claimed that by fifth grade the immersion students would be doing as well as the English-only students on standardized tests’, Holm (2006: 33–4) explains: ‘Our goal was that they would also be able to speak, understand, write, and read considerably more Navajo.’ The students exceeded these expectations. By the fourth grade, immersion students performed as well on local tests of oral English as comparable nonimmersion students; immersion students performed better on local assessments of English writing, and were ‘way ahead’ on standardized tests of mathematics (Holm and Holm 1995: 150; Arviso and Holm 2001). On standardized tests of English reading, immersion students were slightly behind, but catching up. In short, immersion students were well on their way to accomplishing what the wider literature on second language acquisition predicts: they were acquiring Navajo as a second, heritage language ‘without cost’ to their English-language development or academic achievement. Navajo immersion students have continued to score as well as or better than students in monolingual English classes on all measures of achievement in all grades tested (Holm 2006: 34;

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Johnson and Legatz 2006). Moreover, Holm (2006: 33) says, ‘What the children and their parents taught us was that Navajo immersion gave students Navajo pride in an urbanizing situation in which many students were not proud to be Navajo.’ In a meta-analysis of the research on the effectiveness of Native American immersion programs, Romero-Little and McCarty (2006: 24–5) summarize the findings as follows: (1) Academically rigorous Indigenous-language immersion programs represent an effective alternative to English-only schooling, even for students with limited proficiency in the Indigenous language. (2) Time spent learning the Indigenous language is not time lost in developing English; over a period of several years, students in Indigenous-language immersion programs perform as well as or better than their peers in mainstream classes on academically rigorous tasks. (3) It takes five to seven years to develop age-appropriate academic proficiency in the Indigenous language as a second language; therefore, Indigenous-language immersion should be incorporated into school curricula for at least that period of time. Given the salutary academic and language revitalization effects of strong IBIIE programs, there is every reason to continue them throughout the curriculum. (4) Regardless of children’s initial competency in the Native language, their biliteracy development is more complex than the simple transfer of mother-tongue abilities to the LWC; the validation of children’s natal culture, use of the Indigenous language for high-level intellectual tasks, and development of multiple literacies for distinct purposes are all essential to promoting high levels of bilingualism and academic success (see also Hornberger 2003). (5) Indigenous-language immersion programs enhance self-esteem and cultural pride and offer unique opportunities to bring parents and elders directly into the education enterprise; these programs are therefore key to family and community well-being. (6) The success of these efforts is integrally tied to Indigenous selfdetermination and tribal sovereignty. (Hawaiians, for example, continue to fight for recognition by the federal government on a par with American Indians and Alaska Natives.)

Two-way IBIIE as a counter-hegemonic project ‘No one in the 21st century should be forced to grow up monolingual’, Wayne Holm maintains (2006: 44). ‘All languages have the same

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potential and are therefore equal’, McCarty et al. (2008: 308) write: ‘everyone should have the opportunity to learn to read and write her/his own language as well as at least one national and one international language’. The four cases in this volume show that these rights have long been denied to Indigenous peoples and that they are still under assault. For many years, Indigenous struggles centered on the basic right to school access, turning, in the latter part of the twentieth century, to ‘the insertion of Indigenous languages in schooling’ (López, Chapter 3). Although those battles continue – as we see, especially, in the Hñähñö and Sámi cases herein (and as is true around the world) – there is also growing recognition of the need for IBIIE to impact dominant sectors of the society as a means of combating racism and discrimination. This is all part of overcoming what López identifies as IBIIE’s ‘compensatory condition’ by making ‘two-way’ IBIIE commonplace among the population as a whole. We see glimpses of these possibilities in the four cases here. Two key goals of the 097S curriculum in Norway are that: (1) every child in the Sámi area will learn Sámi culture, and (2) as many students as possible – Sámi and non-Sámi – will become bilingual in Sámi and Norwegian. ‘Sámi can … be taken by ethnic Norwegian children who simply want to learn Sámi’, Hirvonen relates. There are many exciting opportunities for two-way IBIIE in this context. In practice, however, although Sámi is considered the most prestigious language in schools within the Sámi core, in mixed Sámi/Norwegian-speaking classrooms – that is, where the potential for two-way IBIIE is greatest – Sámi tends to lose instructional ground to Norwegian. Lack of Indigenous-language teaching materials and bilingual teachers are impediments to two-way IBIIE in this case, but, as Hirvonen indicates (and as we know from other international literature), these are far from insurmountable obstacles. In this case, the two main goals of 097S are nascent but have not yet materialized. In a moving interview excerpt, Hirvonen quotes one teacher as wondering ‘if we will ever get so far in my lifetime’. May and Hill do not discuss these issues directly for M¯aori, although they do make clear the academic and cognitive-linguistic benefits of two-way IBIIE. Elsewhere, May (2001) has written persuasively about the Kura Kaupapa emphasis on mutual accommodation, bilingualism, and biculturalism and the need to convince dominant-group members of the efficacy and desirability of bi-/multilingualism for all. In a 1997–98 study of a secondary-level Ma ¯ori bilingual/immersion program, Doerr (2004) found that claims of separatism – inclusion and exclusion of M¯aori and non-Ma¯ori (Pakeh¯a) students – characterized parental and

