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The routledge handbook of educational linguistics
 9780415531306, 9781315797748, 0415531306

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
List of illustrations......Page 12
List of contributors......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 23
Introduction: The Advocacy Turn of Educational Linguistics......Page 24
PART 1 Ways of Knowing in Educational Linguistics......Page 30
1. Methodologies of Second Language Acquisition......Page 32
2. Ethnography in Educational Linguistics......Page 46
3. Methodologies of Language Policy Research......Page 61
4. Researching Identity Through Narrative Approaches......Page 73
PART 2 Advocacy in Educational Linguistics......Page 86
5. Language Advocacy in Teacher Education and Schooling......Page 88
6. Educational Equity for Linguistically Marginalised Students......Page 102
7. Is There a Place for Home Literacies in the School Curriculum? Pedagogic Discourses and Practices in the Brazilian Educational Context......Page 115
8. Non-Native Teachers and Advocacy......Page 128
PART 3 Contexts of Multilingual Education......Page 140
9. Established and Emerging Perspectives on Immersion Education......Page 142
10. Bilingual Education......Page 155
11. The Intersections of Language Differences and Learning Disabilities: Narratives in Action......Page 168
12. Theory and Advocacy for Indigenous Language Revitalization in the United States......Page 181
13. Visual Literacy and Foreign Language Learning......Page 194
14. When Language Is and Not the Issue: The Case of “AAVE” Literacy Research, Teaching, and Labov’s Prescription for Social (in)Equality......Page 208
PART 4 Critical Pedagogy and Language Education......Page 218
15. Reframing Freire: Situating the Principles of Humanizing Pedagogy Within an Ecological Model for the Preparation of Teachers......Page 220
16. Heritage Language Education: Minority Language Speakers, Second Language Instruction, and Monolingual Schooling......Page 233
17. Disentangling Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Education: The Indonesian Context......Page 247
18. Immigrants and Education......Page 260
19. Critical Pedagogy in Classroom Discourse......Page 275
PART 5 Language Teacher Education......Page 284
20. Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Learning and Teaching......Page 286
21. Chinese L2 Literacy Debates and Beginner Reading in the United States......Page 299
22. Language Teacher Identity......Page 312
23. Corpus-Based Study of Language and Teacher Education......Page 324
24. Second Language Acquisition and Language Teacher Education......Page 336
PART 6 Language Instruction and Assessment......Page 348
25. Primary Language Use in Foreign Language Classrooms......Page 350
26. Language Assessment in the Educational Context......Page 362
27. Analyzing Classroom Language in CLIL......Page 376
28. Heritage Language Education in the United States: The Chinese Case......Page 393
29. Learner Language......Page 406
PART 7 Ethics and Politics in Educational Linguistics......Page 418
30. “Who Gets to Say?” Political and Ethical Dilemmas for Researchers in Educational Linguistics......Page 420
31. Education and Language Shift......Page 437
32. Looking Back, Sideways, and Forward: Language and Education in Multilingual Settings......Page 451
33. Addressing Dialect Variation in U.S. K–12 Schools......Page 469
Name Index......Page 482
Index......Page 502

Citation preview

The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics provides a comprehensive survey of the core and current language-related issues in educational contexts. Bringing together the expertise and voices of well established, as well as emerging, scholars from around the world, the handbook offers over 30 authoritative and critical explorations of methodologies and contexts of educational linguistics, issues of instruction and assessment, and teacher education, as well as coverage of key topics such as advocacy, critical pedagogy, and ethics and politics of research in educational linguistics. Each chapter relates to key issues raised in the respective topic, providing additional historical background, critical discussion, reviews of pertinent research methods, and an assessment of what the future might hold. This volume embraces multiple, dynamic perspectives and a range of voices in order to move forward in new and productive directions, making The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics an essential volume for any student and researcher interested in the issues surrounding language and education, particularly in multilingual and multicultural settings. Martha Bigelow is Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the language learning and cultural adaptation of immigrant youth in U.S. schools. She is co-author of Literacy and Second Language Oracy, with Elaine Tarone and Kit Hansen, and author of Mogadishu on the Mississippi: Language, Racialized Identity and Education in a New Land. Johanna Ennser-Kananen is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Boston University. Her research focuses on multilingualism, linguistic legitimacy, language ideologies, and culture learning in educational settings.

Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics

Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics provide comprehensive overviews of the key topics in applied linguistics. All entries for the handbooks are specially commissioned and written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible, and carefully edited Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics are the ideal resource for both advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students. The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics Edited by Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics Edited by Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics Edited by Anne O’Keeffe and Mike McCarthy The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes Edited by Andy Kirkpatrick The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics Edited by James Simpson The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis Edited by James Paul Gee and Michael Handford The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition Edited by Susan Gass and Alison Mackey The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication Edited by Jane Jackson The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing Edited by Glenn Fulcher and Fred Davidson The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism Edited by Marilyn Martin-Jones, Adrian Blackledge, and Angela Creese The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies Edited by Carmen Millán-Varela and Francesca Bartrina The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication Edited by Heidi E. Hamilton and Wen-ying Sylvia Chou The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication Edited by Stephen Bremner and Vijay Bhatia

The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics

Edited by Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen

First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Routledge handbook of educational linguistics / Edited by Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen, University of Minnesota. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Language and education—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Bigelow, Martha, editor of compilation. II. Ennser-Kananen, Johanna, editor of compilation. III. Title: Handbook of educational linguistics. P40.8.R68 2015 306.44—dc23 2014000880 ISBN: 978-0-415-53130-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79774-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To Samuel and Sofia, whose births accompanied the production of this book. May you always find and give joy through your languages.

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Contents

List of illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: The Advocacy Turn of Educational Linguistics Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen

xi xii xxii 1

PART 1

Ways of Knowing in Educational Linguistics

7

1. Methodologies of Second Language Acquisition Susan M. Gass

9

2. Ethnography in Educational Linguistics Teresa L. McCarty

23

3. Methodologies of Language Policy Research David Cassels Johnson and Thomas Ricento

38

4. Researching Identity Through Narrative Approaches Christina Higgins and Priti Sandhu

50

PART 2

Advocacy in Educational Linguistics

63

5. Language Advocacy in Teacher Education and Schooling Christian Faltis

65

6. Educational Equity for Linguistically Marginalised Students Anthony J. Liddicoat and Kathleen Heugh

79

vii

Contents

7. Is There a Place for Home Literacies in the School Curriculum? Pedagogic Discourses and Practices in the Brazilian Educational Context Elaine Rocha-Schmid 8. Non-Native Teachers and Advocacy Enric Llurda

92

105

PART 3

Contexts of Multilingual Education 9. Established and Emerging Perspectives on Immersion Education Siv Björklund and Karita Mård-Miettinen 10. Bilingual Education Ofelia García and Heather Homonoff Woodley

117 119

132

11. The Intersections of Language Differences and Learning Disabilities: Narratives in Action Taucia Gonzalez, Adai Tefera, and Alfredo Artiles

145

12. Theory and Advocacy for Indigenous Language Revitalization in the United States Mary Hermes and Megan Bang

158

13. Visual Literacy and Foreign Language Learning Carola Hecke 14. When Language Is and Not the Issue: The Case of “AAVE” Literacy Research, Teaching, and Labov’s Prescription for Social (in)Equality Elaine Richardson

171

185

PART 4

Critical Pedagogy and Language Education 15. Reframing Freire: Situating the Principles of Humanizing Pedagogy Within an Ecological Model for the Preparation of Teachers María del Carmen Salazar 16. Heritage Language Education: Minority Language Speakers, Second Language Instruction, and Monolingual Schooling Jennifer Leeman and Kendall A. King viii

195

197

210

Contents

17. Disentangling Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Education: The Indonesian Context Setiono Sugiharto

224

18. Immigrants and Education Lesley Bartlett and Jill Koyama

237

19. Critical Pedagogy in Classroom Discourse Loukia K. Sarroub and Sabrina Quadros

252

PART 5

Language Teacher Education

261

20. Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Learning and Teaching Sun Yung Song

263

21. Chinese L2 Literacy Debates and Beginner Reading in the United States Helen H. Shen

276

22. Language Teacher Identity Jason Martel and Andie Wang

289

23. Corpus-Based Study of Language and Teacher Education Alex Boulton and Henry Tyne

301

24. Second Language Acquisition and Language Teacher Education Sachiko Yokoi Horii

313

PART 6

Language Instruction and Assessment

325

25. Primary Language Use in Foreign Language Classrooms Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain and Grit Liebscher

327

26. Language Assessment in the Educational Context Dina Tsagari and Jayanti Banerjee

339

27. Analyzing Classroom Language in CLIL Do Coyle

353

28. Heritage Language Education in the United States: The Chinese Case Yun Xiao

370

ix

Contents

29. Learner Language Sisko Brunni and Jarmo Harri Jantunen

383

PART 7

Ethics and Politics in Educational Linguistics

395

30. “Who Gets to Say?” Political and Ethical Dilemmas for Researchers in Educational Linguistics Kristen H. Perry and Christine A. Mallozzi

397

31. Education and Language Shift Leanne Hinton 32. Looking Back, Sideways, and Forward: Language and Education in Multilingual Settings María E. Torres-Guzmán and Ester J. de Jong

414

428

33. Addressing Dialect Variation in U.S. K–12 Schools Julie Sweetland and Rebecca Wheeler

446

Name Index Index

459 479

x

List of Illustrations

Figures 5.1. Language Advocacy Dimensions 23.1. Concordance Extract for however (Leeds Internet Corpus) 27.1. Pedagogical and Theoretical Influences on CLIL Classroom Language

71 302 355

Tables 11.1. Top Ten Languages Most Spoken by Emergent Bilinguals at Home, 2009–2010 15.1. Curriculum Alignment to Ecological Theory and Humanizing Pedagogy 15.2. Negative Terms Used to Describe Feelings Resulting From Submersion Experience

146 203 205

xi

List of Contributors

Alfredo Artiles is the Ryan C. Harris Memorial Endowed Professor of Special Education at Arizona State University. His scholarship examines the consequences of educational inequities related to the intersections of disability, race, social class, gender, and language. Jayanti Banerjee is the Research Director for CaMLA, an Ann Arbor-based testing organization

that is a not-for-profit collaboration between the University of Michigan and the University of Cambridge. She oversees research and development activities for all of CaMLA’s international testing programs. Her previous research activities include a study to document the linguistic markers of different levels of language proficiency and an investigation of differential item functioning on the Michigan English Test. She has published in the areas of language testing and English for academic purposes and is on EALTA’s membership committee. Megan Bang is an Assistant Professor of the Learning Sciences and Human Development at the University of Washington. Megan’s research is focused on understanding culture, cognition, and development broadly, with a specific focus on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective science learning environments with Indigenous students, teachers, families, and communities, both in schools and in community settings. She conducts research that encompasses early childhood education, K–5, middle school, and inter-generational programs in “informal learning environments.” Through community-based methodologies, Dr. Bang is working to build community capacity to improve and transform teaching and learning; revitalize culture, language, and well-being; ensure more Indigenous people are engaged in critical research endeavors in the educational world; and contribute to the growth and health of Indigenous communities. Lesley Bartlett is an anthropologist and Associate Professor in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research and teaching interests include multilingual literacies, im/migration, and international education. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of several books, including: Teaching in Tension: International Pedagogies, National Policies, and Teachers’ Practices in Tanzania; Refugees, Immigrants, and Education in the Global South: Lives in Motion; Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times: Bilingual Education and Dominican Immigrant Youth in the Heights; and The Word and the World: Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil. Martha Bigelow is Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the language learning and cultural adaptation of immigrant youth in U.S. schools. She is co-author of Literacy and Second Language Oracy, with Elaine Tarone and Kit Hansen, and author of Mogadishu on the Mississippi: Language, Racialized Identity and Education in a New Land. xii

List of Contributors

Siv Björklund is Professor in Swedish immersion at the Centre for Immersion and Multilingualism

at the University of Vaasa, Finland. She was a member of the pioneer research team evaluating the first two Swedish immersion classes in Finland in the late 1980s and has been involved in teacher preparation and professional development for immersion since the 1990s. For over 25 years, she has worked with second and multiple language acquisition and immersion teaching focused on successful integration of content and language learning. Currently, her main research interest includes sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and pedagogical perspectives on multiple language acquisition. She has published extensively on both national and international levels and is founding co-editor of the new Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education (first issue published in spring 2013). Alex Boulton (Crapel–ATILF, CNRS & University of Lorraine) is researching uses of language corpora in teaching and learning (‘data-driven learning’), and in exploring ways to make corpora accessible in a wider range of situations for ‘ordinary’ language learners and teachers. Sisko Brunni (Lic.Phil.) works as a university teacher in the University of Oulu, Finland. She

works in the Finnish as a Second Language Programme in the Department of Finnish Language. Before coming to Oulu, she taught Finnish as a foreign language for nearly 15 years at the institutions of the European Union in Luxemburg. Her research interests focus on corpus linguistics, phraseology, and lexical priming, and she is writing a PhD dissertation on phraseology in foreign language learning and teaching. Do Coyle is Professor of Learning Innovation at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Specific

research interests include plurilingual learning, cross-disciplinary networks, teacher professional learning, pupils as researchers, and visual learning. Current research involves teacher–learner networks for analyzing effective CLIL practice using digital tools and the trans-European theoretical construction of a Framework for Pluriliteracies. Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain is a Professor of German Applied Linguistics with a specialization in

sociolinguistics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Alongside her work on code-switching in the classroom, her research includes work in language, migration and identity in both Germany and German-speaking Canada; language attitudes in post-unification Germany; and the differential use of English in online communication among German young people, on the one hand, and Dutch young people, on the other. Ester J. de Jong is Associate Professor of ESOL/Bilingual Education in the School of Teaching

and Learning at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Her research interests include language policy, bilingual education, and mainstream teacher preparation for bilingual learners. Her book, Foundations of Multilingualism in Education: From Principles to Practice (Caslon Publishing), focuses on working with multilingual children in K–12 schools. Her work has been published in the Bilingual Research Journal, the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, Language Policy, Language and Education. Johanna Ennser-Kananen is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Boston University. Her research

focuses on multilingualism, linguistic legitimacy, language ideologies, and culture learning in educational settings. Christian J. Faltis is the Dolly and David Fiddyment Chair in Teacher Education, Director of Teacher Education, and Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture in the School of Education xiii

List of Contributors

at University of California, Davis. He has also been Professor of Education at Arizona State University. He received his PhD in Bilingual Cross-Cultural Education from Stanford University. A long-time advocate for bilingualism in society, his research interests are bilingual learning in academic contexts, immigrant education, and critical arts-based learning. His recent books are Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth (Chappell & Faltis, 2013), Implementing Language Policy in Arizona (Arias and Faltis, 2012), and Education, Immigrant Students, Refugee Students, and English Learners (Faltis & Valdés, 2011). He also published “Art and Living Inquiry into Anti-Immigration Discourse,” in the International Journal of Multicultural Education, 2012. He is an oil painter whose work focuses on issues of Mexican immigrants, education, and the border. Ofelia García is Professor in the PhD Programs in Urban Education and Hispanic and Luso-

Brazilian Literatures and Languages at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She has also been Professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and Dean of the School of Education at Long Island University. García is the author of numerous books and articles on bilingual education, bilingualism, and sociology of language. She is the Associate General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Susan M. Gass is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, where she serves as Director of the English Language Center, Director of the Second Language Studies PhD program, Co-Director of the Center for Language Education and Research, and Co-Director of the Center for Language Teaching Advancement. She has published widely in the field of second language acquisition (more than 30 books and more than 100 articles, with works translated into Russian, Korean, and Chinese) and is the co-author (with Jennifer Behney and Luke Plonsky) of Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course (Routledge) and Second Language Research: Methodology and Design with Alison Mackey (Routledge). She is the winner of many awards, including the AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award and the ACTFL-MLJ Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education (1996 and 2012). She has served as the president of AAAL and of AILA. Taucia Gonzalez is a doctoral student in Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers

College with an emphasis in Special Education Leadership for School-Wide Equity and Access. Her research focuses on how language ideologies mediate the intersections of culture, language, and ability differences. Carola Hecke teaches English and Spanish at St. Ursula-Schule, Hanover. Her dissertation is on

visual literacy in the foreign language classroom (2012). From 2006 to 2011, she worked in the area of English Teaching Methodologies at the University of Goettingen. She is the author of various articles. Mary Hermes (Waabishkimiigwan) “Fong” has worked for about 17 years in Indigenous language

revitalization. She is a mixed heritage native person, and a long-time resident near the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in Northern Wisconsin. She was a co-founder of the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Immersion School there. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Second Languages and Cultures and the Culture and Teaching Program within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Kathleen Heugh is a socio-applied linguist whose research has focused on language policy and

planning and multilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly South Africa. More recently, she has engaged in collaborative research in India and among migrant communities in xiv

List of Contributors

Australia. She has led several large-scale studies of literacy, mother-tongue and multilingual education, and large-scale assessment of students in multilingual settings. She teaches English to international students at the University of South Australia, using pedagogical practices informed by research and theories of multilingualism and multilinguality emerging from Africa and South Asia. Christina Higgins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Her research explores the relationship between language and identity with reference to local and global forces, resources, and affiliations. She has made use of narrative analysis to study the identities of language learners in Tanzania and South Korea. She is the author of English as a Local Language: Post-Colonial Identities and Multilingual Practices (Multilingual Matters, 2009), co-editor (with Bonny Norton) of Language and HIV/AIDS (Multilingual Matters, 2010), and editor of Identity Formation in Globalizing Contexts: Language Learning in the New Millennium (Mouton de Gruyter, 2011). Leanne Hinton is active in training, consultation, and writing about language revitalization of endangered languages. She is a professor emerita of the linguistics department at the University of California at Berkeley and a founding member of the board of the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. She has written numerous books and articles on language revitalization. Her books on the topic include Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages (Heyday, 1994), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (Academic Press, 2001; now distributed by Brill Press), How to Keep Your Language Alive (Heyday, 2002), and Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families (Heyday, 2013). Sachiko Yokoi Horii is Assistant Professor of the School of Language and Culture at Osaka

University, Japan. Her research interests include language education policy, language teacher education, and second language acquisition. Jarmo Harri Jantunen is a Professor in the Department of Languages with a specialization in

Finnish Language at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He received an MA (1996) and a PhD (2004) in Finnish Language from the University of Joensuu, Finland. He is interested in corpus linguistics, corpus methodology, and language learning. More specifically, his work examines phraseology in language variants, especially multiword items in translations and learner language. At the moment, he leads the International Corpus of Learner Finnish (ICLFI) project. Professor Jantunen is the author of over 40 publications on the empirical and methodological issues in the field of translation studies and language learning. He has organized several symposia and conferences—most recently, the Learner Language, Learner Corpora Conference held in Oulu, Finland, in 2012. David Cassels Johnson is Assistant Professor of education at the University of Iowa in Iowa City,

IA. He investigates, teaches, and consults on the interaction between language policy and educational opportunity for minority language users from a sociolinguistic perspective. Recent journal publications appear in TESOL Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, and Language Policy (among others) and he is the author of Language Policy (2013), published by Palgrave Macmillan. Kendall A. King (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Second Languages and Cultures Education at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches and does research in the areas of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language policy. Her work appears in journals such as xv

List of Contributors

Journal of Child Language, Applied Linguistics, and Journal of Language, Identity and Education. Dr. King is also editor of the international journal Language Policy (Springer). Jill Koyama is an anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Practice in the College of Education at the University of Arizona. Her research centers on three integrated strands of inquiry: the productive social assemblage of policy; the controversies of globalizing educational policy; and the politics of language policy and immigrant and refugee education. Her book, Making Failure Pay: High-Stakes Testing, For-Profit Tutoring, and Public Schools, was published in 2010 by The University of Chicago Press. Her work also appears in several journals, including Journal of Educational Policy, Educational Researcher, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Urban Review, and International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Jennifer Leeman is Associate Professor of Spanish at George Mason University and Research

Sociolinguist at the U.S. Census Bureau. Her research interests include discourses of language, race, ethnicity, and nation in the United States; language policy; and critical approaches to Spanish heritage language education. She has published in journals such as Heritage Language Journal, Modern Language Journal, Journal of Sociolinguistics, and the Journal of Language and Politics, as well as in numerous edited volumes. Recent publications have analyzed the racialization of Spanish in the U.S. Census, accent discrimination in Arizona, language ideologies in Spanish heritage language instruction, the commodification of language minorities in the Standards for Foreign Language teaching, and the nature of evidence in U.S. language policy. Anthony J. Liddicoat is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the Research Centre for Languages

and Cultures at the University of South Australia. His research interests include language and intercultural issues in education, conversation analysis, and language policy and planning. In recent years, his research has focused on issues relating to the teaching and learning of culture through language study. His publications include Language-in-education Policies: The Discursive Construction of Intercultural Relations (2013); Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning (2013, with Angela Scarino); Linguistics and Intercultural Education in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (2013, with Fred Dervin); Introduction to Conversation Analysis (2011); Languages in Australian Education: Problems, Prospects and Future Directions (2010, with Angela Scarino); Language Planning in Local Contexts (2008, with Richard Baldauf); Discourse Genre and Rhetoric (2008); and Language Planning and Literacy (2006). Grit Liebscher is an Associate Professor of German at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and she is a sociolinguist with a focus on interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis. Her research interests include language use among German-Canadians and language and migration in post-unification Germany. She has also co-edited (with a team of scholars from the University of Waterloo) a book on Germans in the North American diaspora. Enric Llurda is a lecturer at Universitat de Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). He teaches courses on

English, applied linguistics, and intercultural communication, both at graduate and undergraduate levels. His areas of interest are bilingualism, language attitudes, internationalization of higher education, language awareness and language teaching, with a strong emphasis on non-native teachers in TESOL. In 2005, he edited Non-Native Language Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession (Springer, 2005), which was translated into Arabic in 2012 (King Saud University). Enric Llurda has co-authored two books in Spanish: La conciencia lingüística en xvi

List of Contributors

la enseñanza de lenguas (Graó, 2007) on the promotion of language awareness in language education; and Plurilingüismo e interculturalidad en la escuela: Reflexiones y propuestas didácticas (Horsori, 2010) on the development of multilingual and intercultural competence in secondary education. He has also published around 60 articles in edited volumes or specialized journals, and his work has drawn invitations to participate as plenary speaker in national and international conferences. Christine A. Mallozzi is an Assistant Professor of literacy education in the Curriculum and

Instruction Department at the University of Kentucky, USA. She was awarded the 2009 Carol J. Fisher Award for excellence in research from the University of Georgia and the 2007 Outstanding Student Research Paper from the Georgia Educational Research Association. Dr. Mallozzi’s research interests include gender and teacher education, middle grades reading education, feminist theories, and discourse analysis. Her work involves studies of women teachers’ bodies and gender issues among teachers. Karita Mård-Miettinen is Associate Professor in Swedish immersion at the Centre for Immer-

sion and Multilingualism at the University of Vaasa, Finland. She has been involved in research, teacher preparation, and professional development for immersion since the early 1990s, focusing especially on immersion education in the early years. Currently, her main research interests include sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and pedagogical perspectives on multiple language acquisition and bilingual pedagogy. She has cooperated and published extensively on both national and international levels. She is a member of the editorial board for the new Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education. Jason Martel is an Assistant Professor of Language Teaching at the Monterey Institute of Inter-

national Studies. His research interests include language teacher identity construction and content and language integration. Teresa L. McCarty is the George F. Kneller Chair in Education and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research, teaching, and outreach focus on educational language policy, Indigenous/multilingual education, youth language, critical literacy studies, and ethnographic studies of education. Her books include A Place to Be Navajo – Rough Rock and the Struggle for Self-Determination in Indigenous Schooling (Erlbaum, 2002), Language, Literacy, and Power in Schooling (Erlbaum, 2005), “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (with K. T. Lomawaima, Teachers College Press, 2006), Ethnography and Language Policy (Routledge, 2011), and Language Planning and Policy in Native America – History, Theory, Praxis (Multilingual Matters, 2013). Kristen H. Perry is an Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky and director of the Cultural Practices of Literacy Study. Her work focuses primarily on literacy and culture in diverse communities, investigating everyday home/family and community literacy practices, particularly among African immigrant and refugee communities. She also researches educational opportunities with respect to ESL, literacy, and higher education for adult refugees. Perry is the 2012 recipient of the Literacy Research Association’s Early Career Achievement award and their 2007 J. Michael Parker Award for research in adult literacy. Her university teaching experience includes undergraduate and Master’s-level teacher education courses in literacy, doctoral-level seminars, and student teacher supervision; her other teaching experience includes teaching in multi-grade classrooms in Colorado, teaching in Africa through the U.S. Peace Corps, and teaching adult refugees in the U.S. xvii

List of Contributors

Sabrina Quadros is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and currently serves as

program coordinator for education in the Karen state of Myanmar/Burma. Her research interests include literacy practices, ESL/EFL teaching, and critical and cultural studies in education. Thomas Ricento is Professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, where he holds the first

North American Research Chair in English as an Additional Language. His PhD is in Applied Linguistics from UCLA. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Colombia (1989) and Costa Rica (2000), and has held visiting professorships at universities in Spain, Switzerland, and Chile. He has received research funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Russell Sage Foundation (USA) and from the Confucius Institute in Edmonton (Canada), among other funders. He has published widely in the field of language policy in journal articles, books, and book chapters, and his 2006 edited volume, An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method (Wiley Blackwell), has recently been translated and published in China. His forthcoming book, Political Economy and Language Policy: English in a Global Context, will be published by Oxford University Press. Elaine Richardson is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, having earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Studies from Cleveland State University (1987–1993) and her PhD from Michigan State University (1996) in English and Applied Linguistics. She has held posts at The University of Minnesota and Pennsylvania State University before accepting her current post as Professor of Literacy Studies in the College of Education at The Ohio State University. Elaine Rocha-Schmid is a freelance writer and an adult education tutor in London. Her main

research interests are in the areas of language and literacy, especially the relations of power struggle through language between dominant and minority language groups and across social classes. María del Carmen Salazar is an Associate Professor in Curriculum Studies and Teaching and the Director of Teacher Education at the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education. Her doctorate is in bilingual and multicultural foundations of education. Dr. Salazar’s research and scholarship center on transformational teacher preparation for diverse learners. Her research and teaching fields include teacher education, linguistically diverse education, and college readiness for Latina/o students. Dr. Salazar has authored numerous U.S. and international academic journal articles and book chapters, and given over 100 scholarly presentations on her research areas. In addition, she is the lead author of a widely circulated policy document titled, The State of Latinos 2008: Defining an Agenda for the Future. This document was presented to members of the U.S. Congress in Washington, DC, and distributed to all members of the U.S. Congress. Dr. Salazar served for three years on the Colorado Quality Teachers Commission to design a teacher identifier system for the state of Colorado. She has also served on the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) and has revised model content standards and designed learning progressions for teacher licensing, assessment, and development. Priti Sandhu is an Assistant Professor in the TESOL Program of the English Department of

the University of Washington. She received her PhD in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Her doctoral research analyzed the interactional narratives of Indian women as they related the impact of medium of education on their lives. She works with oral narratives using conversation analysis and membership categorization

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List of Contributors

analysis. Her research interests include gendered identities of women in patriarchal societies, medium of education in postcolonial contexts, the accomplishment or destabilization of classbased hierarchies in interactional data, the creation of empowered identities in narratives of sex workers, the narration of English and its salience in the lives of language learners and instructors, and TESOL. Her articles have appeared in Applied Linguistics and the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education. She is currently developing her doctoral dissertation into a book manuscript. Loukia K. Sarroub is an associate professor of education at the University of Nebraska-

Lincoln, and her work is at the nexus of literacy studies, linguistic anthropology, and cross-cultural and youth studies in and out of schools. She is the author of All American Yemeni Girls: Being Muslim in a Public School and has published her research in journals such as Harvard Educational Review, Reading Research Quarterly, Ethnography and Education, and Theory into Practice. Helen H. Shen is a Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literature, The University of Iowa. Shen’s primary research areas are Chinese as a second language acquisition and teacher training with a focus on literacy development and reading education. She has conducted a series of empirical studies in the areas of orthographic knowledge development, Chinese L2 instructional methodology and strategy, and learning and reading strategies, and has published extensively. Her research is rooted in the problems and questions that she has encountered during her undergraduate and graduate teaching practice. She is the lead author of the teacher training book, Teaching Chinese as a Second Language:Vocabulary Acquisition and Instruction, and three undergraduate Chinese language textbooks. She has also co-edited Research among Learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language. Sun Yung Song is a doctoral candidate in Foreign and Second Language Education at the Ohio State University. She has worked for a federally funded teacher education program called “ESL-Content Teachers Collaborative (ECTC),” which focuses on teacher collaboration to better serve English language learners enrolled in K–12 public schools. She has also taught college-level second language (L2) students in an intensive English program and tutored college students at a writing center. Her research interests include pre-service and in-service teacher education, online education for teachers’ professional development, professional development for non-native English speaking teachers, and L2 academic literacy development. She has published papers in international journals, such as Language Awareness. Setiono Sugiharto is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the Faculty of Education at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta, Indonesia. He has published in ASIA TEFL Journal, TEFLIN Journal, and PERTANIKA Journal. He has also written hundreds of Ed-Opinion in The Jakarta Post (Indonesia’s English leading newspaper), several of which have been reprinted in The New Straits Times, The Pakistan Observer, and The Malaysian Insider. Julie Sweetland is Director of Learning at the FrameWorks Institute, where she leads the trans-

lation of communications research findings into learning experiences for nonprofit leaders. Previously, she served as the Director of Teaching and Learning at Center for Inspired Teaching and launched a graduate teacher preparation program for the University of the District of Columbia. Her past research has focused on the intersection of language and race, on the role of language variation and language attitudes on student learning, and on effective professional learning for

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List of Contributors

teachers. Julie completed her undergraduate work at Georgetown University, and her MA and PhD in Linguistics at Stanford University. Adai Tefera is a postdoctoral scholar at the Equity Alliance at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Her research focuses on the politics of educational policy, with a particular focus on high stakes education policies and students of color with disabilities. María E. Torres-Guzmán, Professor Emeritus of Bilingual/Bicultural Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, holds a PhD from Stanford University. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Helsinki, University of Waikato, Universidad del Pais Vasco (San Sebastian/Donosti), Universidad de Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras), Universidad Complutense and Universidad Autonoma (Madrid), and Michigan State University. Her work with teachers and parents has been extensive, nationally and internationally. She has published 5 books, over 65 journal articles and book chapters, and edited 3 special topic journals. Her latest book is Freedom at Work: Language, Professional and Intellectual Development. Dina Tsagari is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics/TEFL at the Department of English Studies,

University of Cyprus. Her main interests are EFL/ESL testing and assessment, teaching/learning, teacher education, materials design and evaluation, and adult education. She has conducted research in Hong Kong, Cyprus, Greece, and other European countries and is the author of several articles, book chapters, and edited volumes. She has given papers and plenary presentations in several countries and is the coordinator of the Classroom-based Language Assessment SIG, affiliated to EALTA. Henry Tyne (University of Perpignan and VECT research group) is researching variation in second language acquisition. He is interested in the use of corpus data to describe L2 (in particular, variation) and in the teaching of L2 French.