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student discourses about the program. In this study, ‘although some [Pakeh¯a] parents recognized and validated principles of social justice and supported bilingual education, they used notions of separatism to articulate personal concerns … that evoked moral resentment’ (Doerr 2004: 250). Like May, Doerr calls for new institutional arrangements whereby such tensions can be formally brought into dialogue as a means of creating new M¯aori-P¯akeh¯a alliances with social justice aims. In Mexico, Rebolledo indicates that the Program of Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Federal District (PEIBDF) aspires to make intercultural education a focus in all Mexico City public schools, and to promote educator attitudes that ‘respect, value, and appreciate diversity as a pedagogical advantage’. This too is in a nascent stage of development, and Rebolledo acknowledges that the PEIBDF ‘does not go beyond the transformation of the educational apparatus’. For Hñähñö students, this policy has meant the incorporation of their language into the school curriculum for the first time, including the training of non-Hñähñö teachers in the language – no small achievement. But the Yoho Ya Näte/Ñhu Ya Näte (40/60) program does not yet appear to have addressed the two-way IBIIE goals which López calls for: interculturalization of the hegemonic sectors of society in which ‘everyone learns from each other’. Although not discussed directly by López, a brief mention of the Paraguayan language situation – ‘absolutely unique in the Americas’ (Hamel 2003: 13) – offers a point of contrast. Since 1992, Guaraní, the major Indigenous language in Paraguay, has shared co-official status with Spanish; 3.6 million Paraguayans (about 88 per cent of the population) speak Guaraní, and of the 2.3 million Paraguayans who speak Spanish, 90 per cent live in households where Guaraní also is spoken (Gynan 2001: 54, 56). The stated goal of Paraguay’s language policy is ‘universal coordinate bilingualism’, reflective, Gynan (2001) says, of two distinct sociocultural realities, and Guaraní instruction is available in a majority of Paraguayan public schools. On the surface, Paraguay’s language education policy seems quite responsive to the concerns for interculturalization López raises; indeed, given Guaraní’s history in Paraguay (it was broadly promulgated through the Jesuit mission system and subsequently by the national government), Guaraní has been constructed as integral to national identity (Gynan 2001; Hamel 1994, 2003). At the same time, however, vast educational disparities exist in Paraguay. Until very recently, elementary education was almost exclusively in Spanish, and there are still huge rural–urban differences in access to mother-tongue education, with Guaraní literacy education unavailable in many of the