Andie Wang is a PhD candidate in Second Languages and Cultures in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota. Her research interests include international students’ learning-to-teach experiences in teacher education, teaching Chinese as a second language, and second language acquisition of Chinese. Rebecca Wheeler, Professor of English Language and Literacy at Christopher Newport Uni-

versity in Newport News, VA, specializes in teaching Standard English in dialectally diverse classrooms. Wheeler, a literacy consultant and spokesperson for the National Council of Teachers of English, has consulted for public schools K–14 from New York to New Orleans, and from Chicago and Baltimore to Arkansas. Recent publications include Code-Switching Lessons: Grammar Strategies for Linguistically Diverse Writers (Heinemann, 2010), “Fostering Linguistic Habits of Mind: Engaging Teachers’ Knowledge and Attitudes toward African American Vernacular English” (Language and Linguistics Compass, 2010) and “Factoring AAVE into Reading Assessment and Instruction” (Reading Teacher, March 2012). Heather Homonoff Woodley is a PhD candidate in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is Adjunct Instructor in Bilingual Education and TESOL at The City College of New York, CUNY, and Research Assistant with the CUNY-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals.

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List of Contributors

Yun Xiao is Professor of Chinese and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at Bryant University. Her research interests are second language acquisition and pedagogy, heritage language learning, and Chinese syntax and discourse. She has published more than 20 journal articles and book chapters. She also co-authored/abridged a four-volume Readings in Chinese Literature Series (2008–2010) and co-edited/authored three research volumes: Chinese as a Heritage Language: Fostering Rooted World Citizenry (2008), Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Theories and Applications (2008, 2011), and Current Issues in Chinese Linguistics (2011).

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Acknowledgments

It was only when one of our contributors called it a “Herculean task” that we realized that editing a handbook is exactly that. In contrast to Hercules, however, we were fortunate to be able to count on the support of a large number of people. First and foremost, we could not be more grateful to our contributors for all the well researched, beautifully written chapters we received. Not only did they lighten our workload as editors, but reading these contributions also reminded us why we work in this field and for an advocacy turn within it. Thank you! Of course, this handbook would not exist without the initiative and support of Routledge and its always helpful and eternally patient staff. Thank you for creating an opportunity for us to share and promote our view on educational linguistics through an advocacy lens. Thank you for supporting the process of compiling the book with your advice and answers to the gazillion questions that we as beginning editors had. And thank you for your patience when the deadlines came faster than we had hoped. A couple of friends lent their time generously to help us copyedit and format the manuscript for this handbook. For this, we thank Yichen Li, Nicole Pettitt, Abigail Yoder, and Marko Kananen.

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Introduction The Advocacy Turn of Educational Linguistics Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen

The papers in this volume collectively show the many ways in which education and linguistics intersect. The naming and definition of educational linguistics as a field is credited largely to Bernard Spolsky in the 1970s (Spolsky 1974, 1978) out of recognition of the significance of language-related issues in education and out of dissatisfaction with efforts to define applied linguistics. Hult (2010) traces the roots of the field back further: as far as 1948, in a journal entitled Language Learning: A Quarterly Journal of Applied Linguistics. Since then, many scholars identify educational linguistics as their disciplinary home, and there are programs in educational linguistics at major universities in the United States (e.g., Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, University of New Mexico, Monterey Institute of International Studies). Scholars from the University of Pennsylvania, such as Dell Hymes, Nessa Wolfson, Teresa Pica, and Nancy Hornberger, have been crucial to shaping and championing educational linguistics as a field in its own right, while negotiating spaces for educational linguistics in journals and professional associations that identify with the broader field of applied linguistics. Spolsky noted that the term educational linguistics is necessarily ambiguous. He says, “it includes those parts of linguistics relevant to educational matters as well as those parts of education concerned with language” (Spolsky 2010, 2). As seen in Spolsky’s work, across many decades, his rationale for distinguishing educational linguistics from the broader field of applied linguistics has always been to draw attention to critical and often politically charged issues of language in educational contexts. Spolsky has also held firmly to the position that educational linguistics should take a problem- and practice-oriented approach that is solidly grounded in “principles and practices derived from the relevant theoretical and empirical disciplines” (Spolsky 1978, 175). Nancy Hornberger, in her historical account of the field and of the program at the University of Pennsylvania, concludes that there have been continual emphases in educational linguistics “on the integration of linguistics and education, close relationships among research, theory, policy and practice, and a focus on language learning and teaching” (2001, 5). Later, in 2011, Hult and King explain that the field is problem-centered as it was formed—and continues to be shaped by—pressing real-world questions, many of which concern how best to provide equitable access to language and education for all students, and for linguistic and cultural minority students in 1

Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen

particular. The field is global in the sense that it takes an international, often comparative approach to these problems, but also one that is locally grounded and culturally informed. (2011, 5) Educational linguistics, and the field of educational linguistics, has been and continues to be activist, practical, and outwardly engaged, by definition. The breadth of topics included in the field of educational linguistics can be seen in previously published books, articles, chapters and edited volumes that claim educational linguistics as their base (Alatis 1994; Brumfit 1997; Freeman 1994; Hornberger 2004; Hult and King 2011; Spolsky 2010; Stubbs 1986; van Lier 1994). However, it is notable that many scholars (including us) are doing the work of educational linguistics, as defined by Spolsky, Hornberger, Hult, and King, but doing so without claiming the label or in the absence of a formalized program named as such. In other words, there are scholars doing the work of educational linguistics who identify with and draw from a wide range of theories and disciplines. Educational linguistics has a tradition of producing knowledge that contributes to public debates, that translates research for many different stakeholders, and engages in dialogue with stakeholders in order to be action oriented. The present volume seeks to continue in this tradition and aims to contribute to the field of educational linguistics in two ways: (1) by expanding the community of scholars thought to do educational linguistics to include more international voices and to include the voices of emerging scholars together with those who are well established, and (2) by explicitly focusing on advocacy. We believe that the field of educational linguistics is still in the process of discovering how to leverage scholarship for advocacy aims, and this handbook offers many interesting and useful examples of advocacy. One need not look far to find a crisis in education that is linked to language learning, language loss, or educational policy. It seems almost impossible for educational institutions to keep pace with the need to sustain and produce multilingualism, as well as educate students of many different dialect backgrounds. Education plays an essential role in global societies. On the one hand, schools are sites of production and reproduction of culture (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977); on the other hand, research in educational contexts that adopts a critical lens, and a goal for social justice, can result in institutional and individual permeability and consciousness raising (Freire 1985). Many of the chapters in this volume show that research in educational linguistics can produce knowledge that can give agency to educators, students, and families, and thus create streams of resistance and action that can effect change in arenas where education and language intersect. For this reason, the role of advocacy in language-related scholarship that works within the contexts of education is critical. This volume aims to take stock of the field of educational linguistics almost five years after Spolsky and Hult’s comprehensive Handbook of Educational Linguistics, which was published in 2010. Contributors to the present volume were carefully chosen based on their expertise, but also because they represent diverse methodological approaches, geographic regions of the world, and inter- or trans-disciplinarity in their approach to inquiry in educational linguistics. Our intent is to welcome new voices, perspectives, and topics into dialogues that center on addressing critical issues in education, through the dynamics of language use, choice, policy, learning, and teaching. Each chapter offers an overview of an issue that should serve as a valuable entry point for someone new to the field, as well as a useful compass for a colleague who is familiar with the topic. The first part of this book includes chapters focusing on research methodologies in educational linguistics. This section represents various epistemological roots of educational linguistics, including cognitive second language acquisition (Gass), anthropology (McCarty), and language policy (Johnson and Ricento). Higgins and Sandhu’s chapter takes readers into two areas not necessarily associated with educational linguistics: identity and narrative analysis. One might 2

Introduction

argue that neither identifier has an obvious connection to education, yet this chapter outlines many new and fruitful directions for researchers. Together, these four chapters underline the importance of maintaining methodological rigor through established methodologies, as well as encouraging the use of new methodologies, both of which are needed for the research to contribute to changes in educational contexts. Part Two asked authors to explore the issue of advocacy in their respective areas of expertise: teacher education and schooling (Faltis), linguistically marginalized students (Liddicoat and Heugh), home and school literacy (Rocha-Schmid), and non-native teachers (Llurda). The chapters in this part make a powerful argument that an advocacy turn in educational linguistics is needed to move away from deficit-oriented perceptions of L2 learning and teaching once and for all, and to firmly root the field in sociocultural and sociopolitical aspirations that take a clear stance toward equitable multilingual education. The purpose of Part Three of the book is to assure the inclusion of various educational contexts. Immersion education (Björklund and Mård-Miettinen), bilingual education (García and Woodley), foreign language learning (Hecke), and indigenous language revitalization (Hermes and Bang) are represented, as well as advocacy for minoritized learners in mainstream settings (Gonzalez, Tefera, and Artiles, and Richardson). As the authors of these chapters outline the specific needs and assets of emergent multilingual students, they also emphasize that change towards a normalization of “heteroglossic language practices” (García and Woodley) must and can occur in classroom contexts as well as on systemic levels, and in practice as well as theory. Part Four extends the discussion by focusing on a variety of issues through the lens of critical pedagogy. This section begins with a refresher on Freire that is applied to teacher education (Salazar). Leeman and King explore the definitions, ideologies, and politics and practices of heritage language education. English language education in Indonesia (Sugiharto) illuminates the powerful ways educational policy can result in linguistic imperialism. Bartlett and Koyama’s chapter highlights the utility of interdisciplinarity to address urgent issues in language education of (im)migrants that have the potential to promote multilingualism. Sarroub and Quadros return to Freire to discuss theoretical and practical issues of critical pedagogy in classroom discourse. In all, this part intends to reactivate and reconfigure a critical pedagogy approach for the purpose of promoting multilingualism in education. Part Five offers a section entirely devoted to language teacher education, an area of educational linguistics that has been neglected. This section explores teachers’ beliefs (Song) and identities (Martel and Wang), as well as more specific topics, such as the dilemmas Chinese teachers face as they develop their students’ literacy (Shen), how corpora can be used in teacher education (Boulton and Tyne), and how teachers learn to analyze learner language (Horii). As these authors work rigorously to contribute to the field of educational linguistics, many of them also note a dearth of research in their areas of expertise. Our hope is that their contributions will inspire more research that is needed in the area of language teacher education for the promotion of multilingualism and linguistic equity. Part Six addresses language instruction across different educational settings: foreign language classrooms (Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher), settings where students experience content and language integrated learning (CLIL; Coyle), and Chinese heritage language education (Xiao). Tsagari and Banerjee explore language assessment and education broadly and Brunni and Jantunen offer a useful overview of learner language that draws on multiple traditions and research programs in second language acquisition. With their analyses of critical issues in language instruction and assessment, the authors of this section give concrete examples of the challenges and successes of multilingual education and, based on these, offer future paths for the field of educational linguistics to take. 3

Martha Bigelow and Johanna Ennser-Kananen

Part Seven concludes this collection with chapters focusing on ethics and politics in educational linguistics. Perry and Mallozzi’s chapter speaks specifically to researchers who are doing work in educational linguistics. Hinton’s chapter on language shift explores the frequent tensions between educational institutions and language maintenance/revitalization. Torres-Guzmán and de Jong’s chapter analyzes issues of language and education in multilingual settings and, finally, Sweetland and Wheeler’s chapter explores ethical and political issues related to dialect variation in U.S. schools. By dedicating a whole section to these important ethical topics, we aim to underline the importance of dealing with ethical questions when doing research in educational linguistics. Only if we remain self-critical and committed to high ethical standards can we truly claim to be advocates for multilingualism and equity in education. To further orient readers, we would like to point out that each chapter in this volume conforms roughly to the following structure: Historical Perspectives—This section locates the chapter in the field through a historical lens and indicates how the topic may have arisen from other disciplines or through interdisciplinary inquiry. Core Issues and Key Findings—This section names assumptions related to the research on the topic and offers a review of the most important contributions to the current state of the discussion. Research Approaches—This section outlines the traditional epistemologies employed on their topic. New Debates—The most important current dilemmas of the topic are presented. Implications for Education—In this section, authors link their chapters to issues in education and offer their views about future directions for research in educational linguistics. Further Reading—In this section, authors list the most important historical and recent books and articles on their topic.

We hope that readers will find it interesting and important to note how different researchers balance or situate their work within and between contexts of education, language/linguistics, and social change. It is a continual challenge to remain relevant to education and educators while continuing to create new, theoretically-grounded, disciplinary knowledge that is difficult (or irresponsible) to apply immediately. It is our hope that this volume will inspire thinking, theorizing, and action among new and established researchers.

References Alatis, J. E. (Ed.) 1994. Educational linguistics, crosscultural communication, and global interdependence. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Bourdieu, P., and Passeron, J. C. 1977. Reproduction in education, society, culture. Beverly Hills: Sage. Brumfit, C. 1997. The teacher as educational linguist. In L. van Lier and D. Corson (Eds.), Knowledge about langauge (Vol. 6, pp. 163–172). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Freeman, D. 1994. Educational linguistics and the knowledge base of language teaching. In J. E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics 1994 (pp. 180–196). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Freire, P. 1985. The politics of education: Culture, power and liberation. Translated by Donaldo Macedo. MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers. Hornberger, N. H. 2001. Educational linguistics as a field: A view from Penn’s program on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 17(1, 2), 1–26. Hornberger, N. H. 2004. The continua of biliteracy and the bilingual educator: Educational linguistics in practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2–3), 155–171. Hult, F. M. 2010. The history and development of educational linguistics. In B. Spolsky and F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 10–24). New York: Wiley-Blackwell. 4

Introduction

Hult, F. M., and King, K. (Eds.) 2011. Educational linguistics in practice: Applying the local globally and the global locally. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Spolsky, B. 1974. The Navajo reading study: An illustration of the scope and nature of educational linguistics. In J. Quistgaard, H. Schwarz, and H. Spong-Hanssen (Eds.), Applied linguistics: Problems and solutions: Proceedings of the Third Congress on Applied Linguistics, Copenhagen, 1972 (Vol. 3, pp. 553–565). Heidelberg: Julius Gros Verlag. Spolsky, B. 1978. Educational linguistics: An introduction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Spolsky, B. 2010. Introduction: What is educational linguistics? In B. Spolsky, and F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 1–9). New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Stubbs, M. 1986. Educational linguistics. New York: Blackwell Publishers. van Lier, L. 1994. Educational linguistics: Field and project. In J. E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics 1994 (pp. 197–209). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

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Part 1

Ways of Knowing in Educational Linguistics

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1 Methodologies of Second Language Acquisition Susan M. Gass

Historical Perspectives One can only examine historical perspectives if one has a sense of when “history” begins. For the purposes of this chapter, I take the 1960s as the beginning of the field of second language acquisition (see Thomas 1998; Gass, Fleck, Leder, and Svetics 1998 for a debate on the field’s appropriate early date). At that time and even slightly prior to that time, most work in the field was based on a need to find a pedagogical means to help people learn a language beyond their first. Hence, the “methodology” in the early part of the 20th century was a pedagogical methodology, not a research methodology, the latter being the focus of this chapter. This chapter is further restricted primarily to quantitative methodology, given space limitations, although differences in quantitative/qualitative approaches are discussed at the end of the chapter. In order to place research methodology in context, I looked at articles that were published in the early days of the field. To do that, I considered research published in one journal, Language Learning. This journal was selected because it was the only journal that existed during the timeframe of interest that was specifically devoted to the discipline of language learning, as is made clear in the journal title. I looked at the issues from 1967 through 1979 to get an idea of trends in research, coding the articles into five specific categories: pedagogy, descriptive, data analysis, testing, and position papers, with an additional category (other) for articles that were not easily classifiable into one of the five main categories. The category most relevant to this chapter is “data analysis” because that is the category for which data were collected and analyzed, the sine qua non of empirical research. It is important to note that prior to this time, there was little elicited data used in SLA research; many publications focused on teaching and did not present data based on learning. Further, early research in SLA was based on research from either linguistics or from child language acquisition, in terms of theoretical questions posed and research tools used. What I found was that in this 17-year period, of the 237 articles considered, most fell into two categories: pedagogy (55) and data analysis (57). A closer look reveals a major shift in emphasis in the early 1970s. In particular, 1972 appears to be a watershed year for data analysis. In that year, five articles contained original data with analysis (compared to four in the other dominant category of pedagogy), whereas in the previous two years combined (1970 and 1971) there had been 16 in the pedagogy category and only one in the data analysis category. To further this point, in 9

Susan M. Gass

1972, the five data analysis articles were nearly as many as had appeared in the prior five years combined (which was six). Additional evidence for the importance of this period in the use of original data and original analyses is the fact that in the subsequent six-year period (1973–1979), there were 46 articles in that category. In other words, in the early 1970s, and even more precisely, around 1972, the field appears to have taken an important shift in emphasis. Because data analysis was limited during the time leading up to the 1970s, research methods were not a focus of attention and one is hard-pressed to find discussions on the topic. Gass and Polio (2014) posed the question as to why this shift in focus occurred. We suggested that the issue of types of data for analysis was problematized in the 1972 Interlanguage article by Selinker. In that article, he made numerous claims that relate to what data are allowable; the most well-known of these is presented below: . . . observable data to which we can relate theoretical predictions: the utterances which are produced when the learner attempts to say sentences of a TL . . . (Selinker 1972, 213–214) According to this claim, only utterances produced in meaningful performance situations are of use in understanding how languages are learned. In particular, research is limited to three types of data: a. b. c.

utterances in the learner’s native language produced by the learner, interlanguage utterances produced by the learner, and target language utterances produced by native speakers of that target language.

Important to this discussion is that theoretical predictions in a relevant psychology of second language learning must be the surface structures of interlanguage sentences. As part of this, Selinker explicitly highlights two data types that are unacceptable: grammatical judgment data and nonce data. The former are not relevant because researchers “will gain information about another system, the one the learner is struggling with, i.e., the TL” (213). And the latter are not relevant because “behavior which occurs in experiments using nonsense syllables” does not produce meaningful performance (210), where meaningful performance is defined as “the situation where an ‘adult’ attempts to express meanings, which he may already have, in a language which he is in the process of learning” (210). In sum, “. . . data resulting from these latter behavioral situations [including nonsense syllables] are of doubtful relevancy to meaningful performance situations, and thus to a theory of second-language learning” (210). These statements provide an important foundation for discussions of research methodology in second language acquisition by making explicit claims of what data are possible and which are not. During the 1960s and 1970s there were few discussions relating particularly to research methodology. The few notable exceptions centered on issues of grammaticality/acceptability judgments (Schachter, Tyson, and Diffley 1976; Corder 1973; Hyltenstam 1977), all of which took the position, contra to Selinker’s claims, that their use was crucial in that certain questions about second language knowledge (as opposed to use) could only be answered through forced data elicitation, such as intuitional data. Within empirical studies, judgment data were typically collected through a forced binary choice (grammatical versus ungrammatical) of a set of sentences, and learners were often asked to modify the ungrammatical sentences to make them grammatical. The tide began to turn as research methodology came into focus in the 1980s with the publication of a book specifically designed to address issues in research methodology and designed for an applied linguistics audience (Hatch and Farhady 1982). In the mid-1980s, other books and 10

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treatises became more prevalent, with discussions focusing on a wide range of topics related to research methods (Cook 1986, on experimental methods; Henning 1986, on quality in quantitative research; Chaudron 1986, on the need for quantitative and qualitative research). This was followed by general textbooks on research in second language learning (Brown 1988; Chaudron 1988; Seliger and Shohamy 1989; Hatch and Lazaraton 1991; Johnson 1992; Nunan 1992). At about the same time as the appearance of general textbooks, there came a number of journal articles and books dealing with specific topics (e.g., t-tests, Brown 1990, Siegel 1990; power and effect size, Lazaraton 1991, Crookes 1991; Varbrul, Young and Bayley 1996; analysis of frequency data, Saito 1999, Young and Yandell 1999; classroom research, Nunan 1991; structural equation modeling, Matsumura 2003). These are early (and current) signs of the field’s attempt to create cogent arguments about issues of methods and analysis, with a focus on quality, to which I turn below. Throughout the history of research methods, there was an awareness of the lack of familiarity by researchers and consumers of research with methods of research, the value of experimental research, and techniques for data analysis (Ingram 1978; Cook 1986; Lazaraton, Riggenbach, and Ediger 1987; Brown 1991; 1992; Lambert 1991). Becoming aware of shortcomings is a sign of the field’s initial attempts to create standards relating to methods and analysis. A final indication of the role of methods comes from statements from leading journals in the field. In 1992, TESOL Quarterly, as part of their general guidelines for article submission, introduced a section with the title “Statistical Guidelines” (see also Chapelle and Duff 2003, where qualitative methods are included). They did this to ensure “high statistical standards” (794) for publication in the journal. Among the topics considered important were issues of reporting (see also Polio and Gass 1997), including an appropriate layout of results, along with a discussion of assumptions underlying the use of particular statistical tests. In the following year, Valdman (1993) included an editorial comment in Studies in Second Language Acquisition in which he brought to the attention of the journal readership the importance of replication (related to the issue of reporting mentioned earlier; see also Ellis 1999, editor’s statement). Valdman took the issue a step further by introducing a replication section in the journal. Language Learning was also an early leader with regard to rigor. In 1993, a new directive for contributors to the journal appeared (“Instructions for Contributors,” 151): “Manuscripts considered for publication will be reviewed for their presentation and analysis of new empirical data, expert use of appropriate research methods . . .” (emphasis added). That same journal became even more stringent with issues of reporting and stated in 2000 that all submissions to the journal were required to include effect sizes for all major statistical comparisons. Other journals in the field have recently followed suit (e.g., Language Learning and Technology, The Modern Language Journal, Language Teaching, and TESOL Quarterly). With regard to standards and reporting, the emphasis has been on quantitative methods, but qualitative guidelines have also received attention (e.g., Chapelle and Duff 2003, as well as treatments in various research methods books; Dörnyei 2007; Gass and Mackey 2007; Mackey and Gass 2005; 2012). When considering guidelines for research, a slightly different set must be acknowledged, as well—that for ethical research, an early statement of which came in 1980 from a TESOL Research Committee (Tarone 1980). All of these guidelines (see also Loewen and Gass 2009) form an important part of the development of the field. A major step forward in the field of SLA was the establishment in 1997 of a series of books titled Monographs on Research Methodology by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates under the editorship of Susan Gass and Jacquelyn Schachter. This series continues to this day (under the editorship of Susan Gass and Alison Mackey) with books on communication tasks (Yule 1997), stimulated recall (Gass and Mackey 2000), conversation analysis (Markee 2000), case study research (Duff 2007), priming methods (McDonough and Trofimovich 2009), questionnaires (Dörnyei with Taguchi 2009), think-alouds (Bowles 2010), and reaction time research (Jiang 2011). 11

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Core Issues and Key Findings/Research Approaches Research methods in the field of SLA have continued to evolve with greater statistical and elicitation sophistication as a result. Norris and Ortega (2003), in an article related to measuring acquisition, asked the basic question of what counts as acquisition. They argued that SLA is not a monolithic phenomenon and a definition of acquisition must be understood in the context of the theoretical perspective being investigated. Not only does the basic question of a definition of acquisition depend on one’s theoretical orientation, but data types and research methodologies also differ depending on the questions asked and the theoretical perspective taken. For example, those who have focused on the acquisition of morphosyntax have often relied on intuitional judgments (either binary, as in grammatical or ungrammatical, or fine-tuned comparisons, as in magnitude estimation, Bard, Robertson, and Sorace 1996). Those who have taken a sociolinguistic perspective rely on natural data or, at times, survey data (e.g., interviews and/or questionnaires, cf. Dörnyei with Taguchi 2009). Those involved with the role of interaction and corrective feedback make use of tasks to elicit appropriate data. Phonologists use acoustic measurements, relying on instrumentation to assess perception and production, psycholinguists use a wide range of techniques to better understand processing, and those concerned with on-line thought processes have utilized a range of verbal report data. In sum, many tools are available to second language researchers as they seek to better and more deeply understand how learning takes place. As noted above, early research drew its elicitation tools primarily from linguistics and, to a lesser extent, from child language acquisition. Linguistic-based research has become less prevalent, with current research methods relying to some extent on methods from other fields, such as psychology/psycholinguistics, social psychology, and education (e.g., action research), and with other methods developing out of second language questions themselves—for example, the line of research known as input/interaction (see Gass and Mackey 2007 for a detailed discussion of ways of conducting research in second language acquisition, along with assumptions underlying research types). What stands out is the increased scrutiny of design and analysis, an area that I deal with in the following section.

New Emphases and New Debates This section reviews newer emphases in the field. There are two parts to this section: 1) new techniques and 2) current emphases related to study quality. With regard to the first part, I focus on issues related to eye-tracking and brain measures, namely Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). These are both newer technologies at least with regard to research in second language acquisition. In the second part, I deal with broader issues, such as dichotomies established by a quantitative/qualitative split, verbal reporting, and study quality. In the latter, I discuss 1) replication and reporting, 2) meta-analysis, and 3) power and effect size.

New Techniques With increased interest in how second language learners put their evolving L2 knowledge to use in real-time processing has come a concomitant emphasis on eye-movement research as a way of making that determination (see Dussias 2010; Roberts 2012; Godfroid, Winke, and Gass 2013; Roberts and Siyanova-Chanturia 2013, for overviews). This is done using an eye tracker, a machine designed to measure and record one’s eye movements as an individual sees something (text/pictures) on a screen. Included in these measurements are fixations (i.e., where and how long an individual looks on the screen) and eye movements from one part of the screen to 12

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another. Godfroid, Boers, and Housen (2013) argue for the significance of eye-movement research in that knowing where someone looks and the movements of the eye reflect what is happening in the mind (see Reichle, Pollatsek, and Rayner 2006, on the “eye-mind” link). Eye-movement research provides the researcher with a glimpse of what learners are doing/thinking about as they encounter language. Eye-movement research has been used to investigate numerous research areas—for example, lexical access and representation in bilinguals (e.g., Blumenfeld and Marian 2011; Duyck, Van Assche, Drieghe, and Hartsuiker 2007; Felser, Sato, and Bertenshaw 2009; Flecken 2011; Van Assche, Duyck, Hartsuiker, and Diependaele 2009; Van Assche, Drieghe, Duyck, Welvaert, and Hartsuiker 2011); syntactic ambiguity resolution (e.g., Dussias and Sagarra 2007; Frenck-Mestre and Pynte 1997; Roberts, Gullberg, and Indefrey 2008; see also reviews by Dussias 2010 and Frenck-Mestre 2005); attention (Godfroid, Boers, and Housen 2013); and cognitive processes during specific tasks, such as L2 testing (Bax and Weir 2012) and video-based L2 listening (Winke, Gass, and Sydorenko 2010). One common method is the visual-world paradigm in which eye movements are tracked as participants respond to auditory input. Within this paradigm, researchers have investigated grammatical gender (Dussias, Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo, and Gerfen 2013; see Dussias 2010; and Huettig, Rommers, and Meyer 2011, for reviews) and ambiguity in subject pronouns (e.g., Ellert 2011; Ellert, Järvikivi, and Roberts in press; Wilson 2009). Participants see pictures on the screen, and researchers are interested in which pictures are fixated on when hearing a particular input stream. For example, when studying gender, if learners hear in Italian the sound la (feminine article), are they more likely to focus on a feminine noun in a set of pictures that includes masculine nouns, known as the competitors? In other words, the question is: What triggers lexical activation? The second common use of eye trackers is to understand processes involved in reading where the concern is with processing difficulties (e.g., ambiguous sentence resolution). Processing difficulties are compounded by factors related to not only the L2, but also when considering L1-L2 differences (Dussias et al. 2013; Godfroid and Uggen 2013; Sagarra and Ellis 2013, Van Assche, Duyck, and Brysbaert 2013). As with all new methodologies and adaptations of methodologies to a new field, procedures for data elicitation need to be carefully thought out in response to new questions being posed (see Spinner, Gass, and Behney 2013). The second area to consider in this section is brain activity while using language. Neurocognitive questions relate to processing and require research methodologies that go beyond behavioral data, the latter of which have been prevalent to date in second language research. Because questions have turned to understanding what underlies second language learning and second language use and because brain-based research has matured to the point where there are reliable measures, researchers have turned to these newer measures to complement extant behavioral data and address theoretical questions. For example, Morgan-Short and Ullman (2012) present four models of SLA and illustrate how two brain-related measures (both non-invasive), event-related potentials (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can be used to distinguish among them. ERPs represent electrophysiological responses to some stimulus (e.g., a word, a picture). Participants wear a cap with electrodes that measure electrophysiological activity. As Morgan-Short and Ullman (2012) point out, there is a significant body of L1 literature using ERPs, making L1-L2 comparisons practical. fMRIs enable researchers to understand the location of neuronal activity; one can see the brain’s actual structure and can detect changes in blood oxygenation that reflect changes in cognitive processing. In other words, blood oxygenation is a reflection of neuronal activity, which in turn 13

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reflects cognitive processes. Given its emphasis on research methods, this chapter is not the place for a discussion of findings. However, some of the areas of investigation are lexical, morphosyntactic, and semantic processing—in some instances, as a function of proficiency, and in other studies, addressing issues of implicit versus explicit learning (e.g., Morgan-Short, Sanz, Steinhauer, and Ullman 2010; Morgan-Short, Steinhauer, Sanz and Ullman 2012). Because of the possibility of pinpointing actual brain activity and because of the importance of understanding processing and its relation to location of brain activity, brain-based studies may proliferate in the near future. They do have two disadvantages, however. The first and the most obvious is the cost of the equipment needed to conduct such research. The second, at least for fMRIs, is that participants must be willing to put themselves through a session in which they must lie still and not move their heads.

Ongoing Issues Quantitative Versus Qualitative Research The current chapter has focused on quantitative methodology because that is where the greatest amount of debate has occurred over the past 40–50 years. This is not to say that qualitative methods have been ignored, for it has long been recognized that both quantitative and qualitative methods add to a richer picture of learning (e.g., Chaudron 1986; Lazaraton, Riggenbach, and Ediger 1987; Brown 2004). However, a major split in the field of SLA is between those who conduct quantitative and those who conduct qualitative research. The debate began years ago and continues today (see Hulstijn, Young, and Ortega in press), although it is becoming common in today’s research climate to include both research types in a single study, which is then referred to as a mixed methods study. It is important to point out that both of these research types are broad and varied, and these monikers belie the complexity in each. In general and broad terms, quantitative research relies on “counting” and statistically analyzing data stemming from a research design that usually includes some or all of the following: pre-test, treatment, post-test(s). It stems from what has been known as the scientific method, in which questions are addressed objectively—that is, without a researcher’s bias. Quantitative studies in second language research have dominated over the years with growing sophistication (see above and below) in the tools used for collection and analysis of data. Typical in quantitative research is the use of numbers and statistics, a large number of participants/surveys/questionnaires (necessary for statistical analysis), data categorized as variables, and the importance of generalizability, the extent to which results are valid in other contexts and/or participants (see Chalhoub-Deville, Chapelle, and Duff 2006; Gass 2006). With regard to qualitative research, Friedman (2012, 181) points out, “[a]lthough we speak of qualitative methods, what distinguishes qualitative inquiry from quantitative or experimental research goes beyond procedures used to collect or analyze data. Qualitative research is a distinct approach to scholarly inquiry that may also entail a different set of beliefs regarding the nature of reality (ontology) and ways of knowing (epistemology).” Qualitative research, in general, emphasizes learning as a social process and, consequently, focuses inter alia on the context of learning. Within the overall umbrella of qualitative research are studies conducted within the framework of sociocultural theory (Lantolf 2012), community of practice, language socialization, and even language identity (see Friedman 2012). These studies are conducted using tools of ethnography and conversation analysis (see Gass 2004). Friedman suggests eight characteristics: 1) open inquiry, 2) inductive, 3) naturalistic, 4) descriptive/ interpretive, 5) multiple perspectives, 6) cyclical, 7) attention to context, and 8) focus on the particular. In contrast to the scientific method that underlies quantitative research, qualitative research involves researchers who interpret, describe, and have open minds about what they will find. 14

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Mixed methods research usefully combines these seemingly disparate approaches (Creswell 2003; Dörnyei 2007). There are numerous ways of considering this combination (although to date, mixed methods do not dominate second language research); I mention three obvious ones here. One could begin with a quantitative analysis and then realize that questions remain that are best answered with further qualitative probing; alternatively, one could take a qualitative study as exploratory and then gather quantitative data to support what one initially found. Or, as is perhaps more common, one could combine the two in one study even though they may be reported separately (see Winke, Gass, and Sydorenko 2010 and in press; Winke, Gass, and Myford 2013; Winke and Gass in press). Triangulation of data (namely, using multiple data sources/types to better understand a particular phenomenon) is becoming more common and more accepted in second language research.

Verbal Reporting Verbal reports consist of a number of different methodologies, including retrospective and concurrent (see Bowles, 2010). Common to all of them is the elicitation of thought processes while conducting a particular task. This type of methodology has become more common in the past 10–15 years. In fact, an LLBA search for verbal reports and second language and verbal reports and foreign language yielded nearly 70% in the period since 1998 (with some overlap in the two categories). An even stronger result came from a search for stimulated recall, a subset of verbal reports; 98% of all such studies have appeared in the years since 2000. Verbal reports can be either concurrent (often known as think-alouds) or retrospective (as in afterthe-fact reporting). The latter type is often used with some sort of stimulus (see Gass and Mackey 2000). In this mode, participants complete a task, and some stimulus from that task is used as a way of prompting the participant’s memory as to the thought processes during the task. Stimuli can be in the form of an audio/visual recording of the event or a written text resulting from the event. There are controversies related to both. An overriding concern is the extent to which what is being verbalized accurately reflects the thought processes one is trying to capture (veridicality). With retrospective data, such as stimulated recall, an important issue is the time that elapses between the event and the collection of retrospective thoughts. The longer the difference, the less accurate the recall. For concurrent protocols, the issue of veridicality is less significant; what is more important is reactivity. Does the mere fact of doing a task while at the same time talking about what one is thinking about affect the results? The issue of reactivity is not settled; a number of studies point in different directions (Bowles 2010). Bowles’ book is particularly useful in this regard because she gives criteria for selecting tasks that are more or less amenable to appropriate use of verbal reporting. She notes that issues of reactivity are complex and are dependent on numerous variables (e.g., type of reporting, proficiency level, type of instruction provided).

Study Quality The preceding issues have dealt with newer methodologies; the remaining three have to do with overall issues of quality. A recent concern in the field is the issue of study quality. What precisely is intended by study quality varies from researcher to researcher; Plonsky (2013) notes that “as many as 300 measures” (657) have been proposed to cover this concept, including measures that are easily remediable, such as reporting standard deviations along with means, and some that are less remediable, such as including (delayed) post-tests or pre-tests. One of the early publications to investigate this issue is that of Plonsky and Gass (2011) (see also Plonsky 2011 and Plonsky 2013). The ultimate claim is that research quality represents the 15

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underlying value of the field. Broadly, one can conceive of issues of design, implementation, and reporting of studies. In order to understand how L2 learning takes place, one obviously must rely on studies (quantitative and qualitative) that report on the phenomenon, but if these studies lack in rigor, our foundation collapses, and our research findings have little validity. More serious is the fact that readers do not always know that a particular study lacks in validity. Both Plonsky and Gass (2011) and Plonsky (2011) review the L2 literature on input and interaction over time and note positive changes as well as weaknesses. For example, they note a large number of delayed post-tests, which are an important feature if we are to understand long-term treatment effects, and more reporting of instrument reliability. Weaknesses include the lack of pre-testing, nonrandom assignment to conditions, and incomplete reporting. This last element is crucial when considering replication, the topic I return to next.

Replication and Reporting As noted in the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual, “the essence of the scientific method involves observations that can be repeated and verified by others” (2010, 12). In research with a quantitative base, replication is important for the issue of generalizability; in second language research, this is even more significant in that there is more variation than there is with monolingual research. For example, are findings from one study portable to a population not directly investigated? In particular, with second language research, there are issues related to proficiency, L1-L2 relationships, and age that might yield different results. Furthermore, there are often a smaller number of participants than in other social science research. With small numbers of participants, how can one generalize to the broader population (or should we even generalize at all)? Polio and Gass (1997) have argued for the importance of replication while at the same time acknowledging that “exact replication” is impossible given that a replication study will deal with different individuals. Replication is a crucial part of developing a discipline in which research results are not static, but rather part of a continuing process of refining and sharpening research results and future research questions. In other words, replication is one way in which a field extends itself and verifies itself. Replication continues to be of significant concern in current research, with emphasis placed on increased robustness of results and generalizability (see Polio 2012 for an historical overview). An indication of the future of replication studies can be seen in 1) the creation by journals of separate sections for reporting replications (e.g., Studies in Second Language Acquisition in1993 and Language Teaching in 2007), and 2) books focused on issues of replication (Porte 2012) and generalizability (Chaloub-Deville, Chapelle, and Duff 2006).

Synthesis of Research Results: Meta Analyses Replication is one way of verifying findings, but it is not the only way. In recent years, meta-analyses (see Norris and Ortega 2000) have become common in the field, with more than 30 appearing in recent years. Topics that have been addressed are feedback (e.g. Li 2010), motivation (Masgoret and Gardner 2003), strategy instruction (e.g., Plonsky 2011), and interaction (e.g., Mackey and Goo 2007). Through meta-analysis, one can compare studies that address common questions. It is a “systematic procedure for quantitatively synthesizing findings across studies” (Gass with Plonsky and Behney 2013, 64). As they further point out, “this technique also involves combining a sample of data points. However, in meta-analysis, the participants are not individual people, but rather individual studies and their data points are averages or effect sizes (e.g., Cohen’s d, correlation coefficients). Thus, a meta-analysis is, in its most basic form, an average of averages” (64). 16

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Because meta-analysis is relatively new to SLA and meta-analyses are still rare, one cannot predict the long-term impact on the field. However, we can take as an indication of the future significance of meta-analyses the fact that since Norris and Ortega’s seminal article on meta-analysis and the effects of instruction, nearly 30 such studies have been carried out (Plonsky 2013), nearly all of which have appeared since 2006. Thus, it is likely that as the field continues to develop and increase its emphasis on research quality, future meta-analyses will be greater in number and in scope. In relation to meta-analyses, the issue of reporting becomes paramount. Without detailed reporting of all aspects of one’s research study, including details of participants and methodology, one cannot replicate and one cannot conduct meta-analyses. And, if these latter two do not occur, we are left with an inability to generalize (see Plonsky 2012).

Statistical Power and Effect Sizes These topics were first brought to light by Lazaraton (1991), who argued for the importance of considering power, “the ability of a statistical test to detect a false null hypothesis” (760), and one aspect of power: namely, the reporting of effect size. Despite Lazaraton’s plea to pay significant attention to power and despite the mandate by some journals that effect sizes be included in publications, the field still struggles with these concepts. Clearly, one aspect of power has to do with sample size (Plonsky [2013] reports that the median group/sample size in studies he examined is 19), which is a perennial problem in the field for reasons that go well beyond the scope of this chapter. This issue is less solvable than others are. The reporting of effect sizes is one that can be addressed. Plonsky noted that only approximately 25% of the studies he sampled (606 studies in a thirty-year period from 1990 to 2010) did not report effect sizes, although some of those were reported only for significant, and not for nonsignificant, results. These issues remain with us, and our ability to pay attention to them is an indication of the future vitality of the field.

Recommendations for Practice It is always a bit uncomfortable to take theoretical research and move it into a classroom context. This is especially the case with some of the newer machine-based methodologies, particularly because we do not have experience in this regard. For example, just because we know about neuronal activity, does that mean that we can take those results and translate them into any meaningful classroom practice? Despite these misgivings, I take findings from both eye-tracking research and brain-based research as a possible suggestion of how we might move forward in the future. Winke (2013), in an input enhancement study, finds that, as would be expected, learners do indeed spend more time fixating on enhanced as opposed to unenhanced forms. However, fixation did not result in significantly more learning of forms (in this study, passivization in English), nor did it significantly detract from comprehension. According to Winke, even though visual enhancement may implicitly increase learner attention, it is also most beneficial when used in combination with explicit instruction. Another pedagogical use of eye-tracking research, combined with qualitative post viewing interview data, can be found in a study by Winke, Gass, and Sydorenko (in press). Their study investigated the use of captions by English-speaking foreign language learners (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish). Using eye tracking, they considered the differential time spent on captions by language and the interacting factor of content familiarity. They proposed that the use of captions must be more nuanced than previously considered and cannot be applied wholesale to a classroom context without considering L1-L2 relationships (including writing systems) and the content of the video material being presented (see also Ghia 2012). 17

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Morgan-Short and Ullman (2012) summarize brain-based research as the findings might impact classroom instruction. They cautiously point out that learning under implicit contexts (e.g., immersion) tends to result in higher levels of proficiency than explicit grammar-focused lessons (Morgan-Short et al. 2012); furthermore, learning in contexts outside of the classroom can lead to native-like neurocognition (Gillon Dowens, Vergara, Barber, and Carreiras et al. 2009; Hahne, Mueller, and Clahsen 2006; Rossi, Gugler, Friederici, and Hahne 2006; Steinhauer, White, and Drury 2009). This, of course, should not be taken to mean that immersion is the best way to learn, for many other variables are at play. It does, however, help us understand the role that brain-based studies may play in our further understanding of how learning takes place and what the potential might be for understanding instructional contexts. When thinking about research methods, before we consider how findings about language learning might relate to educational contexts, it is crucial that we are confident in our results, and this is where issues of study quality come into play. The field must take principles of study quality seriously if we are to have confidence in interpreting results of empirical studies.

Conclusion: Where Do We Go From Here? Issues related to research methodology will undoubtedly be with us for years and decades to come. As Mackey and Gass (2012, 1) point out, “. . . research methods are not determined or decided upon devoid of context; research methods are dependent on the theories they are designed to investigate. Thus, research questions are intimately tied to the methods used for determining an appropriate dataset.” In other words, there is an intimacy between the questions we ask and the way we go about answering those questions. As Plonsky (2013) states, “methodological infirmity not only hinders progress in the development of theory, but may also negatively affect the reputation and legitimacy of SLA as a discipline and limit its potential to contribute to parent fields . . .” (656). Thus, minding the “methodology store” is crucial as the field moves forward and we hope to provide insight into other disciplines.

Further Reading Porte, G. 2002. Appraising research in second language learning: A practical approach to critical analysis of quantitative research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishers. Mackey, A. and Gass, S. 2005. Second language research: Methodology and design. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Chalhoub-Deville, M., Chapelle, C. and Duff, P. A. eds. 2006. Inference and generalizability in applied linguistics: Multiple perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishers. Dörnyei, Z. 2007. Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Mackey, A. and Gass, S. eds., 2012. Research methods in second language acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Porte, G. 2012. Replication Research in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. Bard, E., Robertson, D., and Sorace, A. 1996. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language, 72, 32–68. Bax, S. and Weir, C. 2012. Investigating learners’ cognitive reading processes during a computer-based CAE Reading test. University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations Research Notes, 47, 3–14. Blumenfeld, H. K. and Marian, V. 2011. Bilingualism influences inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition, 118, 245–257. 18

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2 Ethnography in Educational Linguistics Teresa L. McCarty

[E]thnography finds its orienting and overarching purpose in an underlying concern with cultural interpretation. (Wolcott 2008, 72) Because of my conception of ethnography, I see in this prospect a gain for a democratic way of life. (Hymes 1980, 89)

Introduction The ethnographer of education Harry F. Wolcott (2008) described ethnography as a “way of seeing” human behavior through a cultural lens, and a “way of looking” based on long-term, situated fieldwork. The ethnographer of communication Dell Hymes (1980) argued that ethnography also contains within it a moral stance toward social inquiry that is humanizing, democratizing, and anti-hegemonic—what I will call a “way of being” a researcher. In this chapter, I explore these three complementary facets of the ethnographic enterprise—seeing, looking, and being—as ethnography has addressed issues in the field of educational linguistics. I focus on ethnography as a particular form of qualitative inquiry because of its long and intimate association with studies of language in education. As we will see, because of its genesis and development within the discipline of anthropology, ethnography entails “both more and less than” a general program of qualitative research (LeCompte and Schensul 2010, 4–5).

Historical Perspectives A “Way of Seeing”: Epistemic Foundations With its roots in anthropology, ethnography is both a social science and part of the humanities. As Blommaert and Jie (2010, 6) point out, this means that “the basic architecture of ethnography . . . already contains ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies” integral to the anthropological tradition. 23

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That tradition can be characterized, first, by a focus on culture. An admittedly slippery construct, culture as originally conceived by anthropologists was something fixed, unitary, and bounded—a set of shared traits organized along a racialized evolutionary hierarchy. Franz Boas, a German Jewish immigrant who established the American school of anthropology at Columbia University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, challenged the racist science underlying early definitions of culture, arguing for culture as learned rather than biologically inherited, and for cultural relativism, the notion that diverse cultural practices are understandable when viewed through their own social ecologies. Boas’s student, Margaret Mead, popularized this principle in what can be considered the first ethnography of education, a study of girlhood in American Samoa (Mead 1961 [1928]). Boas and his students applied the principle of relativity to languages as well, insisting on analyzing each in terms of its internal categories. Since these early developments, contemporary anthropologists have put culture “in motion” (Rosaldo 1989), recognizing, as Heath and Street (2008) note, that “culture never just ‘is,’ but instead ‘does’” (7). This has meant finding new language with which to talk about culture—as processes, discourses, ideologies, and practices rather than as racialized groups or traits. This view of culture expands “our vision . . . to include issues of power and legitimation, as well as the language practices that constitute these” (González 1999, 434). This dynamic, power-linked notion of culture carries with it ontological, epistemological, and methodological entailments with particular relevance for studies of language in education. The first is that, like culture, language is an open, dynamic system, inextricable from human social life itself. Thus, the “study of language . . . is inseparable from a study of social life” (Hymes 1980, 70). It follows that ethnographic studies of language in education must be deeply contextualized, conducted in situ over extended periods of time (an orientation traceable to Franz Boas in the U.S. and Bronislaw Malinowski in the EU). A further entailment is a focus on the participants’ point of view and the meanings they make of communicative events. Ethnographic accounts “are built around and told in the words, views, explanations, and interpretations of the participants in the study,” LeCompte and Schensul stress (2010, 16). This is often called an “emic” perspective, a reference to an analogy proposed by the linguist Kenneth Pike (1967), which contrasted phonemics—the tacit knowledge of a sound system possessed by native speakers—with phonetics—the study of sound systems. The terms emic and etic are commonly understood to refer, respectively, to insider and outsider knowledge. Two additional qualities characterize ethnography as a “way of seeing.” The first is that ethnographic knowledge is constructed inductively, “working from empirical evidence towards theory, not the other way around” (Blommaert and Jie 2010, 12). This, too, is a hallmark of Boasian anthropology. The goal for ethnographic studies in educational linguistics is to arrive at “grounded theories about language as it is practiced in local contexts” (Canagarajah 2006, 153). Secondly, while inductive theory building depends on the ethnographer’s ability to produce what the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1983) called “thick description” of a particular case, ethnographic theory also relies on cross-case and cross-cultural comparisons. As Hymes (1980, 90) emphasized, the validity and transferability of ethnographic accounts are greatly enhanced by “contrastive insight” built cumulatively across time and space.

The Educational-Linguistic Anthropology Connection These ontological and epistemological understandings undergird the linked subdisciplines of educational and linguistic anthropology, both of which converge in the field of educational linguistics. Just as anthropological understandings of language and culture must be contextualized, 24

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understanding this part of the disciplinary genealogy must be situated within the intellectual and sociopolitical context of the time. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its historic ruling in Brown v. Topeka, Kansas Board of Education, overturning legally sanctioned racial segregation in U.S. schools. While actual desegregation would not come for many years, within a decade Congress passed the most massive piece of federal education legislation in U.S. history— the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—intended to redress the inequalities laid bare by Brown. The ESEA was central to the Johnson administration’s metaphoric War on Poverty, in which the twin notions of “cultural deprivation” and “culture of poverty” were guiding tropes (Stein 2004). Scholarship in educational and linguistic anthropology, particularly in the U.S., was united in this discursive environment. The next decades of educational-linguistic research represent a relentless empirical refutation of prevailing deficit views, with cultural analysis as an anchoring construct and ethnography as the “factual core” (Spindler 2000, 57). From educational anthropology came a view of education as “the process of transmitting . . . the culture of the human being—where culture is used as a verb” (Spindler 2000, 56). From linguistic anthropology came the ethnography of communication pioneered by John Gumperz and Dell Hymes (1972). With the goal of illuminating diverse “ways of speaking” (Hymes 1980, 20), the ethnography of communication reflected a “socially realistic linguistics” in which education became “a prime arena for sociolinguistic research” (Hornberger 2003, 245–246). Out of this paradigm emerged the seminal ethnographic treatments of language use in practice: Cazden, John, and Hymes’s (1972) Functions of Language in the Classroom; Heath’s (1983) Ways with Words; Philips’s (1993 [1983]) The Invisible Culture; Green and Wallat’s (1981) Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings; and Gilmore and Glatthorn’s (1982) Children In and Out of School. These and other sociolinguistically oriented studies (discussed in the next section) demonstrated the culturally specific ways in which talk is organized, foregrounding the “subrosa literacies” and “language prowess” of minoritized students that are often invisibilized in school (Schieffelin and Gilmore 1986). Moreover, this emerging socioeducational linguistic tradition was committed to “social justice and . . . the people for whom and with whom the ethnographic work was done” (Gilmore, cited in Hornberger 2002, para 4). A related line of ethnographic inquiry centered on bilingual education. In 1968, the U.S. Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) as a Title VII amendment to the ESEA. Although the BEA opened up new possibilities for innovative programs that used children’s first language as the medium of instruction, like the ESEA itself, the BEA was compensatory in nature. Six years after its passage, the Supreme Court heard a class action suit brought against the San Francisco School District alleging that 1,800 Chinese American students were being denied an equal education because the district was not providing adequate second language support. The Court’s ruling in Lau v. Nichols extended Brown, arguing that school integration does not ensure equality of opportunity if students lack access to the medium of instruction. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Education issued the “Lau Remedies,” which included (but did not require) bilingual-bicultural education programs. In the post-Lau BEA era, educational and linguistic anthropologists joined in many fruitful ethnographic endeavors that illuminated the possibilities for such education programs. Prime examples include Trueba, Guthrie, and Au’s (1981) Culture and the Bilingual Classroom, the California State Department of Education’s (1986) Beyond Language: Social and Cultural Factors in Schooling Language Minority Students, Cazden and Leggett’s (1978) Culturally Responsive Education: A Discussion of Lau Remedies II, and a 1977 theme issue of Anthropology and Education Quarterly exploring the relationship between qualitative and quantitative research methodologies in education, including a section on language assessment (see Cazden et al. 1977; Hymes 25

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1977; Shuy 1977). This work demonstrated the fallacy of measuring the effectiveness of bilingual education by looking narrowly at students’ English-language performance without taking into account the culture of the classroom and community. As Foley (2005, 355) writes, these ethnographic accounts highlighted “cognitive and sociolinguistic notions of culture and . . . advocate[d] a sociolinguistic version of educational ethnography as innovative and useful.” In brief, this was the intellectual, political, and pedagogical firmament in which ethnographic studies of language in education were seeded. Together, these braided strands of educational and linguistic anthropology underpin what Hornberger (2001, 13) calls an “inclusive, sociocultural view of language in education,” laying a theoretical and methodological foundation for educational linguistics as a comprehensive field of studies.