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rural areas where it is most needed (Gynan 2001: 69, 76). Further, there is only token official support for instruction in Indigenous languages other than Guaraní.3 These educational disparities mirror profound economic inequities. In this case, too, the radical transformations envisioned by López appear to be a long way off. The challenges and possibilities in the US Native American context are much different than any of these cases. With some exceptions, most Native American bilingual/immersion programs operate in reservation or near-reservation schools and in public schools with high Native student enrollments (for example, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian programs). Yet a growing majority of Native American students attend off-reservation public schools in which they constitute less than a quarter of the student population. Complicating these demographics is the presence of a dominant monolingual English ideology in the US, manifested in state constitutional amendments banning bilingual education and in ongoing efforts to declare English the national or official language (for a full discussion, see Adams and Brink 1990; Crawford 1992; and González and Melis 2000, 2001). In 1990/1992, Congress passed the Native American Languages Act, which vows to promote and protect Native American languages, and in 2006, the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act (named after a renowned Tewa elder and language educator) became law, authorizing language nest immersion programs for young children, language survival schools, and other language restoration programs that include teacher preparation and language materials development. But other, more binding federal legislation – particularly the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ of 2001 – greatly restricts the ability of both reservation and non-reservation schools to implement strong forms of Native American bilingual/immersion instruction.4 In this demo-linguistic and sociopolitical context, school-based efforts at bi-/multilingual education must wedge open windows of opportunity within an overwhelmingly monolingualist and increasingly punitive state and federal bureaucratic environment. The Hawaiian immersion program described in the previous section is one exemplar of how such opportunities have been seized and used to positive effect. In New Mexico, the 24 Native nations have developed memorandums of agreement (MOAs) with the state that serve as government-to-government covenants designed to ensure equitable and quality education for Native American learners, including instruction in the Native language in public schools where this is desired by the tribe. (It should be pointed out that not all Native Americans believe it is appropriate or desirable to teach Indigenous languages in the alien environment of the school, or

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to instruct non-tribal members in tribal languages.) The MOAs also address the critical issues of Native-language teacher certification, language assessment, and culturally appropriate curricula in public schools (Romero-Little and McCarty 2006). Hawai’i and Alaska both now have Native cultural standards intended to complement education standards adopted by the state, including guidelines for strengthening Native languages in public schools (see, for example, Assembly of Alaska Native Educators 2001). Writing of the Alaska initiatives in science education, Ray Barnhardt and A. Oscar Kawagley, two architects of those initiatives, note that ‘there is much more to be gained from further mining of the fertile ground that exists … when Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science traditions are placed side-by-side and nudged together’ (2005: 15). Jerry Lipka and his associates also show how a mathematics curriculum based on Yup’ik (Eskimo) knowledge has been successfully implemented in mixed classrooms of Native and non-Native students, and with Native and non-Native teachers, in Alaska public schools (Lipka et al. 2005). One of the few Native American two-way IBIIE programs operates at a public school in northern Arizona, where 25 per cent of the district’s enrollment is Native American and 19 per cent is Latino. Called Puente de Hozho (puente for the Spanish ‘bridge’ and hozho for the Navajo ‘beauty’), the program’s name means, literally, ‘Bridge of Beauty’ (Fillerup 2005). ‘The vision of the school’, its director, Michael Fillerup, writes, ‘was to create an educational environment where students of different language and cultural backgrounds could learn harmoniously together while pursuing the goals of academic excellence, bilingualism, and cultural enrichment’ (2005: 14). The program includes two-way Spanish-English immersion and one-way Navajo immersion for Navajo students. Although not precisely the kind of two-way IBIIE model envisioned by López, this program has shed the compensatory stigma to which he alludes; according to Fillerup, ‘Students in the Navajo immersion program are viewed not as problems … but as an educational elite’ (2005: 16). And, apropos the concerns for educational effectiveness raised by May and Hill, Puente de Hozho students have consistently outperformed comparable students in monolingual English programs on English standardized tests (Fillerup 2005). To what extent have these efforts in the US impacted educational practice for mainstream students? It is fair to say they are having a significant positive effect in the local and regional contexts in which they operate. ‘By documenting the integrity of locally situated cultural knowledge and skills and critiquing the learning processes by which such knowledge is

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transmitted, acquired, and utilized’, Barnhardt and Kawagley state, ‘Indigenous people engage in a form of self determination that will not only benefit themselves but will also … [inform] educational practices for the benefit of all’ (2005: 20). At the same time, Luis Enrique López is absolutely correct in saying that there is much more to do, and that our success in these efforts hinges on our ability to engage both Indigenous stakeholders and dominant social actors in re-imagining citizenship education for a critically conscious, participatory, multilingual and multiethnic democracy.