Core Issues and Key Findings When Bernard Spolsky introduced educational linguistics in 1978, he cited the “language barrier” as a core issue for the emerging field. Drawing on his work with the Navajo Reading Study at the University of New Mexico, Spolsky wrote that, “A major portion of any child’s education is concerned with modifying [his/her] language, enriching, adding, or suppressing a variety” (1978, 7). Working in Philadelphia’s urban public schools, Dell Hymes and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania framed the issues in a slightly different, but complementary, way. “A latent function of the educational system is to instill linguistic insecurity, to discriminate linguistically, to channel children in ways that have an integral linguistic component, while appearing open and fair to all” (Hymes (1996 [1975], 84). These statements foreground a major artery of ethnographic research: investigating how linguistic diversity is constructed as a resource or a problem in schools and society. For discussion purposes, I organize this section into “micro” and “macro” frames of reference, recognizing, as Philips (1993 [1983], xv) points out, that macroanalysis and microethnography “are commonly carried out together.” Microethnographic research has addressed “the ways in which dominant-subordinant relationships are formed in face-to-face interaction” (Philips 1993 [1983], xvi). Macroethnographic research has focused on sociolinguistic processes at the level of groups, institutions, and polities. As we will see, both approaches are co-dependent, and both situate “the exercise of power in practice” (Philips 1993 [1983], xvi). Heath’s (1983) Ways with Words—extending Hymes’s notion of ways of speaking—was among the first book-length ethnographic accounts to address these issues. Prior to Heath’s fieldwork, research had begun to point out differences between the structures of “Black English Vernacular” (BEV) and so-called “standard” English. Based on long-term fieldwork with African American and working and middle class White families in the Piedmont Carolinas, Heath argued that the disjunction between the socialization processes in which BEV is acquired and the communicative practices within the culture of the school simultaneously blind teachers to their African American students’ language competencies and leave those students unprepared for the communicative practices they encounter in school. Heath (1986) subsequently examined language socialization among Chinese American families and recent immigrants from Mexico. Among Chinese American parents, the question-asking routines (factual questions and control of topics) and other cultural expectations reinforced those their children encountered in schools. Among families from Mexico, adults tended not to give sequential orders or ask “children to verbalize what they are doing as they work” (Heath 1986, 161)—practices privileged in school-based pedagogies. Heath glossed these practices as genre—larger discursive units into which smaller units such as conversations and directives are 26

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subsumed. The challenge Heath posed for language educators was to critically examine how closely the genres of the home approximate those of the school. Philips (1993 [1983]) reached similar conclusions about Warm Springs Indian students in Oregon, using long-term, in-depth participant observation and interviewing to document childadult interaction patterns, which she called participant structures, inside and outside of school. Warm Springs children, Philips maintained, are socialized in culturally distinctive ways that emphasize listening and observing over talking and speaking up, sharing control versus hierarchical structures, and voluntary versus involuntary participation in group activities. These “invisible” cultural differences in the regulation of talk, as well as dialect differences, caused teachers to misunderstand their Indian pupils, or to define what they heard as unacceptable (Philips 1993 [1983], 127). Erickson and Mohatt (1988) tested Philips’ hypothesis, using direct observation, videotaping, and interviews of a Native and White teacher on a Northern Ontario reserve. These researchers found significant differences in the pacing of classroom activities, time allocated to teacher- versus student-directed activity, and the timing and pitch of communication, and tied these patterns to differential “interactional etiquette” in the Native community and the school. More than “formal, explicit patterning,” Erickson and Mohatt argued, culture involves the tacit rules and “ways of acting in everyday life” (1988, 167). Researchers from the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) took this work a step further, using ethnographic data on Native Hawaiian child language socialization to design an English language arts program modeled after an Indigenous Hawaiian oral narrative style called “talk story,” which emphasizes cooperative participation structures and co-narration (Vogt, Jordan, and Tharp 1993). These pedagogical changes led to dramatic improvements in Native Hawaiian students’ English language learning and academic achievement, despite the fact that the language of the classroom did not match the Hawaiian Creole spoken at home. KEEP researchers subsequently implemented the same approach with Navajo students at Rough Rock, Arizona, where they found that KEEP strategies required significant modification to accommodate Navajo children’s discursive styles. The inference from these studies is that educational interventions based on ethnographic knowledge must be context specific, and that such “specific cultural compatibility contributes to [a program’s] educational effectiveness” (Vogt et al. 1993, 63). In Tucson, Arizona, the Funds of Knowledge for Teaching project illustrated the power of teachers’ ethnographic research to transform education practice. The project began in the late 1980s as a collaboration between university-based anthropologists and school-based educators to study literacy practices within Mexican American households. Conducting interviews with parents and participating in the everyday life of households, the research team elicited household knowledge essential for household functioning. In after-school study groups, teachers engaged in critical reflection on their research, applying these insights to develop curricula that incorporated the linguistic and cultural capital their students brought to school. The research process itself also established more trusting relationships between households and schools, as parental knowledge and skills became the foundation for teaching innovations (González, Moll, and Amanti 2005). These are just a few examples of the influential microethnographic studies that have addressed the ways in which power relations are constructed through linguistic practice in and out of school. A complementary body of macroethnographic scholarship has focused on how explicit and implicit language education policies reflect and reproduce those power relationships. In 1988, Hornberger published a case study of bilingual education policy and practice in Puno, Peru. Focusing on the relationship between official policy and local language practices, she 27

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explored whether schools can be effective agents for language maintenance. At the center of the analysis were local language uses and ideologies that positioned Quechua as the extra-school or home-community language, and Spanish as the language of schooling. At the same time, the decreasing isolation and low social status of Quechua speakers mitigated against the ayllu or community-level language transmission nexus, while problems of local implementation and government instability undermined macro-level policies for Quechua maintenance. This study was among the first to demonstrate that while official, macro-level policies can open up what Hornberger (2006) later termed “ideological and implementational spaces” for bi/multilingual education, those policies are not unproblematically adopted by local social actors and may fail without local-level support. Building on Hornberger’s work, King (2001) used ethnography to examine revitalization prospects for Quichua in Ecuador. Adopting an ethnography of communication approach, King compared two Quichua communities, one (urban) in which a shift to Spanish was advanced, and another (rural) that was rapidly moving from Quichua to Spanish. Despite Ecuador’s official policy of bilingual-intercultural education, for members of both communities, “Quichua remain[ed] on the periphery of their daily lives” (King 2001, 185). The school affords “an important foothold” for Quichua maintenance, King concluded, but is insufficient to overcome the extreme economic and social pressures favoring Spanish. Based on ethnographic research conducted over a 20-year period in the Navajo community of Rough Rock (discussed above), my own research analyzed the interaction of federal Indian policy with bilingual-bicultural program implementation in the first American Indian community-controlled school (McCarty 2002). Through a fortuitous (and fleeting) alignment of top-down government legislation and grassroots Indigenous political activism, Rough Rock emerged as the first Native American community to take charge of the local school and to embrace the Indigenous language and culture as both a right and a resource for children’s learning. Highlighting the realities of the Indigenous self-determination movement as it confronts a powerful neocolonial federal bureaucracy, this work has shown that bilingual-bicultural schooling can be a critical resource in local communities’ fight for educational, linguistic, and cultural self-determination. Over the past two decades, numerous other studies have taken an ethnographic approach to the study of language and literacy policy: Davis (1994) conducted an ethnography of communication in multilingual Luxembourg; May (1994) researched Māori educational reform at Richmond Road School in Aotearoa/New Zealand; Freeman (1998) undertook a discourse-analytic study of the successful Oyster Bilingual School in Washington, DC; Aikman (1999) explored intercultural education and mother tongue literacy among the Arakmbut in the Peruvian Amazon; Heller (1999) presented a sociolinguistic ethnography of French-speaking adolescents in English-speaking Canada; Jaffe (1999) examined language politics in Corsica; Patrick (2003) investigated Indigenous-language persistence in a quadrilingual Inuktitut-Cree-French-English community in Arctic Québec; Ramanathan (2005) undertook a critical ethnography of vernacular-medium education in Gujarat, India; Meek (2010) conducted an ethnography of language revitalization in a Canadian Northern Athapaskan community; and Wyman (2012) analyzed Yup’ik youth culture and language endangerment in Alaska. Multiple edited volumes using ethnographic approaches have provided what Hymes called “contrastive insight” to these individual case studies: Hornberger (1996) examined “bottom-up” language planning in the Americas; Henze and Davis (1999) explored language planning and identity in the Pacific Rim; and Cangarajah (2006), Heller and Martin-Jones (2001), Street (1995), and García, Skutnabb-Kangas, and Torres-Guzmán (2006) offered comparative studies of language planning and policy (LPP) in multilingual settings around the world. 28

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Research Approaches A “Way of Looking”: Ethnographic Methods The English word ethnography derives from the Greek ethos (people) and grapho (to write). Ethnography is “writing about people.” As the previous sections have stressed, however, ethnography is more than “mere description”; it is “description in specific, methodologically and epistemologically grounded ways” (Blommaert and Jie 2010, 6). Wolcott (2008) refers to this as a “way of looking.” A central expectation is that the researcher is the primary research instrument, not in the sense of an antiseptic tool, but by being there in person, over an extended period of time, as a learner and an interpreter of situated human activity. As a way of looking, ethnographic methods can be described as experiencing (participant observation), enquiring (interviewing), and examining (analyzing documents and artifacts) (Wolcott 2008, 48–50). Participant observation—“learning through . . . involvement in the day-to-day . . . activities of participants in the research setting”—is the starting point of ethnographic research (Schensul and LeCompte 2013, 83). Participant observation involves engaging appropriately in the social situation; observing the activities, people, and physical aspects of the situation; and recording those observations in a systematic way, typically in field notes supplemented by audio and video recordings (Spradley 1980). Hymes (1974) proposed this SPEAKING mnemonic for recording observations of communicative interaction: • • • • • • • •

the physical and psychological Setting or Scene, the Participants the Ends or goals of the communicative act, the Act sequence or order, the Key or tone, the Instrumentalities or forms and styles of speech, the Norms governing communicative interaction, and the Genre or category of communication (e.g., oration, lecture, joking, etc.).

Ethnographers typically have multiple participant observer roles, as illustrated in Meek’s (2010) study of language revitalization in a Yukon Kaska community. Working as an educator and child development specialist in the local Aboriginal Head Start program, a teaching assistant in Kaska language workshops, and a student of the Kaska language, her research “emerged from these multiple positions, in dialogue with bureaucrats, language professionals, local individuals, and families” (Meek 2010, xviii). Ethnographers may also participate as cultural insiders, as exemplified by Ramanathan’s (2005) study of classed and gendered language pedagogies in three colleges within Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India; Nicholas’s (2014) study of language ideologies and practices among Hopi youth in Arizona; and Lee’s (2014) study of “critical language awareness” among Navajo and Pueblo young adults in New Mexico. Such roles evolve over months and even years, as illustrated by Heath’s involvement with the Carolina Piedmont families she began following in 1969. As she wrote in a follow-up study published more than four decades later, this long-term involvement means that ethnographic accounts differ “with each passing moment, new purpose, and favored vantage point” (Heath 2012, 7). Hence, there is never a “finished” ethnographic story or single “true account” (Toohey 2008, 182); all ethnographic accounts are situated, perspectival, and partial. Whereas participant observation attends “to the flow of natural activity” (Wolcott 2008, 49), interviewing is a more direct data collection strategy. Ethnographic interviews often include 29

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casual conversations recorded in the course of participant observation; they may also be framed as structured or semi-structured protocols carried out one-on-one with key individuals or in small groups. Ethnographic interviews are typically open-ended, allowing for flexibility, dialogue, and the possibility of unexpected findings. Interview data are recorded in field notes and by audiotaping and/or videotaping, and are transcribed in written form. The third “way of looking”—examining—involves the collection of document or archival data. In a recent study of Indigenous youth language practices and ideologies, for example, my co-researchers and I collected school mission statements, teachers’ lesson plans, school curriculum documents, student writing samples, and school-community demographic records (McCarty Romero-Little, Warhol, and Zepeda 2013). Experiencing, enquiring, and examining may be further supplemented by surveys or questionnaires, censusing, social mapping, quantitative measures such as student achievement data, and elicitation techniques. In a study of Welsh vocational college students’ biliteracy practices, for instance, Martin-Jones (2011) asked the students to compile diaries of their literacy practices and to take photographs of literacy events in the college and in their workplaces. Using these artifacts as prompts, participants were then interviewed about their reading and writing practices in the different settings. Finding through these methods a “mismatch between college and workplace literacies,” Martin-Jones worked with the students’ tutors “to harness . . . the characteristics of the young people’s out-of-college literacies” in the tutors’ teaching practice (2011, 249). In another study of language use among teens attending a large multilingual-multiethnic high school in London, Rampton employed an omni-directional microphone to record lessons, later replaying the recordings in interviews with students “to elicit retrospective commentary . . . on what had been happening, said and done” (2006, 32). He also asked four students to wear radio microphones for several hours each day over 11 days. This data “trawling” enabled Rampton to engage in “extensive listening” and generated an abundance of “contrastive insights” into the official classroom talk and students’ more informal discursive practices (2006, 32–33). Ethnographic analysis begins the moment the ethnographer enters the field and continues through the writing of the final report (LeCompte and Schensul 2013). Regardless of the analysis strategy employed—narrative analysis, thematic analysis, within-case or cross-case analysis, discourse analysis, or other approaches—the goal is to situate linguistic and educational processes within the larger sociocultural context of which they are part. In their examination of bilingual education policy and practice in officially English-only California, Stritikus and Weise (2006) refer to this as “deep dish analysis,” a positioning that enables the ethnographer to move beyond top-down policies to the level of teachers’ practice where policy actually takes shape. Similarly, in a seminal collection of articles on LPP for English language-teaching professionals, Ricento and Hornberger (1996) use an onion metaphor to describe these multilayered processes: The outer layers of the onion represent broader policy processes, and the inner layers represent local policy accommodations, resistances, and transformations as they occur in everyday practice. By “slicing the onion ethnographically” (Hornberger and Johnson 2007), researchers can attend to the fine-grained detail of each layer and its position within an organic whole.

New Debates Two simultaneous and seemingly paradoxical 21st-century forces shape current ethnographic work in educational linguistics. On the one hand is intensified (trans)migration resulting from massive global flows of people, information, capital, and technology. These processes create what 30

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scholars have called “super-diversity” (Blommaert 2011)—globalized urban neighborhoods and virtual spaces characterized by multilayered and crisscrossing cultural, linguistic, religious, national, and racial/ethnic identifications. On the other hand is the mounting worldwide endangerment of human linguistic and cultural diversity, as the same globalizing forces serve to standardize and homogenize, even as they stratify and marginalize. Language endangerment is particularly grave for Indigenous peoples, who, although they constitute 4% of the world’s population, speak 75% of the world’s languages. These processes call for rethinking anthropological notions of culture in ways that recognize that “multiple cultures can exist in one space and . . . one culture can be produced in different spaces,” and for reconceptualizing language as mobile sociolinguistic resources and repertoires (Blommaert 2011, 63). This in turn has implications for our understandings of what constitutes speakerhood, language fluency, and speech communities. As Moore (2012, 59) describes the issues, the existence of both super-diversity and language endangerment “complicate inherited notions of the unitary, fully fluent . . . native speaker as . . . the normal starting point for description and analysis.” The simultaneity of super-diversity and language endangerment also complicates the micromacro analytical distinctions discussed in previous sections and related conceptions of the local and the global. In a recent theme issue of Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Wortham suggests that micro and macro have outlived their utility as explanatory tools and argues for pushing beyond these heuristics to engage more directly with “complex multiscale realities” (2012, 135). In an example of this, Warriner (2012), in the same theme issue, presents a study of the language ideologies of refugee women in a U.S. English-as-a-second-language program. Her fine-grained analysis of the women’s life narratives shows how these micro-level speech acts interrupt oppressive macro-level ideological, historical, and institutional constraints on their language practices and life opportunities. A related stream of ethnographic work has investigated the ways in which globalizing forces are taken up and reconfigured in local language practices and ideologies—what Hornberger and McCarty (2012) call “globalization from the bottom up.” In an ethnographic analysis of bilingual education in Mozambique, for example, Chimbutane and Benson (2012) show how local appropriations of top-down curricular reforms open up new spaces for the promotion of Indigenous languages and cultures. Working in a South African undergraduate language program, Joseph and Ramani (2012) show, similarly, how a focus on additive multilingualism in teacher preparation can unseat the hegemony of English within the “new globalism.” In these and other ethnographic cases, relatively small-scale education reformulations create new options through which marginalized languages historically constructed as “traditional” (and hence not useful in the global economy) can be resignified as “modern” (Joseph and Ramani 2012, 32). Recent youth language research further illuminates these “complex multiscale realities” (Wortham 2012) and their implications for education. Recognizing that youth, like adults, act as agents, this research examines youth’s “emic views, language ideologies, and identities [to] provide insights into how social and political processes are lived and constructed through language use” (Wyman, McCarty, and Nicholas 2014, 4). Paris (2011), for example, looked at youth language practices in a multiethnic high school in the western United States. Building on Rampton’s (1995) classic ethnographic study of youth linguistic “crossing” (see also Rampton 2006, discussed above), Paris explored language sharing—“momentary and sustained uses of . . . the language traditionally ‘belonging’ to another group [and] ratified as appropriate by its traditional speakers” (Paris 2011, 14). Understanding such processes, Paris maintains, helps us see the sociocultural, sociopolitical, and sociolinguistic forces that alternately reinforce or cut across 31

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ethnic divisions “toward spaces of interethnic unity” (2011, 16)—a requirement, he argues, for a pluralistic society. This research also foregrounds the ways in which youth “translanguage,” a term used by García to explain the heteroglossic language practices she observed in urban bilingual classrooms. Translanguaging goes beyond code switching and involves the “multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds” (García 2009, 44). Although García’s use of the term is situated in “super-diverse” urban spaces, ethnographic research with Indigenous youth in semi-urban and reservation and village settings shows the salience of this construct, and related notions of linguistic hybridity and heteroglossia, for understanding dynamic processes of language shift and endangerment. In the large-scale study of Indigenous youth language ideologies and practices discussed above, for instance, my co-researchers and I found that, contrary to educators’ perceptions of youth as disinterested in their heritage language and of Indigenous languages as largely absent from their daily lives, Native youth were growing up in highly complex sociolinguistic environments that included multiple languages and language varieties to which they had differential exposure and in which they had differential receptive and productive abilities— sociolinguistic resources that might be marshalled for Indigenous-language reclamation, but which, for the most part, went undetected or were stigmatized in school (McCarty et al. 2013). Studies by Nicholas (2014) with Hopi youth, Lee (2014) with Navajo and Pueblo youth and young adults, Messing (2014) with Mexicano (Nahuatl) young adults, and Wyman (2012) with Yup’ik youth in Alaska, shows how young people translanguage and negotiate “mixed messages” about the value of their heritage language in sociolinguistic environments undergoing rapid language shift. These studies problematize yet another set of binaries: “speaker” versus “non-speaker,” “fluent” versus “non-fluent,” and “extinct” versus “living” with reference to languages (Leonard, 2011; McCarty et al. 2013, 173). The studies also provide nuanced ethnographic portraits of the often “closeted” multilingual repertoires of Indigenous and minoritized youth. As Wyman et al. write, these studies demonstrate the fallacy of deficit assumptions of youth linguistic practices, highlighting “the sociolinguistic strengths of heritage language learners in settings of language endangerment” (2014, xx). Three additional lines of ethnographic inquiry are important here. The first concerns the lingering debate on the role of schools in structuring diversity in complex sociolinguistic ecologies, and specifically whether schools can serve as resources for the reclamation and maintenance of endangered mother tongues. Since Hornberger’s groundbreaking (1988) ethnographic study of these issues for Quechua in Peru, a great deal of ethnographic effort has been poured into answering this question (for a treatment across four continents, see Hornberger 2008; for an analysis of the U.S. and Canada, see McCarty and Nicholas 2014). It seems clear from this research that, while schools cannot substitute for intergenerational language transmission in the family, when aligned with other social institutions, schools can reinforce, in significant ways, family- and community-based efforts. Moreover, when we look around the world, we find few examples of successful language revitalization in which schools have not played a prominent role. A recent strand of research growing out of this work asks whether schools can promote the dual goals of language revitalization and enhanced academic achievement among Indigenous/ minoritized students. As Hill and May (2011) observe with reference to Māori-medium schooling, “[T]here remains a dearth of information on the factors that contribute to the educational effectiveness of such programs” (162). Drawing on ethnographic research at the Rakaumangamanga School in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hill and May show the efficacy of “high” levels of Māori-language immersion (i.e., instruction through the Indigenous language for 80–100% of the school day) alongside careful planning of English-language instruction in achieving the goal of full Māori-English bilingualism and biliteracy. Programs such as this also show the value 32

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of building on Indigenous/minoritized students’ linguistic hybridity as a resource rather than treating hybridity as a liability for learning in school. A final line of inquiry concerns the role of education practitioners in the LPP process. A decade after Ricento and Hornberger (1996) placed English language teaching professionals at the center of the LPP “onion,” Ramanathan and Morgan (2007, 447) offered a reconsideration of the “everyday contexts in which [language] policies are interpreted and negotiated.” Emphasizing practitioner agency and a view of policy texts as “multifaceted signs . . . whose interpretations and enactments rest in our hands,” these comparative case studies afford “glimpses into complex interplays between policies, pedagogic practices, instructional constraints, and migrations” (Ramanathan and Morgan 2007, 451, 459). A growing body of ethnographic research positions educators “at the epicenter” of the LPP process, as researchers move “beyond top-down, bottom-up, or even side-by-side divisions to a conceptualization of language policy as a far more dynamic, interactive, and real-life process” (Menken and García 2010, 4). All of these studies contribute to the New Language Policy Studies, a paradigmatic shift away from conventional treatments of policy as disembodied text to a view of policy as a situated sociocultural process: “the complex of practices, ideologies, attitudes, and formal and informal mechanisms that influence people’s language choices in profound and pervasive everyday ways” (McCarty, Collins, and Hopson 2012, 335). Influenced by Hymes’s (1980) emphasis on “ethnographic monitoring” and on language-in-use, this theoretical perspective helps us understand the diffuse bases of linguistic inequalities in education. Perhaps even more importantly, this critical sociocultural, processual view of language policy guides us to new possibilities for transforming those inequalities (McCarty 2011)—a topic I turn to next.

Implications for Education A “Way of Being”: Ethnography as a Form of Praxis From Mead’s early contributions to the anthropology of education, to the ethnography of communication, to recent work addressing the “complex multiscale realities” (Wortham 2012) and “chronicles of complexity” (Blommaert 2013) of super-diversity, language endangerment, and practitioners’ roles in the LPP “onion,” ethnography has afforded rich, multilayered insights into the ways in which linguistic diversity is constructed as a problem or a resource in schools and society. Those insights stem from a distinctive “way of seeing” through a holistic cultural lens and a “way of looking” firsthand, up-close, and over extended periods of time. By “casting an ethnographic eye on language . . . at the individual, classroom, school, community, regional, national, and global levels,” Hornberger and Johnson (2007, 24) observe, researchers can “uncover the indistinct voices, covert motivations, embedded ideologies, invisible instances, or unintended consequences” of language policies and pedagogies as they are manifest in particular sociocultural and educational contexts. In an era of growing global diversity, we are witness to language education policies designed to curb and control diversity through reductive literacy practices and, especially in the United States, the banning of languages other than English in schools. In this political and educational climate, ethnography and qualitative approaches in general have been marginalized in official policy discourse, which privileges English-only standardized tests and large-scale random clinical trials. Yet ethnography—and ethnographers—have a crucial role to play in this policy environment. As a form of knowledge production, ethnography is intrinsically democratizing, as its primary goal—to “learn the meanings, norms, and patterns of a way of life” (Hymes 1980, 98)—is precisely what people do everyday. Ethnography, therefore, has the potential to break down 33

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hierarchies between the “knower” and the “known,” and to bring local stakeholders—education practitioners and community members, including youth—directly into the research process. Doing this requires exercising what Wyman et al. (2014, 18) call triple vision: an ethnographic stance that forwards academic, youth, and broader community concerns. This commitment to praxis represents the third pillar in the contributions of ethnography to education—a clear values position that puts ethnography to practical use. In this “way of being,” researchers intentionally dislodge allegedly value-free methodologies, replacing them with grounded forms of collaborative critical inquiry. Taking such a research stance requires that ethnographers work in partnership with local stakeholders, using the unique tools of our discipline to illuminate not only the injustices in language education, but the concrete possibilities for positive change.

References Aikman, S. 1999. Intercultural Education and Literacy: An Ethnographic Study of Indigenous Knowledge and Learning in the Peruvian Amazon. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Blommaert, J. 2011. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. 2013. Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J., and Jie, D. 2010. Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. California State Department of Education. 1986. Beyond Language: Social and Cultural Factors in Schooling Language Minority Students. Sacramento: California State Department of Education, Bilingual Education Office. Canagarajah, S. 2006. ‘Ethnographic Methods in Language Policy’, in T. Ricento (Ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method (pp. 153–169). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Cazden, C. B., Bond, J. T., Epstein, A. S., Matz, R. D., and Savignon, S. J. 1977. Language Assessment: Where, What and How, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 8(2), 83–91. Cazden, C. B., John, V. P., and Hymes, D. (Eds.) 1972. Functions of Language in the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Cazden, C. B., and Leggett, E. L. 1978. Culturally Responsive Education: A Discussion of Lau Remedies II. Los Angeles, CA: National Dissemination and Assessment Center. Chimbutane, F., and Benson, C. 2012. ‘Expanded Spaces for Mozambican Languages in Primary Education: Where Bottom-Up Meets Top-Down’, International Multilingual Research Journal, 6(1), 8–21. Davis, K. A. 1994. Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts. Amersterdam: John Benjamins. Erickson, F., and Mohatt, G. 1988. ‘Cultural Organization of Participation Structures in Two Classrooms of Indian Students’, in G. Spindler (Ed.), Doing the Ethnography of Schooling (pp. 132–174). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Foley, D. 2005. ‘Enrique Trueba: A Latino Critical Ethnographer for the Ages’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 354–366. Freeman, R. 1998. Bilingual Education and Social Change. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. García, O. 2009. Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T., and Torres-Guzmán, M. (Eds.) 2006. Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Glocalization. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Geertz, C. 1983. Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books. Gilmore, P., and Glatthorn, A. A. (Eds.) 1982. Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education. Washington, DC: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Center for Applied Linguistics. González, N. 1999. ‘What Will We Do When Culture Does Not Exist Anymore?’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 30(4), 431–435. González, N., Moll, L. C., and Amanti, C. (Eds.) 2005. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Green, J., and Wallat, C. (Eds.) 1981. Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Gumperz, J., and Hymes, D. (Eds.) 1972. Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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3 Methodologies of Language Policy Research David Cassels Johnson and Thomas Ricento

Historical Perspectives The field of language planning and policy (LPP hereafter) started as something that linguists did, rather than something that was studied. In the 1960s, language scholars were recruited to help solve the language problems of new, developing, and postcolonial nations. These linguists helped develop grammars, writing systems, and dictionaries for Indigenous languages; out of this, an interest in how best to develop the form of a language—i.e. corpus planning—grew. Einar Haugen introduced the term language planning in 1959, defining it as “the activity of preparing a normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community” (Haugen 1959, 8). What Haugen describes is now referred to as corpus planning, which includes activities related to the manipulation of the forms of a language. Another focus is how a society can best allocate functions and/or uses for particular languages, known as status planning, a distinction introduced by Kloss (1969). To this distinction in the field, Cooper (1989) added acquisition planning, a term meant to capture language teaching and other educational activities designed to increase the users or uses of a language. One of the challenges for the field has been the relationship between language policy and the term that preceded it, language planning. Most would agree that language policy and language planning are closely related, but different, activities. Some argue that language planning subsumes language policy (Kaplan and Baldauf, 1997) while others argue that language policy subsumes language planning (Schiffman 1996). Our focus here is language policy because, within accepted definitions of language planning, there is an assumption that some intentional language planning takes place; however, there are many examples of language policy that are not intentional and/or not planned. Still, we use LPP both out of respect for the tradition of research that gave rise to the field (language planning) and because the two fields have, for all intents and purposes, coalesced into one (Hornberger 2006). While the field of LPP evolved primarily within applied and sociolinguistics, educational language policy research also draws from critical theory, education studies, sociology, and anthropology, creating a notable interdisciplinarity, although one of its primary homes is certainly educational linguistics. Spolsky (1978, 2) defined the field of educational linguistics as one that “start[s] with a specific problem and then looks to linguistics and other relevant disciplines for 38

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their contribution to its solution.” Hornberger (2001, 19) further articulated the aims of the field, in which “the starting point is always the practice of education and the focus is squarely on (the role of) language (in) learning and teaching.” We might expand upon Hornberger’s definition, to include an emphasis on the role of language policy in learning and teaching. Indeed, the interaction between language policies and educational practices, particularly for minority and Indigenous language users, is a vibrant area of research within educational linguistics. More recently, Spolsky (2010, 2) has argued that educational linguistics “provides the essential instruments for designing language education policy and for implementing language education management.” Not only has LPP research, and more specifically educational language policy research, been located within the field of educational linguistics, but, Spolsky suggests, the field provides guidance for those who design and implement language policies and plans; thus, not only is LPP research grounded in educational linguistics, but so is LPP practice. The field of LPP is not lacking in theoretical robustness, but the connections between all of the various theories and frameworks are not always clear. Ricento (2006, 17) argues that this theoretical fragmentation means that there is not, as yet, “some grand theory which explains patterns of language behavior . . . or can predict the effects of specific language policies on language behavior.” While there is perhaps no grand theory, there are traditions of research that proffer important concepts, frameworks, methods, and theoretical developments. As mentioned, early language planning scholarship focused on developing frameworks for status and corpus planning. Much of this early research purported to divorce the supposedly objective science of language planning from the ideological and sociopolitical reality of language use. For example, Tauli (1974) avers that languages can be categorized objectively according to usefulness or efficiency and “ethnic languages” are not good candidates for language planning. Similarly, if less forcefully, Kloss argues that certain languages are more suitable for national development (Kloss 1968). While Tauli’s ideas were the subject of criticism (Jernudd and Das Gupta 1971), there was still at that time a reluctance to consider the role of ideology in language planning; for example, Cobarrubias (1983, 6) argues that “language-status decisions are affected by ideological considerations of powerful groups and counteracting forces. However, we should not saddle the theory with ideological considerations.” Ricento (2000) argues that early language planning research helped facilitate the continued dominance of European colonial languages because they were the languages that were invariably more suitable for high status domains like education and technology. He divides the intellectual history of the field into three stages: (1) classic language planning, as explained above, (2) critical language policy (explained below), and (3) an intermediary stage, lasting from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. During this time, interests expanded beyond the corpus/status distinction, and many language planning scholars, including those who were active in the first era, began to question the viability of earlier models of language planning. Many scholars within the field began to look more closely at language planning and policy as ideological processes. For example, an influential proposal comes from Ruiz (1984) in his article entitled “Orientations in Language Planning,” in which he lays out a tripartite set of goals, or ‘orientations,’ as he calls them, of language planning in education, which he argues can take a language-as-problem, language-as-right, or language-as-resource orientation toward minority languages. Ruiz (1984, 2) characterizes ‘orientations’ as “basic to language planning in that they delimit the ways we talk about language and language issues . . . they help to delimit the range of acceptable attitudes toward language, and to make certain attitudes legitimate. In short orientations determine what is thinkable about language in society.” The idea that language policies can hegemonically normalize particular ways of thinking, being, and/or educating, while concomitantly delimiting others, would become a feature of critical language policy and continues to be an important consideration within the field. 39

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While noting the importance of Ruiz’ contribution to the LPP literature with his orientations to language policy approach, Ricento (2005, 361) enumerates some of the limitations of the ‘language as resource’ orientation. He analyzes texts produced by organizations that advocate the teaching and learning of heritage languages in the United States, and finds that in these texts “language-as-resource is connected to particular dominant sociopolitical agendas, namely national security, trade, and law enforcement” rather than the interests, needs, and aspirations of the communities of speakers of heritage languages. Languages are reduced to commodities with very particular instrumental value, and in the case of the United States, federal support is provided for the teaching and learning of languages important to U.S. global military and economic interests. Ricento concludes that advocacy groups, in their discourse at least, may be complicit with unstated agendas that help maintain social arrangements and values that support policies not particularly favorable to linguistic diversity as intrinsically good or as a national resource, where ‘national’ tends to exclude non-English languages and cultures (364). Tollefson (1991) distinguishes between what he calls the neo-classical approach—which he characterizes as claiming to be scientifically neutral and dominated by an interest in the individual— and the historical-structural approach, which instead focuses on the social and historical influences that give rise to language policies. Language policy is expressly political and ideological in Tollefson’s (1991) conceptualization: “[L]anguage policy is viewed as one mechanism by which the interests of dominant sociopolitical groups are maintained and the seeds of transformation are developed” (Tollefson 1991, 32). Tollefson later (2006) reformulated this as Critical Language Policy (CLP). Much language policy scholarship is concerned with the relationship between discourses, ideologies, power and language policies, whether it is called “Critical Language Policy” or not, and the notion that language policies create social inequality among dominant and minority language users is a central tenet in the field (e.g., Phillipson 2003; Shohamy 2006). CLP scholarship has helped reveal connections between language policy and power and has reshaped the field, but it has also been criticized for being too deterministic (see Ricento and Hornberger 1996) and for not capturing LPP processes (see Davis 1999). Within the last two decades, especially, there has been a growing interest in ethnographic and discourse analytic research methods that capture language policy processes across multiple layers of activity and within diverse contexts (macro, meso, and micro). For example, Hornberger and Johnson (2007, 2011) argue for the relevance of ethnography of language policy as an LPP research method and theory for examining the agents, contexts, and processes across the multiple layers of language policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation. Other volumes by McCarty (2011) and Menken and García (2010) feature research that is grounded in ethnographic, discourse analytic, and other ‘on the ground approaches’ and focuses on the agency of teachers as well as the power of policy. This work has contributed greatly to the field of educational linguistics because it examines how language policies relate to educational practice and how micro-level language policies emerge within a community or school.

Core Issues and Key Findings Johnson (2013a) offers a series of findings, which we synthesize and summarize here: Language policy agents have power. Critical scholarship has shown that educational institutions enforce hegemonic language policies that marginalize minority languages and their users (e.g., Tollefson 2012a). However, other research focuses on how educators resist topdown language policy or interpret and appropriate it in unexpected and creative ways. For example, in her study of educational language policy in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR),

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Cincotta-Segi (2009, 2011) shows how Lao educational policy positions the Lao language and culture as crucial to political and moral unity and ignores non-Lao cultures and languages. Furthermore, ministry of education officials assume that official Lao-dominated discourses will be reproduced by teachers, especially given the lack of materials and curricula in anything but Lao language. However, Cincotta-Segi (2009) finds that the teachers often still incorporate nonLao languages to benefit their students: “This research has demonstrated for the first time in the Lao context that while teachers do reproduce the official discourses through particular classroom language practices, this reproduction is never total and in some cases is eclipsed by strong adaptations and contestations” (321). Language policy power is differentially allocated among arbiters and implementers. Menken (2008) uses the term “arbiter” to characterize the power of teachers as the ultimate decision-makers in how a policy is implemented. E. Johnson (2012) and D. Johnson (2013c) expand on this notion and describe all individuals with potentially powerful influence on the language policy process as language policy arbiters. While LPP is a multi-layered process, and teachers may be the ultimate arbiters in classroom implementation of policy, language policy power is differentially allocated across, and within, educational institutions, contexts, and layers of language policy activity. For example, Johnson (2010) reveals how a change in one U.S. school district leadership position led to a drastic change in language policy for the entire district, transitioning from a focus on the value of bilingualism to an emphasis on acquisition of English. The power of the language policy arbiter is such that they have a singular impact on educational activities within the institutions and contexts they have contact with. National language policies restrict access to languages and language education. National language policies can and do restrict particular languages and marginalize their users within, and outside of, educational contexts. Many historical examples can be cited, including the subjugation of American Indian languages in Indian Boarding Schools in the United States (McCarty 2002), suppression of Māori in New Zealand (May 2005), and the historical marginalization and suppression of Aboriginal languages in Canada (Ricento and Cervatiuc 2010). It is also the case that official recognition of a language, or languages, at the federal level can have negative consequences on the teaching and use of other ‘non official’ languages, even when non official languages are not proscribed and their speakers are free to use their languages in various domains. For example, Ricento (2013) shows how the establishment of Official Bilingualism (English and French) in Canada ‘unofficially’ marginalized languages that had been spoken by generations of Canadians and that had equal claims for official recognition at the time the Official Languages Act was passed in 1969. Official Bilingualism has had consequences on perceptions and policies with regard to the teaching and transmission of nonofficial languages and their communities of speakers in a number of ways. Eve Haque (2012, 18) notes that “membership in the Canadian nation is achieved through designation into one of four groups: English, French, Aboriginal, and ‘Multicultural,’” the latter a generic term for cultures and languages other than English and French. Canadian linguistic duality, with English as the dominant hegemonic language, is at odds with the popular metaphor of Canada as ‘a mosaic of languages and cultures’; thus, the national imaginary is at odds with the policy of Official Bilingualism, which does little to recognize or support the linguistic and cultural diversity that actually exists today in Canada. National multilingual language policies can and do open spaces for multilingual education and minority languages. Hornberger has long argued (and shown) that national language policies that value multilingualism as a resource can create openings for bilingual education which, in turn, promote indigenous and minority language use (Hornberger 2006, 2009).

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She has documented two such policies in South America: The Puno bilingual education project (PEEB) in Peru and Bolivia’s National Education Reform of 1994, both of which incorporate Indigenous language education into official policy text and discourse. Local multilingual language policies can and do open spaces for multilingual education and minority languages. Rebecca Freeman’s (1998, 2000, 2004) ethnographic and action-oriented research on bilingual education and language policy in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, has revealed how local language planning and policy can help sustain multilingual education in schools. Corson (1999) is a good guide in this respect. Meso-level educational language policies matter. We have observed this in the United States where language policy at the state level determines how a federal policy ends up being enacted in schools. For example, while Title III of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) appeared to diminish the opportunities for schools and school districts to expand bilingual education programs (see Wiley and Wright 2004), states have appropriated Title III in different ways. For example, while there is a great deal of research to suggest that bilingual programs have been sacrificed or weakened in many schools and school districts (see Menken and Shohamy 2008), there has been a steady increase in the number of bilingual education programs in Washington State.

Research Approaches Early language planning approaches have been criticized for being technocratic (e.g., Wiley 1999, 18) and positivist (e.g., Ricento 2000, 208) because they sought to divorce the objectivist “science” of language planning from its sociopolitical and ideological implications. Research in educational language policy, in particular—as well as research that directly contributes to educational language policy—has been epistemologically diverse, existing on a continuum between objectivist scientific studies of the relative effectiveness of language education programs (Thomas and Collier 2001) and neo-Marxist approaches that examine power in language policy processes (Tollefson 1991). Driving the objectivist strand is perhaps a pragmatism about how research can support language policies that promote multilingualism in schools; on the other hand, critical approaches take a more pessimistic view of how much agency is really granted to those who seek more egalitarian policies that promote multilingualism. LPP research methods are diverse and borrow from, among others, political and legal theory (May 2001; Schmid 2001), communication and media studies (Rickford 1999), linguistic anthropology (Mortimer 2013), economics (Grin 2003), and interpretive policy analysis (Yanow 2000). Therefore, the data of interest include a wide variety of language policy texts, discourses, and practices. There is a particular interest in finding connections between macro-level language policy texts and discourses and micro-level language behavior and educational practices—what Hult (2010) refers to as the perennial challenge for the field. This interest in the field has generated an expanding body of ‘on-the-ground’ research, with a focus on local educational and policy activities, and has primarily been supported by ethnographic and discourse analytic research methods. Hornberger and Johnson (2007) present the ethnography of language policy as a method that can illuminate and inform multiple types of language planning (status, corpus, and acquisition), illuminate and inform language policy processes (creation, interpretation, and appropriation), marry a critical approach with a focus on educator agency, and examine the connections across the various layers and levels of LPP activity, from the macro to the micro. Recent volumes that feature this type of work include McCarty (2011), Menken and García (2010), and Johnson (2013b). 42

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Johnson (2013a) presents a heuristic for the scope of data collection in ethnography of language policy: (1) agents—include both the creators of the policy and those responsible for policy interpretation and appropriation. (2) goals—refers to the intentions of the policy as stated in the policy text (3) processes—creation, interpretation, and appropriation of policy text and discourse (4) discourses that engender and perpetuate the policy—the discourses within and without the policy; i.e. the discourses (whether explicit or implicit) within the language policy texts, intertextual and interdiscursive connections to other policy texts and discourses, and the discursive power of a particular policy. (5) the dynamic social and historical contexts in which the policy exists—an ethnography of language policy is interested in the dynamic social, historical, and physical contexts in which language policies are created, interpreted, and appropriated. A great deal of language policy analysis is, essentially, discourse analysis since it involves looking at various policy texts (both spoken and written) and analyzing policy discourses that are instantiated within or engendered by the policy texts. Therefore, the increasing prevalence of discourse analytic studies in LPP is not surprising and includes, among others, conversation analysis (Bonacina 2010), Critical Discourse Analysis (Cincotta-Segi 2009; Johnson 2011; Ricento 2005), linguistic anthropology (Mortimer 2013), and Nexus Analysis (Hult 2010).

New Debates Structure vs. agency in schools. As mentioned, current work on language policy can be characterized by a tension between structure and agency, between critical theoretical work that focuses on the power invested in language policy to disenfranchise linguistic minorities (e.g., Tollefson 2012a; Yitzhaki 2010) and ethnographic and action-oriented research that emphasizes the powerful role that educators play in language policy processes (e.g., Menken and García 2010; Cincotta-Segi 2009). Critical scholarship has shown that educational institutions can facilitate the marginalization of minority languages and their users through implementation of hegemonic language policy; Shohamy (2006), for example, argues that top-down language policies are mechanisms that implement the hegemonic intentions of those in authority, a process that is facilitated by educators. However, other research focuses on how educators resist top-down language policy or interpret and appropriate it in unexpected and creative ways. As Mohanty, Panda, and Pal (2010, 228) argue: Teachers are not uncritical bystanders passively acquiescent of the state practice; in their own ways, they resist and contest the state policy or rather, in the Indian context, its absence and injustice by default. It is quite clear that the agency of the teachers in the classrooms makes them the final arbiter of the language education policy and its implementation. This tension is the subject of discussion in both Tollefson (2012b) and Johnson (2011), who agree that the difference between what Tollefson (2012b) calls the “historical-structural paradigm” and the “creative public sphere paradigm” is not theoretical but a matter of emphasis, and critical approaches are very much compatible with other approaches that do focus on grassroots movements and language policy agency—like ethnography of language policy—because both are committed to an agenda of social justice that resists dominant policy discourses that subjugate 43

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minority languages and their users. When combined, they offer an important balance between structure and agency—between a critical focus on the power of language policies and an ethnographic understanding of the agency of language policy actors. Research methods in educational language policy will need to wrestle with this tension, and especially useful are frameworks like those in Ball (1993), who offers two conceptualizations of policy—policy as text and policy as discourse—which articulate both the power of language policy agents to creatively interpret and re-interpret documents (policy as text) and the power of language policy as a discursive instrument of power (policy as discourse). A policy as text orientation rejects the quest for understanding authorial intentions in policy and instead emphasizes the variety of ways a particular policy text is interpreted and put into action. On the other hand, Ball’s policy as discourse orientation re-emphasizes the potential power of educational policies to set boundaries on what is educationally feasible. While a plurality of readings and interpretations is possible, “we need to appreciate the way in which policy ensembles . . . exercise power through the production of truth and knowledge as discourses” (Ball 1993, 23). Ball describes the two as opposing conceptualizations of educational policy; however, they are not necessarily in conflict. While it is important to respect the power of language policy agents, it is equally important to respect the power of discourses that language policies can engender, instantiate, and perpetuate. Researcher positionality. Researchers are increasingly considering their own positionality in the research context (Lin in press), which is especially a concern when non-minority scholars conduct research in minority contexts (Hill and May 2013), particularly given the benefits of ‘insiders’ conducting research in contexts that they are already familiar with (see discussion in Chimbutane 2011). Rampton (2007) questions whether a foreigner researching some previously unknown cultural group can ever really develop much more than “a description of conventional systems” (Rampton 2007, 591) and suggests that ethnographers should do research in institutions of which they are already a member (from the inside-out instead of the outside-in). The problem of researcher positionality is especially acute for ethnographers who tend to choose between more objectivist “fly on the wall” ethnographic observation, in which the researcher attempts to be an unobtrusive observer, and more subjectivist immersion, which can lead to voyeurism and uncritical valorization of the research subjects’ experiences (see discussion in Roman 1993). However, at least one more option is available, that of critical ethnography, which is defined by Madison (2012, 5–6): Critical ethnography begins with an ethical responsibility to address processes of unfairness or injustice . . . [T]he researcher feels an ethical obligation to make a contribution toward changing those conditions toward greater freedom and equity. The critical ethnographer also takes us beneath surface appearances, disrupts the status quo, and unsettles both neutrality and takenfor-granted assumptions by bringing to light underlying and obscure operations of power and control . . . [and] contributes to emancipatory knowledge and discourses of social justice. Utilizing critical ethnography as a research method may help to resolve some of the tension between the “historical-structural paradigm” and the “creative public sphere paradigm.” As well, researchers will need to continue to interrogate their own positionality in the research context, especially when much of the research involves marginalized and subjugated groups.

Implications for Education Phillipson’s (1992) theory of linguistic imperialism describes the process whereby the spread of colonial languages (especially English) results in linguistic hierarchisation. One of the institutions most responsible for the subjugation of minority and Indigenous languages is school. 44

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Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) refers to minority and Indigenous language education as a linguistic human right and describes educational programs that do not incorporate the students’ home languages as engaging in linguistic genocide. The culprits, as Shohamy (2006) sees it, are teachers and principals, who internalize and implement policy ideology. Others have focused on the ability of schools to promote minority languages. Examples from Hornberger (2006, 2009) have already been mentioned; another example is the Māori Language Act of 1987 in New Zealand, which declared Māori as one of New Zealand’s official languages and has supported the Māori-medium education movement (see May and Hill 2005). These national multilingual language policies open what Hornberger (2002) refers to as ideological space for multilingual education, which educators can use to create implementational space for bilingual educational programs that incorporate minority and Indigenous languages as resources. Based on their ethnographic research, Johnson and Freeman (2010) argue that educators who are committed to fostering linguistic diversity and bilingual education can create local spaces for preserving the linguistic diversity within a school district, and these efforts can be supported by district-wide language policy. They propose that teams of educators and researchers who understand the local context, federal and state policy, and the body of language education research, can develop educational language policy and programs that promote multilingualism; this can even be done within the confines of a national language policy that does not actively support multilingualism or bilingual education. Still, national language policies that promote multilingualism and linguistic pluralism might not be able to overcome either dominant societal discourses or local beliefs and practices that favor particular (especially colonial) languages, monolingual education, or prescriptive and outdated language instruction (Bekerman 2005; de los Heros 2009). As Hornberger has demonstrated in her ongoing work in South America, multilingual national language policies do not necessarily translate into multilingual classroom practices for many reasons, including the gap between policy creation and implementation, the ephemeral and ever-changing nature of policy, and, especially, the language attitudes of the communities themselves (Hornberger 1988). In addition, local multilingual language policies are not necessarily sufficient in and of themselves to overcome these obstacles. Evidence for this finding is found in Bekerman’s (2005) ethnographic research on an Arabic-Hebrew Bilingual school in Israel. Despite a local commitment to bilingual education, some societal language ideologies were too much for one school to overcome. One potential future opportunity may involve researchers and educators working together on advocacy and action research projects, characterized by Johnson (2013a) as educational language policy engagement and action research. This involves groups of teachers, students, administrators, and university researchers investigating processes throughout the language policy cycle—creation, interpretation, appropriation, and instantiation—and it informs and improves these processes. The focus is on: (1) how macro-level language policies are interpreted and put into practice; (2) how micro-level language policies are created, interpreted, and put into practice; (3) multilingual education and the educational opportunities of minority language users. This process ideally involves teachers and administrators from multiple levels of institutional authority and includes input from students, parents, and university scholars. Language policy action research provides the research team with an opportunity to interrogate how they are creating, interpreting, and appropriating language policy, and ways of changing it if that should 45

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prove necessary. It also provides the opportunity for the research team to challenge inequalities in schools that emerge from the subordination of minority languages; thus, there is an inherent agenda of social justice. Following Kemmis and McTaggart (1988 [1981]), Johnson (2013a) proposes that members of the language policy action research team plan action together, act and observe individually and collectively, reflect together, and reformulate more critically informed educational language plans and policies. In addition, a list of research features is offered: (1) Collaborative and participatory. Language policy action research involves a diverse group of individuals from multiple levels of institutional authority who collaboratively develop research questions; collect and analyze data; and reformulate language plans, policies, and practices based on critical examination. (2) Acceptance of different types of data as evidence. Quantitative studies might include the relative effectiveness of different education programs, the implementation of language policies (as reported in surveys), and the attitudes about various language policies and language attitudes. Qualitative studies focus on language policy and educational processes: How are language policies and programs created, interpreted, and put into practice? How do attitudes about language policies impact classroom instruction? Findings help inform future language plans and policies. (3) Research team members develop an understanding of the macro-level language policies influencing their educational practices and critically examine the language of these policies. While the focus is local, an understanding of macro-level language policies is crucial. A critical examination of the language policy language in macro-level policies may reveal implementational and ideological spaces (Hornberger 2002) that the research team can utilize to implement the educational programs they believe in. (4) Includes research on past language policy successes and failures and current language policy processes in other parts of the country/world. Every context is unique but there may be similarities in language policy processes across contexts and educators can learn from each other. Such comparisons are vital for developing a fuller understanding of how language policy works and for developing better theories of language policy activity. (5) Informed by research in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and educational practices. This includes research on the relative effectiveness of different language educational programs (e.g., Rolstad, Mahoney, and Glass 2005), the impact of testing on language policy and practice (e.g., Menken 2008), successful strategies for developing local language policies (Corson 1999), first and second language acquisition (e.g., Lightbown and Spada 2006), language learning processes and language teaching methods (e.g., Richards and Rodgers 2006), and sociolinguistics and language teaching (e.g., Hornberger and McKay 2011).

Further Reading Cooper, R.L. 1989. Language planning and social change. New York: Cambridge University Press. Corson, D. 1999. Language policy in schools: A resource for teachers and administrators. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Johnson, D.C. 2013. Language policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. McCarty, T.L. 2011. Ethnography and language policy. London: Routledge. Ricento, T. (Ed.) 2006. An introduction to language policy: Theory and method. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Tollefson, J.W. 1991. Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. London: Longman.

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References Ball, S.J. 1993. What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse, 13(2), 10–17. Bekerman, Z. 2005. Complex contexts and ideologies: Bilingual education in conflict-ridden areas. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(1), 1–20. Bonacina, F. 2010. A conversation analytic approach to practiced language policies: The example of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France. PhD dissertation, The University of Edinburgh. Chimbutane, F. 2011. Rethinking bilingual education in postcolonial contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cincotta-Segi, A. 2009. ‘The big ones swallow the small ones.’ Or do they? The language policy and practice of ethnic minority education in the Lao PDR: A case study from Nalae. PhD dissertation, The Australian National University, Canberra. Cincotta-Segi, A. 2011. Talking in, talking around and talking about the L2: Three literacy teaching responses to L2 medium of instruction in the Lao PDR. Compare, 41(2), 195–209. Cobarrubias, J. 1983. Ethical issues in status planning. In J. Cobarrubias and J.A. Fishman (Eds.), Progress in language planning: International Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton Publishers. Cooper, R.L. 1989. Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corson, D. 1999. Language policy in schools: A resource for teachers and administrators. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Davis, K.A. 1999. Dynamics of indigenous language maintenance. In T. Huebner and K.A. Davis, (Eds.), Sociopolitical perspectives on language policy and planning in the USA. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 67–98. de los Heros, S. 2009. Linguistic pluralism or prescriptivism? A CDA of language ideologies in Talento, Peru’s official textbook for the first-year of high school. Linguistics and Education, 20, 172–199. Freeman, R. 1998. Bilingual education and social change. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Freeman, R. 2000. Contextual challenges to dual-language education: A case study of a developing middle school program. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 21(2), 202–229. Freeman, R. 2004. Building on community bilingualism. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon. Grin, F. 2003. Language planning and economics. Current Issues in Language Planning, 4(1), 1–66. Haque, E. 2012. Multiculturalism within a bilingual framework: Language, race, and belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Haugen, E. 1959. Planning for a standard language in Norway. Anthropological Linguistics, 1(3), 8–21. Hill, R., and May, S. 2013. Non-indigenous researchers in indigenous language education: Ethical implications. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219, 47–65. Hornberger, N.H. 1988. Bilingual education and language maintenance. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications. Hornberger, N.H. 2001. Educational linguistics as a field: A view from Penn’s program on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 17(1–2), 1–26. Hornberger, N.H. 2002. Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy, 1(1), 27–51. Hornberger, N.H. 2006. Voice and biliteracy in indigenous language revitalization: Contentious educational practices in Quechua, Guarani, and Māori contexts. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 5(4), 277–292. Hornberger, N.H., 2009. Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in Indigenous experience). Language Teaching, 42(2), 197–211. Hornberger, N.H., and Johnson, D.C. 2007. Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509–532. Hornberger, N.H, and Johnson, D.C. 2011. The ethnography of language policy. In T.L. McCarty (Ed.), Ethnography and language policy. London: Routledge, 273–289. Hornberger, N.H., and McKay, S.L. (Eds.) 2011. Sociolinguistics and language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hult, F.M. 2010. Analysis of language policy discourses across the scales of space and time. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 202, 7–24. Jernudd, B., and Das Gupta, J. 1971. Towards a theory of language planning. In J. Rubin and B. Jernudd (Eds.), Can language be planned? Sociolinguistic theory and practice for developing nations. Hawaii: The University Press of Hawaii, 195–215. Johnson, D.C. 2010. Implementational and ideological spaces in bilingual education language policy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(1), 61–79.

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Johnson, D.C. 2011. Critical discourse analysis and the ethnography of language policy. Critical Discourse Studies, 8(4), 267–279. Johnson, D.C. 2013a. Language policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, D.C. (Ed.) 2013b. Thematic issue: ‘Ethnography of language policy: Theory, method, and practice.’ International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219, 1–160. Johnson, D.C. 2013c. Positioning the language policy arbiter: Governmentality and footing in the School District of Philadelphia. In J.W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 116–136. Johnson, D.C., and Freeman, R., 2010. Appropriating language policy on the local level: Working the spaces for bilingual education. In K. Menken and O. Garcia (eds.), Negotiating language policies in schools: Educators as policymakers. New York: Routledge, 13–31. Johnson, E.J. 2012. Arbitrating repression: Language policy and education in Arizona. Language and Education, 26(1), 53–76. Kaplan, R.B., and Baldauf, R.B. 1997. Language planning: From practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kemmis, S., and McTaggart, R., 1988 [1981]. The action research planner. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Kloss, H. 1968. Notes concerning a language-nation typology. In J. Fishman, C. Ferguson, and J. Das Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 69–85. Kloss, H. 1969. Research possibilities on group bilingualism: A report. Quebec: International Center for Research on Bilingualism. Lightbown, M., and Spada, N. 2006. How languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lin, A. In press. Researcher positionality. In F.M. Hult and D.C. Johnson (Eds.), Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Madison, D.S. 2012. Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications. May, S. 2001. Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism, and the politics of language. Harlow/London: Longman. May, S. (Ed.) 2005. Thematic issue: ‘Bilingual/immersion education in Aotearoa/New Zeland.’ The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(5), 365–503. May, S., and Hill, R. 2005. Māori-medium education: Current issues and challenges. International Journal of Bilingual Education, 8(5), 377–403. McCarty, T.L. 2002. A place to be Navajo: Rough Rock and the struggle for self-determination in indigenous schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McCarty, T.L. (Ed.) 2011. Ethnography and language policy. London: Routledge. Menken, K. 2008. English learners left behind: Standardized testing as language policy. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Menken, K., and García, O. (Eds.) 2010. Negotiating language policies in schools: Educators as policymakers. New York: Routledge. Menken, K. & Shohamy, E. (Eds.) 2008, September. No Child Left Behind and U.S. language education policy. Language Policy 7(3). Mohanty, A., Panda, M., and Pal, R. 2010. Language policy in education and classroom practices in India: Is the teacher a cog in the policy wheel? In K. Menken and O. Garcia (Eds.), Negotiating language policies in schools: Educators as policymakers. New York: Routledge. Mortimer, K. 2013. Communicative event chains in an ethnography of Paraguayan language policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219, 67–99. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phillipson, R. 2003. English-only Europe? Challenging language policy. London and New York: Routledge. Rampton, B. 2007. Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the United Kingdom. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 584–607. Ricento, T. 2000. Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(2), 196–213. Ricento, T. 2005. Problems with the ‘language-as-resource’ discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the U.S.A. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–368. Ricento, T. 2006. Language policy: Theory and practice—an introduction. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 10–23. Ricento, T. 2013. The consequences of official bilingualism on the status and perception of non-official languages in Canada. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34(5), 475–489. 48

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Ricento, T., and Cervatiuc, A., 2010. Language minority rights and educational policy in Canada. In J. Petrovic (Ed.), International perspectives on bilingual education: Policy, Practice, and Controversy. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 21–42. Ricento, T., and Hornberger, N.H. 1996. Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 401–427. Richards, J.C., and Rodgers, T.S. 2006. Approaches and methods in language teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rickford, J.R., 1999. The Ebonics controversy in my backyard: A sociolinguist’s experiences and reflections. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 3(2), 267–275. Rolstad, K., Mahoney, K., and Glass, G.V. 2005. The big picture: A meta-analysis of program effectiveness research on English language learners. Educational Policy, 19(4), 572–594. Roman, L.G. 1993. Double exposure: The politics of feminist materialist ethnography. Educational Theory, 43(3), 279–308. Ruiz, R. 1984. Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal 8(2), 15–34. Schiffman, H.F. 1996. Linguistic culture and language policy. London: Routledge. Schmid, C.L. 2001. The politics of language: Conflict identity, and cultural pluralism in comparative perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. Shohamy, E. 2006. Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London and New York: Routledge. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2000. Linguistic genocide in education—or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Spolsky, B. 1978. Educational linguistics: An introduction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Spolsky, B. 2010. Introduction: What is educational linguistics? In B. Spolsky and F.M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1–9. Tauli, V. 1974. The theory of language planning. In J. Fishman (Ed.), Advances in Language Planning. The Hague: Mouton, 69–78. Thomas, W.P., and Collier, V.P. 2001. A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ longterm academic achievement. Berkeley, CA: CREDE. Tollefson, J.W. 1991. Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. London: Longman. Tollefson, J.W. 2006. Critical theory in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 42–59. Tollefson, J.W. (Ed.) 2012a. Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge. Tollefson, J.W. 2012b. Language policy in a time of crisis and transformation. In J.W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 11–32. Wiley, T.G. 1999. Comparative historical analysis of U.S. language policy and language planning: Extending the foundations. In T. Huebner and K.A. Davis (Eds.), Sociopolitical perspectives on language policy and planning in the USA. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 17–37. Wiley, T.G., and Wright, W.E. 2004. Against the undertow: Language-minority education policy and politics in the “age of accountability”. Educational Policy, 18(2), 142–168. Yanow, D. 2000. Conducting interpretive policy analysis. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Yitzhaki, D. 2010. The discourse of Arabic language policies in Israel: Insights from focus groups. Language Policy, 9, 335–356.