The next radical movement The IBIIE efforts discussed throughout this volume are, as López says, the ‘unquestionable victories’ of Indigenous peoples around the world. They are victories of the fundamental right of choice; not the manufactured either–or choice that characterizes colonial schooling – either the LWC and opportunity and success, or the Indigenous language and school and life failure – but rather Indigenous self-determinant choice about the content and medium of children’s education. In his discussion of the ‘goodness’ of bilingual education for Native American children, Wayne Holm puts it this way: Learning the language of one’s people does not force you to live … in one and only one way … As a young adult, you can choose whether to use your language, who to use [it] with, and what things you will talk about in your language. Children whose parents or schools deny them access to their language deprive the children of choice … By the time a teenager or young adult might choose to speak the language, for most, it is already too late. (Holm 2006: 41–2) Fortunately for many Indigenous children growing up in the twentyfirst century, choices now exist that were absent – even unthinkable – a generation ago. It is not ‘already too late’. ‘All people have some power’, Wilson states, ‘even tiny and repressed ones … The idea is for those people who choose to, to hold up the language and [culture] on high’ (personal communication, 6 January 2007). Much of the new opportunity structure for these efforts has been forged in and around schools. Even as we recognize their flaws and limitations, we should not lose sight of schools’ transformative potential. I close with a caveat: we must bear in mind that schools are peopled institutions, just as languages are peopled symbolic systems. When we talk about the possibilities and the limitations of schools, we are talking

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about human agency. When we talk about ‘saving’ languages, we are talking about children, parents, grandparents, and communities who are bound together through those languages. Language issues, Hawaiian scholar and activist Sam L. No’eau Warner reminds us, are always people issues; we are not fighting to ‘save’ a disembodied entity called language, but rather to ‘bring about changes in society that [will] lead to true equality, authenticity in the empowerment of a people … and social justice for all’ (Warner 1999b: 89). So, to return to this volume’s central question – can schools save Indigenous languages? – the best answer still seems to me to be a nuanced ‘No, but…’ No, schools alone cannot do the job, but in tandem with other social institutions, they can be (and have been) a strategic resource for exerting Indigenous language and education rights. No, schools in themselves are insufficient, but it is hard to imagine the present moment of language and culture regenesis without educational victories such as those documented here. No, we cannot depend on school-based efforts alone, but we can conceive of education more broadly as a sociocultural process – a fundamentally human endeavor – committed to pluralism and justice. This is the next radical movement for IBIIE, and the four cases here offer invaluable insights in charting its direction.

Acknowledgements I thank Nancy Hornberger for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and for her careful editing of this chapter. I am also indebted to Dr William H. Wilson of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo for taking time to review an earlier draft of this chapter and for providing extensive and extremely valuable feedback. This chapter has benefited greatly from his insights and long-term leadership in Hawaiian/Indigenous language revitalization. Any remaining errors are my own.

Notes 1. One notable exception to school-based language revitalization is the California master-apprentice program (MAP) in which teams of (generally elderly) expert speakers and (younger) language learners live, work, and interact together over months and years, communicating always in the Indigenous language. Participation is entirely voluntary and there is no formal ‘curriculum’, but even the MAP has been greatly assisted by related school-based programs for children and youth (see Hinton 2001, for a full discussion). 2. The presentation of these data should not be construed as an endorsement of the validity of English standardized tests for evaluating Indigenous students’

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academic achievement. Rather, I want to point out that even on these tests, flawed and discriminatory as they are, Native students in strong IBIIE programs outperform or perform on par with comparable students in Englishonly programs. 3. The case of Guaraní in Paraguay is complex. Only about 1.2 per cent of the population identifies as Indigenous; in other words, the majority of Guaraní speakers do not identify as Indigenous (Gynan 2001). Hamel points out that in the 1992 constitution, Guaraní is juxtaposed to Indigenous languages, ‘which reflects its real status as a language that was “de-indigenized” long ago’ (Hamel 2003: 14). Thus, the social justice implications of Guaraní in Paraguay are much different than for Guaraní in Bolivia, which López discusses in this volume and elsewhere (López 1996). 4. The Native American Languages Act (NALA) reverses more than two centuries of federal language policy, promising to ‘preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages’, including as media of instruction in schools (Sec. 104[1], [3]). The 2006 Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act (NALPA) augments this legislation by authorizing additional programs (although some have criticized the law as setting standards for language nests and language survival schools below what has been modeled by successful programs such as those described here). Less than a decade after NALA’s passage, the US Congress passed the ‘No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act’, which is in many ways diametrically opposed to the goals of both NALA and NALPA. NCLB imposes severe sanctions on schools identified as ‘underperforming’ on English standardized tests. Penalties include loss of federal funding, takeover by for-profit school management firms, and mandated English phonics programs that absorb much of the teaching day. The single NCLB provision for Native American language programs (Title III, Part B, Subpart 1, Sec. 3216) states that where these programs are present, their goal must be increased English proficiency.