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4 Researching Identity Through Narrative Approaches Christina Higgins and Priti Sandhu

This chapter discusses the development of narrative approaches in the study of identity formation and change in educational linguistics. Narrative approaches are promising for examining identity because they allow researchers to study how people position themselves in relation to larger societal structures and macrolevel discourses. Narratives can be analyzed to study identities as they relate to ideological topics such as beliefs and attitudes, and they are especially well suited for identifying the discursive positions that individuals take up in the stories they tell when making sense of their own and others’ lives. In educational linguistics, narratives have become increasingly used to understand how people negotiate their identities in classrooms and in their everyday life. The analysis of narrative encompasses both life history autobiographic narratives as well as more interactionally contextualized narratives that take place in educational contexts. Those who are interested in developing an understanding of how people view their own and others’ experiences will find narrative analysis a worthwhile undertaking. Researchers who want to investigate the role of narratives in co-constructing experience through collaborative storytelling will also find narrative analysis to be a very useful approach.

Historical Perspectives From sociology to psychology to education, narratives are now treated as primary data in an increasing number of fields in which positivist traditions have long held sway. This may be due in part to what has been called a “biographical turn” in the social sciences (Chamberlayne, Bornat, and Wengraf 2000), or an interest in methods that can uncover the personal and social meanings that are considered to be the basis of people’s actions, rather than identifying structural or macrolevel factors as the starting point for analysis. In the social sciences, this has amounted to a paradigm shift that now emphasizes the individual as the primary sensemaking agent in the construction of her or his own identity, rather than the end product of larger forces. Of course, how much agency individuals have in shaping their own narratives is itself a topic of inquiry, and many researchers situate their narrative work with a critical eye to the role of social class, race, and gender in interpreting their findings. In addition, researchers have begun paying more attention to their own positionality in the process of collecting 50

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the data and interpreting it (Bamberg 2003; Lee and Simon-Maeda 2006). In recent years, narratives have become more prominent in the field of educational linguistics due to increasing interest in the important role that identity has in learning, teaching, and using language in society. Many researchers who have taken ethnographic and case study approaches to their research now find narratives a central part of their analytic toolkit, and the body of research that sets out detailed methods for collecting and analyzing narrative data has grown tremendously in the past decade. Most accounts of narrative analysis in educational linguistics begin by acknowledging the importance of William Labov’s contributions, which involved the analysis of narrative structure in stories that he elicited in interviews with young African American males. Though primarily a variationist who works on sociophonetic data, Labov explored the interviews to counter claims in educational linguistics that African Americans have a “restricted code” (Bernstein 1971), which was argued to lead to the production of less complex narratives compared to those produced by Anglo American English speakers. As an outcome of this work, Labov and Waletzky (1967) proposed a structural model for analyzing narrative chronology, consisting of a basic structure: abstract, orientation, narrative clauses (i.e., complicating action), and coda. Abstract and coda provide a link with the conversational frame, while the orientation section introduces characters and setting. Labov and Waletzky also laid the foundation for the concept of “tellability,” which refers to the need for narratives to be newsworthy and about something remarkable rather than mundane. This concept was further elaborated on by Ochs and Capps (2001), who demonstrated that storytelling is a highly interactional process in which narrators and audiences negotiate details and evaluative stances at all stages of the tale. Current approaches that analyze the discourse units that comprise narratives and their relationship to overall story structure tend to build on these scholars’ work. From a rather different angle, many narrative studies produced in the past two decades are driven by post-structuralist viewpoints. The impetus of much of this work is the development of positioning theory, an approach developed by Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harré (1990) that examines the types of subject positions, or subjectivities, that people assume in telling stories. They explain that “a subject position incorporates both a conceptual repertoire and a location for persons within the structure of rights for those who use that repertoire. Once having taken up a particular position as one’s own, a person inevitably sees the world from the vantage point of that position and in terms of the images, metaphors, and storylines that are relevant within that particular discursive practice” (46). Though it might be said that this type of narrative analysis has led to a greater amount of scholarship in educational linguistics, it is clear that many of the scholars working in this tradition borrow tools from more interactional approaches. For example, Higgins (2011a) used Goffman’s (1981) framework of footing in combination with positioning theory to analyze how Swahili language learners moved from their role as storytellers to evaluators of actions in stories. An analysis of the learners’ discursive moves acted as windows into the learners’ positionings and made visible how they aligned with what they narrated as ‘Swahili’ language and culture. Perhaps due to the influence of post-structuralist work, narrative analysis has often been subsumed under discourse studies. Hence, deconstruction, the identification of macrolevel discourses and ideologies, and the role of power in language and society are all significant topics for narrative analysts. More recently, the co-construction of identity has taken center stage, and frameworks allowing for the microanalysis of identity, such as conversation analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, have become highly relevant to the analysis of narratives embedded in conversations and interviews. 51

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Core Issues and Key Findings Narrative research has long been used by scholars interested in studying identity from a variety of perspectives, in large part because of the ontological understandings that have come to underpin this approach (Riessman 1993). Of special appeal to identity scholars is the assumption that narratives are meaning-making devices enabling people to lend coherence to their lived experiences (Bruner 2002). Narrators are understood to wield their voices and hence enact their agency and, in so doing, adopt evaluative stances about people, expectations, and worldly conditions. Narratives are also acknowledged to be located within their social, cultural, and historical contexts and, as such, are viewed as being impacted upon by macrolevel or conventional storylines (Pavlenko 1998). These intricate associations make their evaluative function even more salient as narrators are able to construct particular relationships between themselves and their social orders, often by reproducing or critiquing existing relationships of power and knowledge (Peterson and Langellier 2006). Narratives are thus sites wherein nuanced, highly contextualized, multiple, and often conflicted identities are constructed. A substantial body of early narrative-based work within educational settings in the United States was concerned with the interconnections between ethnic and sociocultural identities of students and their narrative styles, with attention to educational implications. Jim Gee’s early work (e.g., 1985, 1986, 1989) analyzed oral narratives of African American and Caucasian students using ethnopoetics to highlight the close interconnections between features of their stories and their sociocultural backgrounds. Concerned that mainstream educators would disregard African American children’s narrative styles, Gee focused on identifying the narrative structures of the African American children’s narratives vis-à-vis Caucasian children’s narratives. Similarly, Sarah Michaels (1981) and Courtney Cazden (1988) contributed to understandings of minority schoolchildren’s interactional styles through their analyses of oral narratives taking place during routine classrooms such as ‘sharing time.’ These researchers aimed not only to document the different narrative structures, but also to draw attention to the ways that the minority students’ narratives were potentially less valued among Anglo teachers, with the implication that the students would suffer academically. While later studies complicated and expanded their findings, this research has led to the dilemma of whether minority children must be asked to abandon their own narrative styles and to acquire an ‘essayist,’ mainstream narrative style in order to succeed in school. As Gee (1989, 109) points out, this may be difficult, if not unethical, as narrative style is part of one’s identity, and is “connected with a culture’s mode of expression, presentation of self, and way of making sense” of the world. Adding a more positive perspective, Poveda’s (2002) more recent study of a Romani child set in Spain showed that the student’s ‘different’ narrative style encouraged the teacher to engage more with the student and led the other students to participate more as well. This work on oral narratives has emphasized the need for educators to be knowledgeable of the close connections between verbal styles and social identities and the challenges students face when asked to emulate mainstream discourse styles both at the personal and pedagogical levels. Beyond interactional styles in classrooms, narratives have also provided insights into the ways that school-aged students identify with different groups and networks. Here, researchers have combined the analysis of narratives with understandings of students’ sociocultural and interactional contexts to understand how students produce and reproduce social identities in their schools and in larger society. To illustrate, Moore (2006) analyzed narratives of British students to examine how hierarchies of ‘townies’ and ‘populars’ functioned within girls’ social networks, paying attention to how certain girls were named and took up the rights to tell stories in multiparty research interviews. Similarly, in a study exploring racial ideologies in California, Bucholtz 52

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(2011) analyzed Caucasian youths’ stories about racial fear, reverse discrimination, and fight stories, which reproduced Black/White racial binaries. In addition to comparing the stories with her own ethnographic observations, which did not find evidence of racialized violence or intimidation, Bucholtz critically examined her own role in the construction of racial categories in the interviews she carried out. Narrative-based research within education has encompassed teacher identities as well (see also Martel and Wang, this volume). One strand of such work has examined the identity construction of in-service teachers in classroom interactions. Juzwik and Ives (2010) adopted a multi-layered short story dialogic approach to analyze teacher identity as it was constructed in a short story the teacher narrated within a classroom activity. Theorizing the dynamic, emergent, and interactional nature of teacher identity, the study showed how the “teacher’s identifying narrative performance as well as teacher-student interactions and relationships come to be mediated by a variety of small-scale contextual and interactional factors” (58). Moving beyond classroom interactions, other approaches have highlighted the importance of providing spaces for teachers to narrate their professional experiences and identities. For example, McKinney and Giorgis (2009) analyzed the autobiographies of literacy specialists working in schools to examine how their identities as writers and as teachers of writing were negotiated and performed. An offshoot of teacher identity research has examined the narratives for pre-service teacher education. One illustration of this work is Alvine (2001), which used reflective literacy autobiographies of trainee teachers to examine the interconnections between their personal knowledge and the theoretical knowledge of their teacher education courses; the trainees then drew from their autobiographies to formulate compellingly integrated and grounded beliefs about teaching and learning. Identity research in the teaching and learning of languages has also become a focus in recent years. Because language teacher identity has been addressed extensively (Martel and Wang this volume), we limit our comments here mostly to language learners. Seminal research in this area began only about two decades ago, and it began with a focus on adult immigrant English language learners. In this research, the learning of a second language has often been treated as going through the stages of deconstruction and de-centering of the self, followed by the reconstruction of one’s identity in the L2 (Norton Peirce 1995; Pavlenko 1998; Pavlenko and Lantolf 2000). Much of this work has adopted a post-structuralist perspective on identity as being unstable, fluid, and dynamic, yet simultaneously grounded in various discourses of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and nationality. Norton (2000) presents a comprehensive, book-length study of this type, utilizing participant narratives to investigate the limited options that immigrant women from Peru, Poland, and Vietnam faced in Canada as they struggled to engage in second language learning opportunities. Norton analyzed narratives from diaries the women kept as part of a critical ethnography of the women’s lives, and she found that the women’s language learning experiences were affected both by being silenced in a patriarchal society and also by their gendered, raced, and classed experiences. Adding another and more empowered perspective to narrative accounts of immigrants and identity construction, Vitanova (2005) examined how East European immigrants to the US, both men and women, were able to author themselves, using Bakhtinian terminology, in their second language—English, thereby resisting the negative positionings assigned to them because of their second language learner and foreigner status. Narratives have proven fruitful for better understanding how identities relate to language learning in the late modern era of transnational affiliations and hybrid identity options, as learners have an ever-widening array of ways of thinking about the languages and cultures that they study. Rather than seeing languages as tied to monolithic ‘target’ cultures, studies are showing that learners often connect their language learning with a range of real, virtual, and imagined communities—only 53

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some of which are mother tongue users (Duff 2007; Higgins 2011b). Learners often make stronger friendships with others online, in forms such as fan fiction, where they construct new narratives for each other to read (Black 2009), and through sharing the positionality of ‘language learner’ in study abroad programs (Kinginger 2008). Additionally, migrants and relocated individuals may form their own communities comprised of newcomers, rather than striving to gain access to a community of native speakers. Higgins and Stoker (2011) examined narratives to show how Korean adoptee-returnees in Korea with relatively limited contact with Koreans positioned themselves as rightful speakers of their heritage language. The learners narrated stories where their Koreanness was contested by Korean nationals, and in response, they constructed a third space in which their status as ‘overseas Koreans’ was legitimated, and where their Korean language competence was identified as valid. As research on language learning and teaching has become more reflective on many levels, narrative research within applied linguistics has grown as researchers both reflect on diverse aspects of using narrative methodologies and use narrative accounts to focus on emergent topics within the field. Lee and Simon-Maeda (2006) interrogated the role that racial identities play in the research practices of two researchers—Asian and White—through their personal narratives. While the latter researcher grappled with issues of positioning, reflexivity, and the tensions inherent in representations of ‘others,’ the former tackled the complexities facing a researcher of color attempting to represent ‘her own kind.’ Scholars have also begun to explore how narrative research can reveal the ways in which researchers working within language education negotiate their researcher identities, reduce power differentials between themselves and participants, and encourage teacher collaboration in research projects (Norton and Early 2011). Adding a muchneeded international perspective to this growing body of work, Canagarajah (2012) recounted how he successfully “negotiated the differing teaching practices and professional cultures of the periphery and the center in an effort to develop a strategic professional identity” (258). In a globalized world where English has acquired multi-faceted local identities, he highlighted the need for closer communication between these diverse communities and the need to critically use multiple identities to become part of the larger professional discourses and practices of the field.

Research Approaches In an important article on narratives in applied linguistics, Aneta Pavlenko (2007) writes that in studies on autobiographic narratives, “it is not uncommon to see a summary of participants’ observations, richly interspersed with quotes, presented as analysis” (163). To remedy the lack of analysis present in much of this research, a comprehensive treatment of narrative data needs to involve attention to the content (what is said, i.e., themes), the context (the microcontext of the interview and the macrocontext of the sociopolitical events surrounding the telling), and the form (how the narratives are told discursively). Relatively new ways of looking at narratives not only as stories that convey ‘what happened,’ but also as interactional data in which speakers artfully position themselves and others in discourse have thus emerged. Within the field of orally recounted narratives, what Pavlenko refers to as form was analyzed early on by Labov and Waletzky (1967) in their seminal functional analytical model. Over the past several decades, scholars working from more discourse analytic perspectives, such as Bamberg (1997), Wortham (2001), and Georgakopoulou (2007), have asserted the need to take account of interactional surroundings in order to recognize the collaborative nature of talk and the particular social actions the narrative carries out in a specific interaction. Much narrative data is collected through interviews with a researcher, with the goal of establishing participants’ accounts of their life histories, in which they present big picture perspectives of 54

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their past experiences. Such data collection allows researchers to gain a holistic understanding of an individual’s experiences, which can shed light on particular research questions. In life-history research, analysis usually focuses on the content and context of the telling, and analysts treat narratives as sense-making devices wherein individuals use stories to craft coherent visions of their past and present. A useful illustration of life-history narrative research is Menard-Warwick’s (2005) study, in which she interviewed two Latina immigrants living in California six times. Her analysis of the narratives was set in the context of her larger ethnography and involved her participant-observation over a period of many months in the women’s community school ESL classrooms. After an initial coding of themes, she discovered the important concept of intergenerational trajectories, which in turn provided her with a deeper understanding of the connections between the women’s engagement with English and Spanish literacies vis-à-vis their own childhood experiences, and as parents of school-aged children. Life history narratives are also used to examine how narrators might evoke collective remembering (Wertsch 2002)—that is, culturally shared narratives that have been socially constructed across time and reified through frequent retellings. The narration of collective remembering is closely bound to identity construction and can be seen as an example of speakers engaging in microlevel and macrolevel discourses to position themselves with regard to nation-states, ethnic group memberships, and gender identities. Using narratives taken from interviews and language learner diaries, Kinginger (2008) provides clear examples of how larger discourses and shared storylines impact language learners’ experiences while studying abroad. Focusing on Americans studying abroad in France, Kinginger (2011) examined the different degrees to which four college-aged women adhered to nationalist storylines of American-French relations, and how much this affected their experiences in a cultural context that was explicitly critical of the United States’ military actions in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, such collective remembering often occurs in classroom interaction as well. A stellar example is Juzwik (2009), which explored how students become socialized toward narratives about the Holocaust that follow nationally sanctioned storylines. A relatively recent but influential contribution to the field of narrative studies is in the form of the distinction between ‘big’ and ‘small’ stories. ‘Big stories’ such as those collected in life history narratives, autobiographies, or stories about life-altering events are mostly elicited by researchers in interviews, as opposed to ‘small stories,’ which are recounted in everyday interactions (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008; Georgakopoulou 2007). The well-established tradition of collecting big stories normally imposes a list of criteria that determine what can actually be considered a story. For instance, there is a requirement for a chronological series of events about past experiences, a plot that has a beginning, middle and end, and takes on a particular perspective or voice. In contrast, small stories are interactional tellings of ongoing events, future or hypothetical events, and shared events. They can be very brief, as they also capture allusions to previous tellings, deferrals of tellings, and refusals to tell. Small stories have been conceptualized as talk-in-interaction, embedded in their discourse environment, collaboratively produced by speakers and listeners (Georgakopoulou 2007). Such an orientation foregrounds the concept of narrative from the interactants’ perspectives, and takes a strongly emic perspective of what might be considered a narrative. While Georgakopoulou (2007) draws upon conversation analysis as a useful analytical tool for analysis, she also emphasizes the external contexts that shape the telling of small stories. Because small stories tend to be threaded through interactions and reemerge over the course of time, the concept of inter-narrativity is also important, as the life history of a narrative allows researchers to examine how a narrative is moved in time and space, recycled and reshaped so that it fits each new context of its telling. The analytical orientation of what is accomplished through the tellings of these small stories is that 55

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people use them “in their interactive engagements to construct a sense of who they are, while big story research analyzes the stories as representations of world and identities” (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou, 2008, 382). Small story proponents do not posit a substitution of research on big stories with small ones; rather, they argue that the field of narrative research would be enriched through the inclusion of small stories while their conceptualization and analytical styles could make useful contributions to big story research. Bamberg and Georgakopoulou’s attention to the role of stories, whether big or small, have great importance in discourse-oriented narrative analysis. They highlight the importance of looking beyond the referential aspects of narrative to the interactional elements of the narrative telling, especially the accomplishment of interactive positionings by the narrators and their narrating audiences (Bamberg 1997; Wortham 2001). Narrators may evaluate the contributions of their interlocutors (in the case of interviews), and interviewers themselves can also supply evaluative positioning in the act of co-constructing the interview (Wortham and Gadsden 2006). In short, stories told in oral interviews need to be analyzed as products of the interaction between the teller and the interviewer (Mishler 1986). Therefore, assumptions holding the narrator to be the sole creator of a narrative are debunked because the interviewer’s style of questioning, prompts, acknowledgments, encouragements, facilitations, challenges, interruptions, and silences all are viewed as decisively impacting the story that eventually gets told. Narratives can simultaneously perform a multitude of functions, and narrators can communicate propositional information and display evaluations of this information (and of the interaction itself ), while also constructing a socially recognizable identity (Koven 2007). Some researchers have augmented the analysis of narratives, whether big or small, with ethnographic knowledge of their participants’ experiences, drawing on observations, document collection, and interviews over an extended period. This can help establish the macrocontext in which the narratives are told (Pavlenko 2007), and it can offer the researcher a deeper understanding of the discourses that shape the narrative tellings. If the goal is to make explanatory links between narratives and specific social phenomenon, such contextual information is crucial to avoid privileging narrative accounts and to instead treat them as social phenomena that need to be further examined (Atkinson and Delamont 2006). The purpose of doing so is not to determine the truth value of narratives, but rather to understand how the stories that people tell are embedded in larger ideological, economic, and political contexts, and hence, are shaped by those forces.

Debates We will address four points of debate in this section: 1) the distinctions between narrative inquiry and narrative analysis; 2) the relevance of reflection in narratives; 3) the nature and role of context; and 4) researcher reflexivity. Some scholars have found it important to distinguish between narrative analysis and narrative inquiry in their work, which points to a larger debate over what comprises a thorough analysis of narrative data. Within this debate, narrative inquiry is usually described as an approach that focuses more on big stories, asking questions of who, what and why, rather than considering the question of how stories are told. In other words, narrative inquiry values stories for what they can tell us about the teller’s self, while narrative analysis is also interested in examining how tellers construct their stories within the context of the here-and-now of the storytelling event and interlocutors. This distinction is generally borne out in research approaches, as ethnographic and case study work in educational linguistics tends to use narrative inquiry, whereas researchers following discourse analytic traditions tend to favor narrative analysis. The two different approaches also have consequences for the presentation of data and the style 56

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of research reporting. Many narrative inquiry studies present the voices of the participants in third person synthesis of findings, sometimes inserting illustrative excerpts into the writing. On the other hand, narrative analysis studies include extensive, detailed transcripts and close analysis of the actual voices of the narrators (e.g., Wortham 2001; Sandhu 2014a, 2014b). Despite these apparent differences, there is much to be gained from a synergy between the two approaches, since focusing on how people engage in telling stories sheds light on the various selves that are articulated, and seeing how such stories change in particular interactional contexts allows us to understand more about who and what than may have previously been imagined (Georgakopoulou 2006). As already discussed, a three-pronged approach that takes into account the content, context, and form of narratives has been recommended (Pavlenko 2007). Nevertheless, the debates continue because research that addresses questions of how often neglects thematic topics, and narrative work that investigates what and why questions often avoids examining the intricacies of narrative discourse. While there may be cases where a delicate balance between the two is the goal, it is clear from the literature that some research questions are better served with a focus on what questions, while others are best suited for how questions. While discussing the distinctions between ‘big’ and ‘small’ stories previously, we explained the varying understandings of narratives that these two perspectives have adopted. These continue to be a topic of much debate within the field, especially in the way in which they conceptualize reflection and its importance for identity construction. ‘Big’ stories are valuable because they are removed from the here and now of ongoing social action and thus allow narrators the temporal distance from life events, enabling them to reflect on them and thus assign meaning to lived experience. The self or subjectivity that this process of reflection produces is a larger, more stable and continuous one than that which emerges in everyday experiences. While acknowledging that this larger self is not a “fixed, grandiose, narcissistic, hyper-masculine vision of the Individual,” Freeman (2006) argues that “our lives—the movement of our lives, across significant swaths of time—continues to have meaning for many” (135). On the other hand, it can be argued that reflection is present in varying degrees in small stories as well (Bamberg 2006). The question is not the presence or absence or even the quantity or quality of such reflection, but instead, how interpretations are accomplished in and through interaction. In summary, the debate over reflection is whether narratives are based on “internal psychological constructs” or if they are dialogic and discursive artifacts. Another point of debate that has emerged in narrative work is the role of context in narrative approaches. Narrative scholars have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the context within which narratives are situated, maintaining that narratives are never recounted in a vacuum but are inextricably embedded in and thus are products of their local environments. Analysis of various levels of positioning in narratives addresses the importance of taking into account the multiple levels of context, including the level of positioning between the researcher and the participants, as well as the level of positioning amongst discourses (Bamberg 1997). However, the extent to which narrative analysts incorporate the ‘world’ of the narratives into their analysis differs significantly (Riessman 2008). Some scholars adopt Mishler’s (1986) understanding of interviews as interactional sites where interactants collaboratively negotiate for and construct meaning. Others include within their analytical lens the shared (or dissimilar) characteristics of the interactants and examine how the racial, linguistic, gendered subjectivities of the interactants impact the narratives that are recounted. Still others adopt an even wider perspective and examine how personal stories of participants are connected to larger social worlds, or Bamberg’s (1997) third level of positioning amongst discourses. There is emerging work that attempts to bridge some of these distinctions. An example is Sandhu (2014a), which examines the collaborative production of a narrative told within a research interview and simultaneously attends to 57

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the construction and resistence of hegemonic societal discourses regarding the value of Hindi or English medium education. A fourth area of debate is the nature and extent of researcher reflexivity that narrative scholars bring to their work. It has been argued that narrative-based research will be richer if it takes into account the historical and social location, not only of the narrators, but also of the researchers, since both influence the research relationship (Riessman 2002, 37). However, in most narrative studies that examine identity construction, the researcher’s positionality vis-à-vis the participants or in relation to the topic under examination remains absent. This could be because the researchers’ own life experiences are very different from the participants, and because such examinations are not yet commonplace in the literature, and hence, are often underappreciated when undergoing peer review. A compelling explanation is posited by Nelson (2005, 315) who says, “texts in which the researcher’s subjectivity is foregrounded can be perceived as irrelevant, self-indulgent or insufficiently critical.” However, narrative scholars are increasingly becoming cognizant of the added insights that engaging in researcher reflexivity brings to their analysis and are looking at how their racial, professional, linguistic, gendered identities impact diverse elements of the research process, such as the co-construction of narratives, the relationships between them and their participants, and the narrative analysis and interpretations that are made. We would suggest that as more outlets for publication value research that treats the researcher’s positionality as a central feature of analysis, more attention to this last debate will lead to new insights. This is already being done in interview research, where the role of the interviewer is treated as central to the narratives being told (e.g., Miller 2011; Sandhu 2014a).

Implications for Education Narratives can provide a basis for concrete pedagogical materials and activities in classrooms of all kinds. English language classrooms for adult immigrants, for example, can be designed so that students’ narratives act as a bridge in connecting their classroom learning to their lives beyond the classroom walls and in providing a space for student voices to be heard. Writing autobiographic narratives “can be empowering, especially for those to whom the act of naming and framing lived experience in an education context is not necessarily familiar, comfortable, or historically valued” (Nelson 2011, 467). As Menard-Warwick (2006) found in her research with adult learners of English, when learners were given the chance to write in English about their personal histories and their families, their enthusiasm for learning grew exponentially. Similarly, sharing diary entries gave the learners the opportunity to develop their oral skills and to learn new vocabulary as well (Norton 2000). Future research is needed that examines how narratives can be used as a pedagogical resource for teachers working with migrant and minority populations for which culturally relevant materials are lacking. Narratives have a great deal of potential for practical purposes in the field of teacher education (Barkhuizen and Wette 2008; Johnson 2009). They can offer aspiring or in-service teachers the opportunity to critically reflect on their beliefs and teaching philosophies, and they can be used to assess changes and growth as they experience teacher training. From a sociocultural perspective, narratives can be utilized as the core of professional development activities for teachers as a way of re-envisioning teaching as dialogic mediation. Narratives can help teachers in teacher education programs to ‘externalize’ their understandings of teaching theory and practices and to ‘verbalize’ their thought processes so that they “not only name the theoretical constructs they are exposed to . . . but, through the activity of narrating, . . . begin to use those concepts to make sense of their teaching experiences and to regulate both their thinking and teaching practices” (Johnson and Golombek 2011, 493). Finally, interactional narratives that take place in classrooms 58

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can be analyzed as part of self-reflective teaching and learning. Rex and Juzwik (2011) provide a guide that addresses a range of very practical issues, including how to encourage student participation in discussions of difficult topics and how to draw upon cultural differences as resources for all to learn from. Future research that examines the relationship between interactional, classroom-based narratives and their impact on student participation and engagement with learning would be a very exciting direction for future narrative work in education.