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Benton, R. A. (1991), The M¯aori Language: Dying or Reviving? Honolulu, HI: East West Center. Burnaby, B. and J. Reyhner (eds) (2002), Indigenous Languages across the Community, Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University, http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/ !jar/TIL_Pub_Infor.html#2. Crawford, J. (1992), Language Loyalties: a Source Book on the Official English Controversy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Department of Education State of Hawai’i (2005), Ka papahana kaiapuni Hawai’i: The Hawaiian Language Immersion Program, since 1987, Honolulu: Department of Education State of Hawai’i, Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Support/Instructional Services Branch, http://www.k12.hi.us/!kaiapuni. Dick, G. S. and T. L. McCarty (1996), ‘Reclaiming Navajo: language renewal in an American Indian community school’, in N.H. Hornberger (ed.), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 69–94. Doerr, N. M. (2004), ‘Desired division, disavowed division: an analysis of the labeling of the bilingual unit as separatist in an Aotearoa/New Zealand school’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35: 233–53. Fillerup, M. (2005), ‘Keeping up with the Yazzies: the impact of high stakes testing on Indigenous language programs’, Language Learner, September/October: 14–16. Fishman, J. A. (1991), Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. González, R. D. and I. Melis (eds) (2000), Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement, Vol. II: Education and the Social Implications of Official Language, Urbana, IL and Mahwah, NJ: National Council of Teachers of English and Lawrence Erlbaum. González, R. D. and I. Melis (eds) (2001), Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement, Vol. II: History, Theory, and Policy, Urbana, IL and Mahwah, NJ: National Council of Teachers of English and Lawrence Erlbaum. Gynan, S. N. (2001), ‘Language planning and policy in Paraguay,’ Current Issues in Language Planning, 2: 53–118. Hamel, R.E. (1994), ‘Indigenous education in Latin America: policies and legal frameworks,’ in T. Skutnabb-Kangas and R. Phillipson (eds), Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 271–87. Hamel, R. E. (2003), ‘Regional blocs as a barrier against English hegemony? The language policy of Mercosur in South America,’ in J. Maurais and M. A. Morris (eds), Languages in a Globalising World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 111–42, http://uam-antropologia.info/web/articulos/2003_hamel.pdf. Hinton, L. (2003), ‘Language revitalization,’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 23: 44–57. Hinton, L. (2001), ‘The master-apprentice language learning program’, in L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 217–26. Hinton, L. and K. Hale (2001), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