Further Reading Bamberg, M. 2007. Narrative—State of the art. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Originally published as 2006 Special Issue of Narrative Inquiry, 16(1).] Barkhuizen, G. (Ed.) 2011. Narrative research in TESOL. Special issue of TESOL Quarterly, 391–590. Pavlenko, A. 2007. Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. Riessman, C. 2008. Narrative methods for the human sciences. London: Sage. Wortham, S. 2001. Narratives in action. New York: Teachers College Press.

References Alvine, L. 2001. Shaping the teaching self through autobiographical narrative and subjectivity. The High School Journal, 84(3), 5–12. Atkinson, P. and Delamont, S. 2006. Rescuing narratives from qualitative research. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 164–172. Bamberg, M. 1997. Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1–4), 335–342. Bamberg, M. 2003. Positioning with Davie Hogan—Stories, tellings, and identities. In C. Daiute and C. Lightfoot (Eds.), Narrative analysis: Studying the development of individuals in society (pp. 135–157). London: Sage. Bamberg, M. 2006. Introductory remarks. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 1–2. Bamberg, M., and Georgakopoulou, A. 2008. Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text and Talk, 28(3), 377–396. Barkhuizen, G., and Wette, R. 2008. Narrative frames for investigating the experiences of language teachers. System, 36(3), 372–387. Bauman, R. 2004. A world of others’ words. Cross-cultural perspectives on intertextuality. Oxford: Blackwell. Bernstein, B. 1971. Class, codes and control. London: Paladin. Black, R. 2009. Online fan fiction, global identities, and imagination. Research in the Teaching of English, 43, 397–425 Bruner, J. 2002. Making stories. New York: Farr, Straus and Giroux. Brutt-Griffler, J., and Samimy, K. K. 1999. Revisiting the colonial in the postcolonial: Critical praxis for nonnative-English-speaking teachers in a TESOL Program. TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 413–431. Bucholtz, M. 2011. California youth “It’s different for guys”: Gendered narratives of racial conflict among white. Discourse Society, 22(4) 385–402. Canagarajah, S. A. 2012. Teacher development in a global profession: An autoethnography. TESOL Quarterly, 46(2), 258–279. Cazden, C. B. 1988. Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Chamberlayne, P., Bornat, J., and Wengraf, T. 2000. Introduction: The biographical turn. In P. Chamberlayne, J. Bornat, and T. Wengraf (Eds.), The turn to biographical methods in social science: Comparative issues and examples (pp. 1–30). London: Routledge. Davies, B., and Harré, R. 1990. Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 20(1), 43–63. Duff, P. 2007. Second language socialization as sociocultural theory: Insights and issues. Language Teaching, 40, 309–319. Freeman, M. 2006. Life “on holiday”? In defense of big stories. Narrative Inquiry 16(6), 131–138. Gee, J. 1985. The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education, 167, 9–35. Gee, J. 1986. Units in the production of narrative discourse. Discourse Processes, 9, 391–422. 59

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Gee, J. 1989. Two styles of narrative construction and their linguistic and educational implications. Discourse Processes, 12, 287–307. Georgakopoulou, A. 2006. Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 122–130. Georgakopoulou, A. 2007. Small stories, interaction, and identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Golombek, P. 1998. A study of language teachers’ personal practical knowledge. TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 447–464. Higgins, C. 2011a. “You’re a real Swahili!”: Western women’s resistance to identity slippage in Tanzania. In C. Higgins (Ed.), Identity formation in globalizing contexts: Language learning in the new millennium (pp. 147–168). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Higgins, C. (Ed.) 2011b. Identity formation in globalizing contexts: Language learning in the new millennium. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Higgins, C., and Stoker, K. 2011. Language learning as a site for belonging: A narrative analysis of Korean adoptee-returnees. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(4), 399–412. Inquiry, 16(1), 173–180. Johnson, K. 2009. Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York: Routledge. Johnson, K., and Golombek, P. 2011. The transformative power of narrative in second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 486–509. Juzwik, M. 2009. The rhetoric of teaching: Understanding the dynamics of Holocaust narratives in an English classroom. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Juzwik, M., and Ives, D. 2010. Small stories as resources for performing teacher identity: Identity-in-interaction in an urban language arts classroom. Narrative Inquiry, 20(1), 37–61. Kinginger, C. 2008. Language learning in study abroad: Case studies of Americans in France. Special monograph issue of The Modern Language Journal 92 (supplement), 1–124. Kinginger, C. 2011. National identity and language learning abroad: American students in the post-9/11 era. In C. Higgins (Ed.), Identity formation in globalizing contexts: Language learning in the new millennium (pp. 147—166). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Koven, M. 2007. Selves in two languages: Bilingual verbal enactments of identity in French and Portuguese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Labov, W. 1997. Some further steps in narrative analysis. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7 (1–4), 395–415. Labov, W., and Waletzky, J. 1967. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press. Lee, E., and Simon-Maeda, A. 2006. Racialized Research Identities in ESL/EFL Research. TESOL Quarterly, 4(3), 573–594. McKinney, M., and Giorgis, C. 2009. Narrating and performing identity: Literacy specialists’ writing identities. Journal of Literacy Research, 41, 104–149. Menard-Warwick, J. 2005. Intergenerational trajectories and sociopolitical context: Latina immigrants in adult ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 165–185. Menard-Warwick, J. 2006. The words become one’s own: Immigrant women’s perspectives on family literacy activities. CATESOL Journal, 18(1), 96–108. Menard-Warwick, J. 2011. A methodological reflection on the process of narrative analysis: Alienation and identity in the life histories of English language teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 564–574. Michaels, S. 1981. “Sharing Time”: Children’s Narrative Styles and Differential Access to Literacy. Language in Society, 10(3), 423–442. Miller, E. R. 2011. Indeterminacy and interview research: Co-constructing ambiguity and clarity in interviews with an adult immigrant learner of English. Applied Linguistics, 32(1), 43–59. Mishler, E. G. 1986. Research interviewing: Context and narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, E. 2006. “You tell all the stories”: Using narrative to explore hierarchy within a Community of Practice. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(5), 611–640. Nelson, C. 2005. Crafting researcher subjectivity in ways that enact theory. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(4), 315–319. Nelson, C. 2011. Narratives of classroom life: Changing conceptions of knowledge. TESOL Quarterly, 45, 463–485. Norton, B. 2000. Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Essex, England: Longman. 60

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Norton, B., and Early, M. 2011. Researcher identity, narrative inquiry, and language teaching research. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 415–439. Norton Peirce, B. 1995. Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. Ochs, E. 1997. Narrative. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as structure and process, (pp. 185–207). London: Sage. Ochs, E., and Capps, L. 2001. Beyond face value (Chapter 6). In Living narratives: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pavlenko, A. 1998. Second language learning by adults: Testimonies of bilingual writers. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 9(1), 3–19. Pavlenko, A. 2003. “I never knew I was bilingual”: Reimagining teacher identities in TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 251–268. Pavlenko, A. 2004. “The making of an American”: Negotiation of identities at the turn of the twentieth century. In Pavlenko and A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 34–67). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Pavlenko, A. 2007. Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 28(2), 163–188. Pavlenko, A., and Lantolf, J. 2000. Second language learning as participation and the (re)construction of selves. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 155–177). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peterson, E. E., and Langellier, K. M. 2006. The performance turn in narrative studies. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 173–180. Poveda, D. 2002. Quico’s story: An ethnopoetic analysis of a Gypsy boy’s narratives at school. Text, 22 (2), 269–300. Rex, L., and Juzwik, M. (Eds.) 2011. Narrative discourse analysis for teacher educators: Managing cultural differences in classrooms. New York: Hampton Press. Riessman, C. K. 1993. Narrative analysis. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Riessman, C. K. 2002. Analysis of personal narratives. In J. F. Gubrium and J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (pp. 695–710). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Riessman, C. K. 2008. Narrative methods for the human sciences. Los Angeles and London: Sage Publications. Sandhu, P. 2014a. Constructing normative and resistant societal discourses about Hindi and English in an interactional narrative. Applied Linguistics, 35(1), 29–47. Sandhu, P. 2014b. “Who does she think she is?” Vernacular medium and failed romance. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13(1),16–33. Silverstein, M., and Urban, G. 1996. The natural history of discourse. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (Eds.), Natural histories of discourse (pp. 1–17). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsui, A. B. M. 2007. Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680. Vitanova, G. 2005. Authoring the self in a non-native language: A dialogic approach to agency and subjectivity. In J. K. Hall, G. Vitanova, and L. Marchenkova (eds.) Dialogue with Bakhtin on second and foreign language learning (pp. 149–169). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Wertsch, J. 2002. Voices of collective remembering. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wortham, S. 2001. Narratives in action. New York: Teachers College Press. Wortham, S., and Gadsden, V. 2006. Urban fathers positioning themselves through narrative: An approach to narrative self-construction. In A. DeFina, D. Schiffrin, and M. Bamberg (Eds.), Discourse and identity (pp. 315–341). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Part 2

Advocacy in Educational Linguistics

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5 Language Advocacy in Teacher Education and Schooling Christian Faltis

Introduction The focus of this chapter is on language advocacy, defined here as the promotion of an array of socially, culturally, and politically constructed language practices, derived from language policies and orientations, particularly within educational contexts of teacher education programs and K–12 classrooms. Language advocacy represents positions taken about language in society through explicit and implicit promotion of educational and societal reasons for using and learning language in schooling. In educational contexts, language advocacy practices are politically mediated human activity organized from shared understandings of language as constructed by teacher educators, teachers, and educational linguists about how language practices should be enacted within local schooling contexts. As human activity, language practices advocated by and for teacher educators and teachers are bundled activities that represent larger ideologies concerning the nature of language, and how it should be used and practiced. This chapter examines language advocacy as orientations to language by teachers who interact with children and youth in primary and secondary grades, and teacher educators who prepare teachers within formal teacher education programs that lead to state-endorsed teacher credentials. The orientation teachers and teacher educators use to enact and challenge their own and others’ orientations toward language advocacy, especially in their local schooling contexts, matters for the kinds of language practices that are promoted and tolerated in classrooms and elsewhere in schools. The chapter begins with a brief historical accounting of the relation between societal events and language orientations that have affected teacher educators and teachers since the advent of American public schools. Following this section is a discussion of the dimensions of language advocacy in the current contexts of teacher education and teachers. Next comes a section on recommendations for teacher education and teachers, followed by a concluding discussion of future directions.

Historical Perspectives on Language Advocacy Orientations Since the creation of public schools in the later half of the 19th century, following the American Civil War, the majority of teacher educators and teachers in the United States have been members of the dominant group. The first public schools taught young children literacy and math 65

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skills, almost exclusively in one language—English—up to the 6th grade. As public schooling expanded westward and into secondary levels over the ensuing decades, educators and politicians alike debated whether public schools should be open to all students or whether African American, Mexican American, and Native American students should be schooled separately from White students. The segregationists prevailed and influenced the official American schooling policy of separate schools for different ethnic groups, a policy that lasted well into the mid-20th century. By the end of World War I, the United States experienced a spike in immigration from eastern and southern Europe, sparking widespread fear that America was becoming too linguistically diverse and overly populated by darker-skinned immigrants. This fear stoked the flames of Americanization efforts in schools, viewing local efforts by new immigrants to retain their cultural traditions and language practices while residing in America as un-American. As the linguistic and cultural landscape of the United States underwent rapid change, a small group of prominent White scientists, anthropologists, and educators, with roots in eugenics, began espousing racist views that new immigrants (especially those of color), post-Civil War Blacks, and Native Americans were genetically and culturally inferior to the original Anglo Saxon colonial immigrants, particularly in the area of language (Edwards 2010). The eugenic argument had a direct bearing on language advocacy practices at that time. Eugenicists argued that because the language abilities and practices of immigrant children led to low intelligence, teaching them would always be a challenge. Moreover, they contended that it would be useless to teach immigrant children to think in languages other than English, as the use of these languages contributed to the low scores on the intelligence tests used to measure intelligence. For an entire generation between 1910 and 1940, the dominant message conveyed to teacher educators and teachers about immigrants and children of color was that language, race, and ethnicity had an adverse effect on the ability to learn. Language advocacy stemming from this deficit view solidly promoted the use of dominant, majority language for education. By the end of World War II, the genetic arguments about language deficits waned to some extent, owing in part the re-designation of eastern and southern European immigrants as White (Muhammed 2010) and the focus on rebuilding of the nation through the promotion of unity among diverse language communities. Instruction in a common language, it was argued, contributed to national unity. Through the next decade and into the 1960s, members of Black, Mexican, and Native American groups began to question the common language-national unity ideology, making the case that their language and cultural traditions, practices, and histories needed to be part of the nation building from that point forward.

Language in the Era of Civil Rights Language advocacy shifted from an emphasis on collective and national unity to a demand for specific instructional programs, such as bilingual education, and the teaching of Mexican American, African American, and Indigenous American history and culture in schools. Chicano activists and Mexican American students, for example, engaged in sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience to bring attention to racist policies and their language education needs (San Miguel 2001). Teacher educators and teachers developed ethnic and language curricula to reflect changes in language demographics. The 1960 census data indicated that the Spanish-surnamed population in the United States had increased by more than 50%—from 2.3 million in 1950 to nearly 3.5 million in 1960. These data also indicated that Spanish-speaking children and youth were faring poorly in school and that the language of education used in schooling was a primary concern with Latino communities (Faltis and Coulter 2008). 66

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In 1968, Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), the first federal recognition of the role of languages other than English, as a means to meet the educational needs of “children who are educationally disadvantaged because of their inability to speak English” (Congress, U.S. PL 90–247, Sec. 702, 1968). While the Bilingual Education Act did not specifically mandate or define the kinds of programs that schools should use, grants were awarded primarily to teacher education programs and schools with high numbers of emergent bilingual children that (1) developed and operated bilingual programs, (2) prepared bilingual teachers, and (3) established communication between the home and school (Faltis and Coulter 2008). Emergent bilingual students are defined in this chapter as immigrants, children of immigrants, and indigenous children who are adding varieties of the majority language while their bilingual practices are emerging over time (García 2011). The federal bilingual education period lasted from 1968 to 2001, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which changed the focus of federal support for non-dominant language learners from bilingual to English-only policies. Throughout this period, educational linguists and activists chipped away at the earlier eugenic, racist discourse, taking on the low-intelligence, low-language development premise. In 1969, for example, sociolinguist William Labov published The Logic of Non-Standard English, in which he refuted the contention that the language varieties used in Black urban communities were less logical than White peers’. Labov (1969) wrote pointedly: “Unfortunately, these notions are based on the work of educational psychologists who know very little about language and even less about Negro children” (179). He went on to show through meticulous analyses that these children “possess the same capacity for conceptual learning, and use the same logic as any one else who learns to speak and understand English” (179).

Questions About the Nature of Language Following Labov’s seminal work in sociolinguistics, a number of minority educational linguists started working on the traditional conceptualizations of bilingualism and non-standard dialects, posing questions about the nature of language mixing that occurs in bilingual communities within and across language varieties. Language advocates in the field of bilingualism during the bilingual education period were heavily influenced by Fishman’s (1967) paradigm of individual and societal bilingualism. Fishman’s model posited that in order for minority languages to survive in contexts along with a dominant, majority language, they had to be used separately within specific domains of use. Two languages that enjoyed separate, functional distributions among use were said to represent diglossia, a concept he borrowed from Ferguson (1959). In bilingual education, the idea of diglossia meant that the two languages of instruction should be presented separately. When teachers and students mixed the two languages, it was likely that the minority language would suffer. The reason, according to Fishman, was that when a dominant language was used for a purpose that was once served by the minority language, the dominant language takes over that purpose due to its power and prestige. Accordingly, for individual emergent bilinguals to develop high proficiency in their two languages, they will need to have ample opportunities to hear and use their two languages separately over time. In 1980, Pedro Pedraza and colleagues in New York published the results of a multi-year study in which they challenged Fishman’s rule about diglossia (Pedraza, Attinasi, and Hoffman 1980). They found that children and adults who were raised bilingually not only mixed their two languages for communicative purposes, but that the children’s proficiency in the two language repertoires increased as they grew older. Likewise, in the late 1970s, a young educational linguist named Guadalupe Valdés (Valdés-Fallis 1976; 1978) began examining the nature of code-switching in classroom contexts. Valdés defined code-switching used by bilingual students as the alternation 67

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between two or more languages during bilingual discourse. She was among the first educational linguists to embrace code-switching as a sophisticated means of bilingual language use among children and youth. In the popular discourse, code-switching (mixing of two languages within an utterance—in linguistics, referred to as intra-sentential code-switching) was and continues to be maligned as lazy speech, and evidence of one’s inability to use the two languages separately, in ways that reflect common notions of educated speech (see Chappell and Faltis 2007).

Language Advocacy Around Human Rights By the 1990s, there was a shift in the discussion around language advocacy, in response to the scaling up of English instruction worldwide with espousals for teaching standard variety, coupled with the decrease in uses of languages other than English for instruction and other public uses. Early on, some language advocates in the United States and other countries with large multilingual populations looked to the work of Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson (1994), who proposed that people have a linguistic human right to identify with and use their minority language practices. According to these scholars, a human rights language advocacy position espouses the view that at the individual level: . . . everyone can identify positively with their mother tongue, and have that identification respected by others, irrespective of whether their mother tongue is a minority or a majority language. It means the right to learn the mother tongue, including at least basic education through the medium of the mother tongue, and the right to use it in many of the (official) contexts . . . (Phillipson, Rannut, and Skutnabb-Kangas 1994, 2) At the collective level, advocacy for language from a human rights perspective means “the right of minority groups to exist . . . to enjoy and develop their language and the right for minorities to establish and maintain schools” (Phillipson, Rannut, and Skutnabb-Kangas, 1994, 2). An example of language advocacy that focuses on language rights can be seen in McCarty’s (2003) proclamation about teaching indigenous languages in the United States: “Indigenous language revitalisation confronts not only a colonial legacy of linguicide, genocide, and cultural displacement, but mounting pressures for standardisation. Those pressures are manifest in externally imposed ‘accountability’ regimes—high-stakes testing, reductionist reading programmes, and English-only policies” (159). Viewed against the earlier efforts to sanction minority language use in transitional bilingual programs, a human rights language advocacy approach extends the promotion of minority languages as a human right, while simultaneously challenging efforts to decrease the use of minority languages and dialects in school and society as racist and leading toward linguistic genocide.

Anti-Immigrant Discourse and Re-Emergence of Deficit Thinking In the early 2000s, within the rising anti-immigration discourse levied mainly against the growing population of Mexican immigrants who entered the United States from the 1980s and 1990s were renewed efforts to associate deficit thinking with the language practices in Mexican families (Valencia 2010). Mexican immigrant children and youth were targeted by unitary language advocates as resisting efforts to learn the national, majority languages. In the meantime, deficit thinking proponents insisted that deprived cultural practices used in Mexican families and other minority groups contributed to their lack of progress in learning the majority language. Research 68

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by Portes and Rumbaut (2001) however, found that Spanish-speaking immigrants emerge as predominantly English speakers by the third generation. Bilingual language advocates, as well, related a different narrative about the funds of knowledge Mexican families use to navigate their daily lives (González, Moll, and Amanti 2005), rejecting deficit views based on constructions of deprived home environments.

Disinventing Monolingual Views About Language Diversity The bulk of theoretical and practical work developed in the field of educational linguistics in the name of minority language advocacy since the 1960s reflects a position committed to both the promotion of language diversity in modern nation-states, and the support for the expansion of minority language rights. More recently, educational linguists within this orientation have sought to disinvent and reconstitute language (Makoni and Pennycook 2007) in ways that place hybridity and circumstantial bilingualism, where language users perform language acts using both languages, as the basis for understanding language as a local practice (Pennycook 2011). Makoni and Pennycook (2007) draw on the scholarship about the invention of colonial Africa and the deconstruction of language as a separate, autonomous system to argue that hybrid language practices (Bhabba 1994) more accurately represent the realities of bilinguals than concepts based on monolingual norms in post-modern times. Much of this newer research questions the conceptualization of language as a separate, autonomous system that language advocates in minority language rights camps have deployed in their efforts to espouse their views (see Canagarajah 2005; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012).

The Unitary Empire Strikes Back Despite efforts toward language advocacy to promote language diversity using monolingual norms or as local language practices “governed by stylistic and strategic deployment of numerous styles and a range of language” (García 2007, xiv), powerful unitary forces have continued to work feverishly toward the establishment in schools and society of a common, majority language. These efforts, coupled with the teaching of monolingual standards-based approaches to language in academic contexts have been particularly successful at the state level. For instance, in 1998, voters in California passed Proposition 227, which restricted the use of languages other than English for instructional purposes, in order to develop “English for the Children”; in 2002, voters in Massachusetts passed Question 2, which outlawed bilingual instruction; and in 2003, voters in Arizona passed Proposition 203, an even more restrictive language policy that banned bilingual instruction and mandated English-only instruction focused on the teaching of prescribed language forms. Similar restrictions against bilingual instruction in the name of “unitary language” (Grant 1997) have also passed in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. Proponents who advocate for unitary language policies point to the negative juxtaposition of local minority affiliation and national identity, arguing that affiliation to language and non-standard varieties of language serves as an obstacle to national unity and dooms users to low socioeconomic status.

Language Advocacy in the New Era Undaunted by these unitary efforts, bilingual language advocates, spearheaded most prominently by Ofelia García (2009) and colleagues in both the United States and other multilingual locations (García and Kleifgen 2010; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012; Menken and García, 2010), continue to push back, using alternative understandings of the nature of language and how it is 69

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approached in schooling. In the contemporary era of minority language advocacy, language advocates see their goal as twofold: (1) to confront the unitary language perspective espoused by dominant majority language advocates, and (2) to disinvent separate, autonomous views of language and bilingualism, with an eye toward proposing for teacher educators and teachers new ways of understanding and advocating for language diversity in the students they teach. In summary, an essential feature of language advocacy throughout recent U.S. history is that it seeks to promote a particular understanding of language, and in doing so takes a stance that not only favors, but also challenges, certain shared practical understandings of language, language use, and language users. In the section below, language advocacy is summarized in terms of orientations toward unitary or diversity that range from weak to strong positions. As this brief historical account hopes to make clear, language advocacy cannot be separated from larger issues around language and language users that exist in contemporary society and have histories based on the extent and nature of contact between peoples of diverse origins.

Language Advocacy as a Critical Issue in Teacher Education and Teaching In educational contexts, a contemporary critical issue with respect to language advocacy centers on the awareness of orientations toward language advocacy within local contexts that teacher educators and teachers hold and use to guide their day-to-day practices. Lucas and Ginberg (2008) argue that all teachers and teacher educators need to clearly understand the dimensions of language advocacy in order to respond critically to the realities of language diversity in contemporary classrooms.

Realities of Language and Diversity in Schooling No fewer than 85% of 3.5 million practicing teachers and nearly all teacher educators in the 1,400 college and university teacher preparation programs across the United States are members of the dominant group (Feistritzer 2011); fewer than 1% of either group are bilingual and biliterate in languages representative of the bilingual communities in which they teach. Students entering the teaching profession in years to come are likely to continue this pattern. As language advocates, teachers and teacher educators have a more significant impact on language practices of children and youth from ages 4 to 18 than any other adult, barring parents. Teachers engage with their students through language, holding sway over the kinds of language practices that are enacted inside the classroom, including what language practices count, what language practices are enabled, and for what purposes. Millions of children and youth enrolled in school, by contrast, are emergent bilinguals and members of minority groups who may use language practices that are devalued in school. About 10% of elementary schools and 5% of secondary schools across the United States enroll nearly 70% of all immigrant children and youth; about half of all elementary schools nationwide have substantial numbers of emergent bilingual students, classified and often labeled as English language learners, and nearly a quarter of all secondary schools enroll bilingual students who are continuing from elementary school or are first time enrollees (Cosentino de Cohen and Clewell 2007).

Dimensions of Language Advocacy To help understand the dimensions of that which teacher educators and teachers are presently facing in developing language advocacy practices in their local settings, let us refer to Figure 5.1. 70

Language Advocacy Strong Promote a common language in

Promote local language and

school and society for collective

circumstantial bilingualism; espouse

identity and national unity; reify

transnational literacy and hybrid

standard language; disparage non-

language practices; challenge deficit

standard as flawed

language models

Unitary

Diversity Tolerate foreign languages (standard

Tolerate elective, transitional

dialect); support foreign language

bilingualism and biliteracy in schools;

development as an economic

privilege monolingual bilinguals; reify

resource

academic language Weak

Figure 5.1

Language Advocacy Dimensions

On this grid, the vertical axis represents the strength of support, from strong to weak, for certain language practices, depending on the orientation of language advocacy. The second dimension, represented by the horizontal axis, is the orientation of language advocacy, ranging from unitary to diversity. Representative positions are listed for each quadrant, and each of these is explained in more detail below, proceeding from the top leftmost quadrant, in a counterclockwise direction. It is most instructive to consider these axes as continua, rather than fixed positions. Moreover, it is quite possible for individuals to advocate more than one position on the grid, at any one point in or across time, and the orientations originate, for the most part, from good intentions. Historically, K–12 teachers and teacher educators have operated philosophically within the top left quadrant, especially prior to 1960, followed by the bottom left quadrant. Throughout history, particularly during times of heightened civil rights awareness (1960–1980s), schools and teacher education programs have been situated somewhere between lower and upper right quadrant. Notably, advocates of bilingual education and English language learners during recent periods of bilinguaphobia (Faltis and Coulter 2005) and anti-immigrant discourse have been especially vigilant about affirming language diversity. The least common and least widespread orientation among teachers and teacher educators is the upper right quadrant, which strongly advocates for hybridity and diversity in language and literacy practices and actively challenges deficit approaches to language and language learning. This strong diversity orientation objects to many of the core theoretical constructions of language espoused by traditional bilingual education and standard language advocates as well as the basic tenets of uniformity language advocates.

Strong, Unitary Language Advocacy Orientation The strong, unitary position in the top left quadrant promotes a common language in school and society as essential for developing and sustaining national unity through collective identity— namely, one language for one nation. The connection between language and nation developed during the colonization of India, Africa, and the Americas (Dorian 1998). A key tenet of colonization was to de-language indigenous children and youth through schooling in the language 71

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of the colonizer (Stroud 2007). Once a nation had completed its colonization, use of indigenous and immigrant languages served only to fragment society and encourage the development of language affiliations detrimental to a common nation state. Language advocates from a strong, unitary orientation subscribe to the belief that each nation should have only one language to unify the nation; one language liberates citizens from the tyranny of narrow communities to guarantee them personal autonomy, equality, and common citizenship (Parekh 1995). As May (2012) explains it: The ‘triumph’ of universalism with respect to language is evidenced by the replacement over time of a wide variety of language varieties spoken within the nation-state’s borders with one ‘common’ language . . . This process usually involves legitimation and institutionalization of the chosen national language. Legitimation is understood to mean here the formal recognition accorded to the language by the nation-state—usually, via ‘official’ language status. Institutionalization, perhaps the more important dimension, refers to the process by which the language becomes accepted, or ‘taken for granted’ in a wide range of social, cultural and linguistic domains or contexts, both formal and informal. Both elements, in combination, achieve the central requirement of nation-states: cultural and linguistic homogeneity in the civic realm or public domain. (6) Schlesinger (1992), an advocate of this position in recent decades, makes a similar argument: A common language is a necessary bond of national cohesion in so heterogeneous a nation as America . . . institutionalized bilingualism remains another source of the fragmentation of America, another threat to the dream of ‘one people’ . . . (109–110) Language advocates who support a common national language have made several attempts to legally recognize English as the official language. One of the main goals of advocating for English as the official language is to force immigrant children and youth who enroll in schools to be instructed in language and academic content only in English, throughout their schooling experiences. Under the English-only banner, teacher education programs are expected to orient teachers to this particular goal, as evidenced by adherence to state accreditation standards, which give lip service to English learners, and federal standards for English language arts within the common core framework. Within this orientation, new immigrants and emergent bilingual children and youth are required at worst, and expected at best, to stop using their home language (considered to be and depicted as an autonomous foreign language) and learn the national language in the public realm of schools, in order to be successful in schools and to eventually participate as educated adults in government, the military, and in commerce.