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Holm, W. (2006), ‘The “goodness” of bilingual education for Native American children’, in T.L. McCarty, O. Zepeda et al. (eds), One Voice, Many Voices – Recreating Indigenous Language Communities, Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Indian Education, pp. 1–46. Holm, A. and W. Holm (1995), ‘Navajo language education: retrospect and prospects’, Bilingual Research Journal, 19: 141–67. Hornberger, N.H. (ed.) (1996), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hornberger, N.H. (ed.) (2003), Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hornberger, N.H. and M. Coronel-Molina (2004), ‘Quechua language shift, maintenance, and revitalization in the Andes: the case for language planning’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 167: 9–67. Johnson, F. T. and J. Legatz (2006), ‘Tséhootsooí Diné bi’ólta’ [The Navajo School at the Meadow between the Rocks]’, Journal of American Indian Education, 46 (2): 26–33. King, K. (2001), Language Revitalization Processes and Prospects: Quichua in the Ecuadorian Andes, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Krauss, M. (1998), ‘The condition of Native North American languages: the need for realistic assessment and action’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 132: 9–21. Lipka, J., M.P. Hogan, J.P. Webster, E. Yanez, B. Adams, S. Clark and D. Lacy (2005), ‘Math in a cultural context: two case studies of a successful culturally based math project’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36: 367–85. Lomawaima, K.T. and T. L. McCarty (2006), ‘To Remain an Indian’: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education, New York: Teachers College Press. López, L.E. (1996), ‘To Guaranize: a verb actively conjugated by the Bolivian Guaranis’, in N.H. Hornberger (ed.), Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 321–53. Magga, O-H. and T. Skutnabb-Kangas (2003), ‘Life or death for languages and human beings – experiences from Saamiland’, in L. Huss, A. Camilleri Grima and K. King (eds), Transcending Monolingualism: Linguistic Revitalization in Education, Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger, pp. 35–53. Maka’ai, I., J.K. Shintani Jr, J. Cabral and K.K. Wilson (1998), ‘Four Hawaiian language autobiographies’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 132: 115–21. May, S. (2001), Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language, Harlow: Longman/Pearson. May, S. (2004), ‘M¯aori-medium education in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, in J.W. Tollefson and A.B.M. Tsui (eds), Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 21–41. May, S., R. Hill and S. Tiakiwai (2004), ‘Bilingual/immersion education: indicators of good practice’, Final Report to the Ministry of Education, Auckland, NZ: Ministry of Education, http://www.minedu.govt.nz. McCarty, T.L. (1998), ‘Schooling, resistance, and American Indian languages’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 132: 27–41. McCarty, T. L. (2003), ‘Revitalising Indigenous languages in homogenising times’, Comparative Education, 39: 147–63.

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McCarty, T. L., T. Skutnabb-Kangas and O-H. Magga (2008), ‘Education for speakers of endangered languages’, in B. Spolsky and F. Hult (eds), The Handbook of Educational Linguistics, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 297–312. McCarty, T. L. and O. Zepeda (eds), with V. H. Begay, S. Charging Eagle, S. C. Moore, L. Warhol and T. Williams (2006), One Voice, Many Voices: Recreating Indigenous Language Communities, Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Indian Education. Platero, P. R. (2001), ‘Navajo Head Start language study’, in L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 87–97. Romero-Little, M. E. and T. L. McCarty (2006), Language Planning Challenges and Prospects in Native American Communities and Schools, Tempe: Arizona State University Education Policy Studies Laboratory, http://www.asu.edu/educ/ epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0602-105-LPRU.pdf. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000), Linguistic Genocide in Education – Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. and T. L. McCarty (2008), ‘Key concepts in bilingual education: ideological, historical, epistemological, and empirical foundations’, in J. Cummins and N. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 5: Bilingual Education, New York: Springer, pp. 3–17. Spack, R. (2002), America’s Second Tongue: American Indian Education and the Ownership of English, 1860–1900, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Spolsky, B. (2002), ‘Prospects for the survival of the Navajo language: a reconsideration’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 33: 139–62. Spolsky, B. and W. Holm (1977), ‘Bilingualism in the six-year-old Navajo child’, in W. Mackey and T. Andersson (eds), Bilingualism in Early Childhood, Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers, pp. 167–73. Treuer, D. (ed.) (2006), Indigenous Languages and Indigenous Literatures, theme issue, American Indian Quarterly, 30 (1 & 2). Thomas, W. P. and V. Collier (1997), School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students, Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Warner, S. L. N. (1999a), ‘Hawaiian language regenesis: planning for intergenerational use of Hawaiian beyond the school’, in T. Huebner and K. A. Davis (eds), Sociopolitical Perspectives on Language Policy and Planning in the USA, Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 313–32. Warner, S. L. N. (1999b), ‘Kuleana: the right, responsibility, and authority of indigenous peoples to speak and make decisions for themselves in language and cultural revitalization’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 30: 68–93. Warner, S. L. N. (2001), ‘The movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture’, in L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 133–44. Wilson, W. H., and K. Kaman¯a (2001), ‘Mai loko mai o ka ‘i’ini: Proceeding from a dream’ – The ‘Aha P¯unana Leo [language nest] connection in Hawaiian language revitalization’, in L. Hinton and K. Hale (eds), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 147–76. Wilson, W. H., K. Kaman¯a and N. Rawlins (2006), ‘N¯awah!¯ Hawaiian Laboratory School’, Journal of American Indian Education, 45 (2): 42–9.

Index absenteeism 6, 36, 103, 110, 114 academic language proficiency 6, 90–1, 169 achievement outcomes, bilingual education 9, 36, 38, 45, 68, 73–80, 87–8, 115, 127, 164, 167–9, 173 Africa 7, 136–49 Aha Punana ¯ Leo (Hawaiian language nests) 165, 167 Alaska 10 Aotearoa/New Zealand 5, 66–93, 126–7, 129, 131, 134, 145, 152–5 approaches to bilingualism additive 3, 7, 67, 84–6, 88, 90, 115, 134, 164, 167 subtractive 67–8, 115, 134 Arizona 10, 173 assessment 37, 71–2, 74–82, 127 autochthonous, definition 153 Aymara 56–8, 61 Baker, Colin 30, 33, 70, 92 Basque 147 bilingual education as counterhegemonic project 60, 169 financing of 44–5, 53 forms of 28–32 goals of 5, 29, 37–8 immersion models see immersion education maintenance models 3, 30, 37–8, 68–9, 83 non-forms of 3, 34, 37–8, 126 strong forms 3, 29–32, 38, 128, 164–5, 169, 172 transitional 30–2, 37–8, 67, 84, 115 two-way/dual immersion 30, 169–71, 173 weak forms 3, 29–32, 34, 37–8, 126, 129, 155 bilingual education vs immersion education 62, 85

bilingual education for majority language speakers see Indigenous language as L2 bilingual intercultural education (EBI) 4, 6, 9–10, 44–62, 105, 116–19, 145, 161–75 biliteracy 5, 38, 70, 75–6, 86, 92–3, 118, 169 Bolivia 55, 61–2 codeswitching 2 Colombia 52 colonialism 42–3, 166 and decolonization 7–9, 53–4, 138, 161 and language eradication 43, 163 post-colonialism 8, 137–41, 148 community resistance to bilingual education 45, 50, 72, 104, 145–7, 156 community resistance to schooling 104, 109 continua of biliteracy 116 Cummins, Jim 39, 89, 91, 116 curriculum 3, 6, 15, 17, 21–2, 53, 75–6, 112, 173 culturally responsive 21, 53, 105, 125 Sámi 21–3, 33, 125–6, 155, 165 democratization 9, 161 development (economic)

7, 138

EBI see bilingual intercultural education Ecuador 57 educational policy 10, 17, 21–2, 115, 172–3 see also language policy; policy, language in education EIB see bilingual intercultural education Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act 172 180

Index ethno-education 44 ethnolinguistic pride 32–3, 166, 169 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 130 Fishman, Joshua 69, 96, 152, 155, 158–60, 165 GIDS scale 158, 165 German 143–4 Ghana 147–8 Guaraní 55, 171–2 Guatemala 52, 54 Hausa 146–7 Hawai’i 10 Hawaiian 9–10, 165–7, 172 Hebrew 8 heritage language, definition of 28 heritage language education 3, 10, 37, 69–70 see also Indigenous language as L2 Hinton, Leanne 36, 161, 166 Hñähñö 2, 6, 8, 10, 99–119, 132, 145, 157, 166, 170–1 Hñähñö 40/60 (Yoho Ya Näte/Ñhu Ya Näte) 117–19, 171 Hñähñö, history 100–2 Hopi 154 Hornberger, Nancy H. 2–3, 10, 49, 68, 116, 140, 145–6, 156, 161–3, 166, 169 IBIIE see bilingual intercultural education identity 4, 9, 22, 29, 35, 37, 47, 55, 58, 72, 99, 102, 105, 108, 112, 143, 168–9 immersion education 2, 5, 9, 30, 35, 66–7, 83–8, 164–5, 167–9, 172–3 immersion, levels of 66, 75, 77, 81, 83–8, 92 implementation 44, 75, 82, 127, 156, 163, 165–6 ‘indianidad’ 99 Indigenous cultural resistance 99, 104, 117 Indigenous, definition 8, 153, 154

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Indigenous knowledge 2, 4, 7, 10, 21, 38, 46, 51–2, 60–1, 82, 105, 129, 131–3, 145, 162, 173 Indigenous language as L2 2–4, 24, 29, 33, 127, 166 heritage learners 2, 5, 7, 9, 22, 28, 33, 68–70, 74, 83, 88–9, 126, 167–8 majority language speakers 4, 9, 19, 21, 28–9, 33–4, 46, 49–50, 162, 170, 173 see also heritage language education Indigenous language as L2 for teachers 2, 68, 111, 113, 127, 157 Indigenous self-determination 4, 10, 11, 45, 51, 132, 169, 174 intercultural bilingual education (EIB) see bilingual intercultural education Khoisan languages 142–3 Ko ¯hanga Reo 5, 66, 71–2, 84, 126 Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori 66, 75–6, 81, 84, 87, 90, 153, 157, 170 language allocation 35, 73 language ecology 1, 8, 139 language maintenance 9–10, 68, 132, 155, 158 language policy 3, 21, 37, 115, 130, 146, 158, 172–3 see also educational policy; policy, language in education language reversal see reversing language shift language revitalization 1–2, 4–11, 15, 32–7, 46, 67, 69, 84–5, 112–13, 127–32, 134, 136–49, 152–3, 158, 161–75 definition 137 language revival 152 language rights 15, 17, 22, 32–3, 35–7, 103, 117, 125, 146, 175 language shift 8–9, 19, 32, 67, 69, 125, 149, 164 language standardization 57–8, 113, 130, 153, 161 language status 31, 34–6, 155, 161 language vitality 152

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Latin America 2, 4, 8, 10, 42–62, 147, 156, 162 linguistic genocide 34 linguistic human rights see language rights literacy 4, 15, 31, 38, 56, 77–9, 90–1, 114–15, 117–18, 140, 144, 168

see also language policy; educational policy professional development 5, 48, 72, 79–80, 89, 92–3, 127, 145, 157 program evaluation 17, 37, 68, 71–8, 86–7 Puente de Hozho 173

Malaysia 146 Ma¯ori 2, 5, 8, 10, 66–93, 126–7, 129, 131–2, 145, 152–7, 162–3, 166–7, 170 materials, instructional 75, 79, 119, 146, 170, 172 Maya languages 54, 101 Mexico 6, 99–119, 145, 157, 162, 170 Mezquititlán 6, 101, 106–8, 113 minority, definition 154 Miskitu 148 Morales, Evo 61–2 mother tongue, definition 28, 138 mother-tongue education 7–8, 15, 136–49, 167 mother-tongue medium education (MTM) see mother tongue education

Quechua 57, 163 Quichua 57, 130

Namibia 148 nation-states and minority languages 8, 17, 42–3, 54, 60 Native American languages 9, 161–75 Native American Languages Act 172 Navajo 8–9, 152–4, 161–75 New Mexico 10 New Zealand see Aotearoa/New Zealand Nicaragua 54, 148 Nigeria 146–7 No Child Left Behind Act 172 Norway 15–39, 125–34, 143–5, 155, 165, 170 Paraguay 171–2 parental support and involvement 88, 164, 166 Paulston, Christina Bratt 154 Peru 57 policy, language in education 10, 17–19, 21, 139, 155

revernacularization 8, 152, 158 reversing language shift 8, 55, 84, 125–6, 152–3, 155 Sámi 2, 3, 7–8, 10, 15–39, 125–34, 143–5, 155–6, 162, 165–6, 170 Sámi Administrative Area (Sámi Area, Sápmi) 18–19, 23–4, 126, 128–31 Sámi Educational Board 17 Sámi language groups 24, 130–1 Sámi language in education policy 17–19, 155 Sámi Parliament 17, 22, 125, 155 Singapore 8, 146 Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove 28–30, 34, 37, 136, 140, 145 South Africa 8, 142–4, 147–8 Spain 147 Stewart, William 158 Taiwan, aboriginal languages 8, 146 Tamil 8, 146 tangata whenua 153, 157 ¯ Reo see Kohanga ¯ Reo Te Kohanga teacher training see professional development team teaching 89 transition to mainstream schools 82–3, 89–90 urbanization 6, 46, 67, 100, 106, 128, 157, 169 vernacularization

142

whanau 71 wha¯rekura 66 writing 45, 56, 58, 113–14, 118 see also literacy Yup’ik

173