Weak, Unitary Orientation At the lower end of unitary, a weak orientation maintains its affiliation with the value of a common national language, but appeals to liberal democratic visions of the language-as-a-resource (Ruíz 1984), for economic development in which languages other than the dominant one are tolerated in the public sphere and supported only in the private sphere (Barry 2001). This orientation tends to romanticize minority languages as long as they remain in the private domain, 72

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providing little recognition to their aesthetic, historical, or affiliative value (Ricento 2005). Preference is given to teaching standard varieties and literatures of foreign languages, which are tolerated at the secondary level of education, well after students have acquired language and literacy in the dominant language. Minority language use among students is tolerated outside of class, but is often looked upon with suspicion (Valenzuela 1999). One of the consequences of advocating for language from a public-private sphere perspective is to weaken the value of non-dominant languages, a point Parekh (2000) makes: The public realm in every society generally enjoys far greater dignity and prestige than the private realm. The culture it institutionalizes enjoys state patronage, power, access to valuable resources, and political respectability, and sets the tone of the rest of society. Although cultures are free to flourish in the private realm, they exist in its overpowering shadow, and are largely seen as marginal and worth practising only in the relative privacy of the family and communal associations. Subjected to the relentless assimilationist pressure of the dominant culture, their members, especially youth, internalize their inferior status and opt for uncritical assimilation, lead confused lives or retreat into their communal ghettos. (204) Hence, while private language use of non-dominant language by minority language speakers has been tolerated over time, the end result is that the dominant language achieves its unitary power. At the secondary level, foreign languages and English as a second language are tolerated for the economic purchase they offer students, particularly for the purpose of global competitiveness. However, as Reagan (2005) points out, foreign language teacher educators and teachers continue to have complete authority over how languages are presented for learning. In most cases, this means teaching students through a grammatical syllabus that privileges standard language varieties, and disparages non-standard usage.

Weak, Diversity Orientation Bilingual education as practiced in the United States and many countries in the world (Heller 2007; Petrovic 2010) is a weak form of advocacy for language diversity. In most cases, bilingual education has been oriented toward a social construction of diversity that encourages elective, learned bilingualism and biliteracy and privileges monolingual bilinguals, often in the name of language human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1994). Monolingual bilingualism is an invention (Pennycook 2007) that can be traced to a number of foundational ideas used in the development of bilingual education, beginning in recent history with the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. Minority language use by teachers and students in bilingual programs is tolerated only to the extent necessary that it allows children to progress effectively through the educational system in the dominant language (Petrovic 2010). At the heart of the weak, diversity orientation to language advocacy is that individual “languages” (Spanish, English, Korean, Chinese) are presented as individual, countable constructs, each with its own separate grammar and name, based on a “monolingual norm of speakerhood” (Hill 2002, 128). Viewing languages as separate entities, bilingual educators in this weak orientation for diversity advocate for diverse languages in general, and specifically for the local languages used in their schools and communities. A weak, diversity orientation tolerates minority language development for children and youth who have already learned the common, majority language. This can be seen in the widespread 73

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promotion of dual-language immersion programs. Modeled after the French-Canadian immersion programs, dual immersion programs are organized to provide separate instruction each of the two languages. A strict separation of the two languages reflects the dominant culture preference for language as a separate entity, a form of diglossia, where the bilingual’s two autonomous languages are used individually with certain people for particular purposes (see Valdés 1997). From this perspective, the bilingualism resulting from dual language immersion programs supports a traditional view of bilinguals normed on the language uses of educated monolinguals, which Heller (1999, 271) refers to as parallel monolingualism. Moreover, as Valdés (1997), points out, dual language immersion programs benefit dominant group students more than minority group students, in effect because the power relation between language and nation continues to be held by the dominant group. Heritage language education courses, with the goal of expanding oral and written language abilities through the acquisition of standard varieties of the heritage language, are also a form of weak, diversity language advocacy. Heritage language advocates range from those who wish to extirpate borrowings, non-standard usage, and code-mixing from the students’ language, to those who view their mission as teaching minority students standard, academic language practices. In either case, the heritage language is considered to be the problem, and academic, monolingual uses of the language the solution. The argument, from a weak, diversity orientation, is that learning the standard variety of a language purchases higher social status than the low status of the private, local variety of language. Support for a weak, diversity orientation to language advocacy is traceable in part to early psychological-based research conducted in Canada, which resulted in concepts such as subtractive and additive bilingualism (Lambert 1975) and dimensions of language use needed for successful schooling (Cummins 1979; 2003; 2008). Weak, diversity advocates are against subtractive forms of bilingualism and English-only instruction for emergent bilinguals, and for additive bilingualism. Language advocates in this orientation support the linguistic rights of individuals and groups to use and expand their home language, which, in home and school settings, is portrayed as a separate, measurable object. Adding a second language to the minority language is desirable, to the extent that the end result of bilingual development is a solid form of diglossia. Weak, diversity language advocates recast language diversity in terms of conversational and academic language, based originally on a distinction put forth by Jim Cummins (1979) between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). Cummins’ theoretical distinction continues to dominate teacher education and teacher-based approaches to academic language, despite numerous critiques.

Strong, Diversity Orientation Unlike those who tolerate elective and transitional bilingualism and privilege monolingual bilingualism and academic language, language advocates with a strong, diversity orientation look to what people actually do with language to question the ways that schools and teacher education programs conceptualize and language diversity. This orientation in language advocacy seeks to normalize bilingualism without diglossic separation, to place mixed languages, creoles, and multilingual language practices at the center of what language diversity means and how it is enacted through local practices. Strong, diversity language advocates confront deficit perspective about minority language users as well as monolingual language models that inaccurately portray the language practices of minority children and youth. Local language practices and circumstantial bilingualism are viewed as normal ways of becoming bilingual. In the strong, diversity orientation transnational literacy practices are encouraged 74

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as a way to build sites for children and youth to creatively use multiple language varieties “to take up, resist, and negotiate academic and identity positionings” (Hornberger and Link 2012, 272). From a strong, diversity orientation, bilingual users are frequent “border crossers” (Anzaldúa 1987), whose languaging (García 2009) and translanguaging (Williams 1994) practices necessarily transcend social borders of separate language domains in the pursuit of meaningful interaction. Translanguaging in schooling contexts refers to the process by which bilingual students make sense of and enact language bilingually, in ways that question fixed identities and meanings in the pursue of new meanings. For strong, diversity advocates, therefore, language is action-based, rather than being a thing to be counted, reified, or tolerated. Language, or more accurately, languaging diversity in this orientation is based on the promotion of an integrated bilingual norm, where language users employ their full language abilities from two languages at any given time, adjusted to the needs and possibilities of the interaction. As an integrated bilingual norm, language practices are inherently dynamic and ever changing as users interact, interpret, and perform across time and space. Strong, diversity language advocates have no truck with narratives that conceptualize language as a separate autonomous system (aka the “Language Myth,” Harris 1981); that summarily prohibit the use of language other than the dominant varieties in school, work, government, military, and the economy (official English stance); that portray language development as an economic resource (foreign and heritage language development); that support minority language practices in schools only as a temporary transition to the dominant language (transitional bilingual education); that de-value hybrid bilingual practices (view translanguaging as flawed and undesirable); and that frame translanguaging from a linguistically deficit lens (low level thinkers due to lack of academic language use). In summary, language advocacy can tilt toward a unitary or diversity orientation and range from strong to weak support of either. The grid represents indicators of each orientation, with the understanding that individual teacher educators and teachers can cut around two continua, depending of the views they hold toward the language of their students and language users in their professional lives. The grid serves as a heuristic, and does not include all of the perspectives and practices that can be linked to the main orientations.

Recommendations for Teacher Educators and Classroom Teachers First and foremost, language advocacy is multi-dimensional, and in educational contexts, variation across the two continua among educators is expected. Nonetheless, if teacher educators and teachers wish to commit to a particular orientation in language advocacy, they need to recognize and be aware of their own and their colleagues’ stances toward language and language users. Building and sustaining a community of language advocates in teacher education programs and schools requires program-wide infusion and buy-in of language advocacy practices (Athanases and de Oliveira 2011). For teacher education, this means that teacher education faculty, including field supervisors, mentor teachers, and faculty in other departments who work with beginning and practicing teachers, need to be clear about the orientation they hold about language advocacy, and the strength of their convictions about the orientation. Likewise, classroom teachers in constant contact with children and youth need opportunities to discuss school wide policies and practices in terms of the orientation toward language advocacy held by administrators, teachers, and support staff. Language advocacy can be discussed in professional development workshops, and through informal teacher study groups. For example, teachers can use the grid in Figure 5.1 above to determine the strength and direction of language advocacy orientations at the school and district level. In secondary level schools, teachers within 75

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various disciplinary departments can identify where they stand on the grid, and where steps they would need to take to move them in a direction agreed upon through discussion across academic disciplines. Accordingly, it is recommended that teacher educators and teachers engage in discussions in which they: • • • •

Seek to locate themselves on the grid of dimensions of language advocacy. Question their understandings of language, including common views of language as “good vs. bad,” “proper vs. improper,” “standard vs. non-standard,” and “monolingual vs. bilingual.” Study more deeply the unitary and diversity orientations of language advocacy. Develop a mission statement for their program or school setting that includes a declaration of language advocacy agreed upon by majority decision.

Further Reading For helpful readings on unitary language advocacy, the following sources are recommended: Barry, B. 2001. Culture and equity: An egalitarian critique of multiculturalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Porter, J. 1975. Ethnic pluralism in Canadian perspective. In N. Glazer and D. Moynihan (Eds.), Ethnicity: Theory and experience (pp. 267–304). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schlesinger, A. 1992. The disuniting of America: Reflections on a multicultural society. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. For helpful readings on diversity language advocacy, the following sources are recommended: Edwards, J. 2010. Language diversity in the classroom. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S., and Pennycook, A. (Eds.) 2007. Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Demas, E., and Saavadra, C. 2004. (Re)conceptualizing language advocacy: Weaving a postmodern mestizaje image of language. In K. Mutua and B. B. Swaderner (Eds.), Decolonizing research in cross-cultural contexts (pp. 215–234). Albany: State University of New York Press. Pennycook, A. 2010. Language as a local practice. London: Routledge. Informative readings on translanguaging as a contemporary alternative to monolingual bilingualism include: Canagarajah, S. 2011. Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review, 2, 1–28. Creese, A., and Blackledge, A. 2010, Spring. Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? The Modern Language Journal, 94(1), 103–115. Hornberger, N., and Link, H. 2012, May. Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A biliteracy lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(3), 261–278. Jørgensen, J. 2008. Poly-lingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(3), 161–176.

References Anzaldúa, G. 1987. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Auntie Lute Books. Athanases, S. Z., and de Oliveira, L. C. 2011. Toward program-wide coherence in preparing teachers to teach and advocate for English language learners. In T. Lucas (Ed.), Teacher preparation for linguistically diverse classrooms: A resource for teacher educators (pp. 195–215). New York: Routledge. Barry, B. 2001. Culture and equity: An egalitarian critique of multiculturalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhabba, H. 1994. The location of culture. London: Routledge.

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Canagarajah, S. 2005. Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chappell, S., and Faltis, C. 2007. Bilingualism, Spanglish, culture and identity in Latino children’s literature. Children’s Literature in Education, 38(4). 253–262. Congress, U. S. 1968. Congressional Record (Section 702 of Public Law 90-247, Bilingual Education Act). Washington, DC: Author. Cosentino de Cohen, C., and Clewell, B. 2007. Putting English language learners on the educational map. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. Cummins, J. 1979. Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 221–251. Cummins, J. 2003. BICS and CALP: Origins and rationale for the distinction. In C. B. Paulston and G. R. Tucker (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: The essential readings (pp. 322–328). London: Blackwell. Cummins, J. 2008. BICS and CALP: Empirical and theoretical status of the distinction. In B. Street and N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education: Vol. 2 Literacy (2nd ed., pp. 71–83). New York: Springer. Dorian, N. 1998. Western language ideologies and small-language prospects. In L. Grenoble and L. Whaley (Eds.), Endangered languages: Language loss and community response (pp. 3–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, J. 2010. Language diversity in the classroom. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Faltis, C., and Coulter, C. 2008. Teaching English learners and immigrant students in secondary school settings. New York: Merrill/Prentice Hall. Faltis, C., and Coulter, C. 2005. Bilinguaphobia in the new millennium. In L. Poyner and P. Wolfe (Eds.) Marketing fear in America’s public schools (pp. 151–164). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Feistritzer, C. E. 2011. Profile of teachers in the US, 2011. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Information. Ferguson, C. 1959. Diglossia. Word, 15(2), 325–340. Fishman, J. A. 1967. Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues, 23(2), 29–38. García, O. 2007. Forward. In S. Makoni and A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. xi–xv). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. García, O. 2009. Emergent bilinguals and TESOL: What’s in a name?. Tesol Quarterly, 43(2), 322–326. García, O. 2011. Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O., Flores, N., and Woodley, H. H. 2012. Transgressing monolingualism and bilingual dualities: Translanguaging pedagogies. In A. Uiakoumetti (Ed.), Harnessing linguistic variation for better education (pp. 45–75). Bern: Peter Lang. García, O., and Kleifgen, J. 2010. Educating emergent bilinguals. Policies, programs and practices for English language learners. New York: Teachers College Press. González, N., Moll, L., and Amanti, C. 2005. Funds of knowledge. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Grant, N. 1997. Democracy and cultural pluralism: Towards the 21st century. In R. Watts and J. Smoltcz (Eds.), Cultural democracy and ethnic pluralism: Multucultural and multilingual policies in education (pp. 93–112). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Harris, R. 1981. The language myth. London: Duckworth. Heller, M. 1999. Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography. London: Longman. Heller, M. 2007. Bilingualism: A social approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, J. 2002. Expert rhetorics in advocacy for endangered languages: What is listening, and what do they hear? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 12(2), 119–133. Hornberger, N., and Link, H. 2012, May. Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A biliteracy lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(3), 261–278. Labov, W. 1969. The logic of non-standard English. Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, Monograph No. 22. Lambert, W. E. 1975. Culture and language as factors in learning and education. In A. Wolfgang (Ed.), Education of immigrant children (pp.55–83). Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Lucas, T., and Grinberg, J. 2008. Responding to the linguistic reality of mainstream classrooms: Preparing all teachers to teach English language learners. Handbook of research on teacher education: Enduring questions in changing contexts, 3, 606–636. Makoni, S., & Pennycook, A.(Eds.) 2007. Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. 77

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May, S. 2012. Languge and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationals and the politics of language (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. McCarty, T. L. 2003. Revitalising indigenous languages in homogenising times. Comparative education, 39(2), 147–163. Menken, K., and García, O. 2010. Negotiating language policies in schools: Educators as policymakers. London: Taylor and Francis. Muhammad, K. G. 2010. The condemnation of Blackness: Race, crime, and the making of modern urban America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Parekh, B. 1995. The concept of national identity. New Community, 21(3), 255–268. Parekh, B. 2000. Rethinking multiculturalism: Cultural identity and political theory. London: Macmillan. Pedraza, P., Attinasi, J., and Hoffman, G. 1980. Rethinking diglossia. In R. Padilla (Ed.), Ethnoperspectives in bilingual education,Volume 2: Theory in bilingual education (pp. 75–97). Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University Press. Pennycook, A. 2007. Global Englishes: Rip slime and performativity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7, 513–533. Pennycook, A. 2011. Language as a local practice. New York: Routledge. Petrovic, J. E. (Ed.) 2010. International perspectives on bilingual education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Phillipson, R., Rannut, M., and Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 1994. Introduction. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas, and R. Phillipson (Eds.), Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination (pp. 1–24). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Portes, A., and Rumbaut, R. G. 2001. Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reagan, T. G. 2005. Critical questions, critical perspectives: Language and the second language educator. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Ricento, T. 2005. Problems with the “language as resource” discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the USA. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–368. Ruíz, R. 1984. Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal, 8(2), 15–34. San Miguel, G. 2001. Contested policy: The rise and fall of federal bilingual education in the United States, 1960–2001. Dallas, TX: University of North Texas Press. Schlesinger, A. 1992. The disuniting of America: What we all stand to lose if multicultural education takes the wrong approach. American Educator, 15(1), 14–33. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., and Phillipson, R. 1994. Linguistic human rights, past and present. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and R. Phillipson (Eds.), Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination (pp. 71–110). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Stroud, C. 2007. Bilingualism: Colonialism and postcolonialism. In M. Heller (Ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach (pp. 25–49). London: Palgrave. Valdés, G. 1997. Dual language immersion programs: A cautionary note concerning the education of language minority students. Harvard Educational Review, 67(3), 391–429. Valdés-Fallis, G. 1976. Social interaction and code switching patterns: A case study of Spanish/English alternation. Ypsilanti, MI: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe. Valdés-Fallis, G. 1978. Code switching and the classroom teacher. Language in Education: Theory and Practice, No. 4. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics. Valencia, R. 2010. Contemporary deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice. New York: Routledge. Valenzuela, A. 1999. Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and politics of caring. New York: State University of New York Press. Williams, C. 1994. Arfarniad o ddulliau dysgu ac addysgu yng nghyd-destun addysg uwchradd ddwyieithog [Evaluation of teaching and learning methods in the context of bilingual secondary education]. Bangor, Wales: University of Wales.

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6 Educational Equity for Linguistically Marginalised Students Anthony J. Liddicoat and Kathleen Heugh

Introduction Language issues have come to be seen as significant for achieving equitable education and linguistic marginalisation is an important element in educational inequality. Linguistic marginalisation occurs when a language is excluded from the public life of a society in such a way that its speakers have less access to social, economic, and political resources. It is a typical correlate of the selection of a national language that serves all linguistic functions to the exclusion of other languages. The term “linguistic marginalisation” is an attempt to move the focus away from the idea that educational inequity is only an issue for linguistic minorities. In many nations, linguistic marginalisation is experienced primarily by numerical minorities who are expected to adjust to the linguistic practices of the numerical majority. In many other nations, especially those that came into being at the end of European colonialism, the dominant language is typically the language of a numerical minority, while the languages of the numerical majority are excluded from much of public life, including education. Regardless of the nature of linguistic marginalisation, marginalised groups share similar educational needs and problems and we aim to bring into relationship some of the themes common to both.

Historical Perspectives Linguistic marginalisation is a consequence in part of the emergence of the one nation–one language ideology that developed with the rise of the nation-state. The idea that a nation-state should have a single official language is an innovation of the European post-Enlightenment period, although historically linguistic uniformity was not considered as fundamental for the operation of a polity. While this ideology can be traced to earlier periods, notably the Reformation, the one nation–one language ideology emerged most strongly during the French Revolution. The rationalist nation-building agenda of the Revolution argued for a single language for the French state in two ways (Geeraerts 2003). The first was a pragmatic rationale: A common language allows effective communication and access to state institutions and political functions. The second was symbolic: A single language creates and represents a single, unified identity. In

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effect, it is this second perspective that is most significant for the development of linguistic marginalisation. The first requires dissemination of a common language, but not inherently at the expense of other languages. The second sees linguistic diversity as inimical to the development of unified nation-states and therefore constitutes language diversity as a problem to be managed by states. The rise of the nation-state with its monolingual ideology led to the formation of a dominant linguistic habitus, that is, a dominant sense of what constitutes linguistic normality. This dominant habitus was a monolingual habitus (Gogolin 1994) that conflated the one nation–one language ideology with perceived linguistic norms for individuals. Thus, in the emergence of nation-states, “a basic and deep-seated belief was created that monolingualism is the universal norm of an individual and a society” (Gogolin 2009, 536). From the perspective of the monolingual habitus, the plurilingual individual is a deviation from the norm and this deviation is understood within the framework of other ideologies, notably those that equate language with national affiliation. The monolingual habitus thus effects linguistic marginalisation of those who do not speak the official language of their nation as an ideological production. This ideology held sway most importantly at the beginning of mass education. Schooling was closely identified with the nation-building project and where nations emphasised monolingualism for unifying and identity functions, schooling became synonymous with assimilation into the dominant language and hence into the national identity. Non-dominant languages and cultures were excluded from schools and from officially accepted understandings of the nature and purpose of education and of what constituted the educated person (Paquette 1989). Schools therefore became essentially monolingual environments in which the dominant language was seen as both the goal and the instrument of education and other languages were marginalised if not completely excluded. Other languages were frequently considered as barriers to effective learning of the dominant language and so as an educational problem to be solved, ideally through language shift and assimilation to the monolingual norm. School laws of the 19th century did not typically prescribe or proscribe languages for use in education and few contained a specific mention of media of instruction or the languages through which literacy or other education goals would be developed. The silence on questions of language represents the success of the one nation–one language ideology and the monolingual habitus. The lacunae about language in such laws were filled by the pervading language ideologies of the time. For example, the French Third Republic’s laws on compulsory education of 1880 make no reference to French; however, French was the only language used in French schools. The use of French in this case is embedded within a republican ideology of linguistic diversity as divisive, anti-democratic, and anti-republican. In other cases, schooling laws explicitly addressed language issues, as in the case of the 1907 Dialect Control Ordinance, which banned the use of Ryukyuan languages in Okinawan schools and punished children who spoke them (Liddicoat 2013). Punishment of the use of languages other than the national language in school contexts was found even in contexts where no specification of language was made in law, with punishments ranging from ridicule to corporal punishment. Monolingual education was poorly adapted to the needs of speakers of marginalised languages and frequently took the form of ‘submersion’ (Cohen and Swain 1976) of learners in a second language context for which they were little prepared. Moreover, teachers were typically monolingual in the official language, meaning that little real communication could be achieved between teachers and students. As Valenzuela (1999) argues, schools function less to develop capabilities and more to remove their linguistic, cultural, and community identities, marginalising languages and their speakers and, through this marginalisation, contributing to the educational, social, and economic marginalisation of their speakers. 80

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The practices and ideologies of language education that emerged in the 19th century were not only features of education in nation-states but were exported to colonial contexts. In these contexts, the languages of the local people were marginalised in favour of the languages of the colonial powers, with the colonial language being the normal language of monolingual education. The introduction of monolingual, colonial educational models often overlaid older, multilingual education practices, such as those developed through religious education in Islamic West Africa (Heugh 2006). Such practices were typically ignored by colonial regimes and excluded from understandings of education and the educated person. The association of education with national languages was not universal. In some cases, local languages were included in education in order to maintain colonial dominance (Pennycook 2000). In other cases, alternative approaches to the education of marginalised linguistic groups existed outside government controlled education. Protestant missionary schools of the 19th century often emphasised the acquisition of literacy in local languages as a means of evangelisation and of accessing religious texts (Liddicoat 2012). For such schools, a religiously oriented set of goals held precedence over goals of nation building and was guided by a different logic in constructing education. However, in colonial contexts, there were also many cases in which evangelisation and the extension of colonial control went hand in hand; in such contexts, monolingual education in the colonists’ language was the norm. The advent of compulsory state education, often accompanied by a utilitarian discourse, often led to the progressive abandonment of such models in favour of monolingual education in the colonial language. The first half of the 20th century is characterised by studies that claimed to identify a “language handicap” in bilingual children (e.g., Jones 1952). When compared to monolingual children, bilingual children appeared to be less capable in a wide range of language abilities, including poorer vocabulary, lower standards in written composition and greater incidence of grammatical errors (e.g., Saer 1923). Such findings contributed to a discourse of deficit in educational and other contexts that equated bilingualism with negative effects on children’s intelligence. The language handicap was understood as a form of linguistic confusion that had a negative impact on children’s intellectual development and academic performance (e.g., Saer 1923). Most of these early studies of bilingualism were characterised by serious methodological shortcomings. A particular problem was that children were usually assessed only in the dominant language—that is, monolinguals were assessed in their first language and bilinguals in their second. This variable had significant impact on tests of language knowledge and performance and on performance in language-based tests of intelligence. Moreover, studies did not usually control for variables other than language, especially socioeconomic status, and so confounded the variable of language with other variables that impact on education. This is particularly problematic as speakers of marginalised languages are typically marginalised in other ways, and the fact of their social, economic, and political marginalisation was ignored in understanding their educational performance. Some early critics (e.g., Fukuda 1925) recognised the methodological problems, but such studies did not lead to a questioning of the validity of the forms of psychometric testing being used to measure educational and linguistic success. Research that addressed such problems has typically found a positive rather than a negative impact of bilingualism. Studies from South Africa in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Malherbe 1946) found that students who received bilingual education, even from relatively poor socioeconomic contexts, achieved more highly in secondary school assessments than did students who received monolingual education. In these studies, assessment was conducted using bilingual instruments and students could read both language versions, and sometimes answer questions in the language of their choice. The failure to control for the full range of variables in assessing bilingual students led to a reification of language as an explanatory factor in educational attainment, with bilingualism 81

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being referred to as a social plague (Epstein 1905) and “a hardship devoid of apparent advantage” (Yoshioka 1929, 476). Essentially, such thinking reflects an underlying monolingual habitus in educational and policy practice. This monolingual habitus had multiple and complex impacts on the educational experience of speakers of marginalised languages that reinforced their marginalisation. In particular, the idea that education was equated with the use of the dominant language led to a belief that other languages should be excluded from education. The monolingual habitus did not mean that multilingualism was absent in schools but such multilingualism was largely constrained to elite education, which typically included sustained learning of additional languages. The range of languages admitted in such educational programs was small—typically classical languages and a small number of prestigious modern languages, such as French, German, or English. The choice of languages reflects local ideologies of prestige and/or usefulness, and a high level of achievement in these languages was seen as fundamental to the concept of an educated person. There is thus an internal paradox in approaches to language in education that stigmatises the bilingualism of some and rewards the bilingualism of others. This paradox can be understood in terms of Skutnabb-Kangas’ (1981) distinction between elite and folk bilingualism. Elite bilinguals are typically speakers of the dominant national language who have acquired a valued additional language through formal education as a form of intellectual training. Success in the acquisition of the additional language is taken to demonstrate intelligence and application. Folk bilinguals are those who acquire a non-dominant language through first language socialisation and also have knowledge of the national language. In this case, acquisition of the dominant language, as perceived through the monolingual habitus, is natural and unremarkable. This means that errors in speaking or writing are perceived in terms of deficiencies in knowledge and use of the normal language of communication rather than as achievement in the use of an additional language. Acquisition of the non-dominant language brings with it none of the social accolade associated with academic achievement and intellectual development; instead the non-dominant language is seen as the reason for deficiency in the national language. In this way, not only are some languages marginalised, but so are some types of bilingualism.

Core Issues and Key Findings The core issue in the education of linguistically marginalised students is the degree to which they have access to and receive quality education that is comparable to and equitable with that provided to students from dominant language backgrounds. For much of the 20th century, research conducted in the global north has dominated the literature on linguistically marginalised students, and this research indicates that bilingual education is necessary, especially for students from low income indigenous or migrant communities. However, this has been based on the assumption that the language of dominance is also the language of the numerical majority of the mainstream society in which the marginalised community lives. While the core issue of access to quality education remains the same, the situation in southern contexts has complexities of scale that differ from those in the north. The first of these has to do with the scale of marginalisation. Whereas in the north, marginalisation affects minority communities, in the south it affects majority populations. The second has to do with the degree of linguistic diversity, since more than two thirds of the world’s languages occur in the south (mostly in Africa and in South and Southeast Asia). The third is that in these settings, there are layers of linguistic marginalisation amongst indigenous communities, superimposed by one of the major international or former colonial languages. As in northern contexts, monolingual education in a dominant international or regional language is highly problematic. However, bilingual education may be equally problematic if this is in an international language and a dominant national or 82

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regional language. This type of bilingual education may approximate an elite bilingualism that serves to restrict multilingual practices, entrench class division, and further advantage dominant communities with closer proximity to urban centres of power. Geopolitical and geolinguistic marginalisation occurs on a sliding scale, so that it increases or decreases according to distance from the structures and language(s) of the centre. Students further from the centre are likely to be more marginalised and less likely to have access to equitable education (e.g., Mohanty 2012). In northern contexts, education authorities have tended to offer limited, short-term, or ‘weak’ bilingual programs that restrict opportunities for productive engagement in mainstream education. Education systems can do this for several reasons. Marginalised communities are either numerically small and/or socioeconomically disempowered, they have been effectively ‘invisibilised’ (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000), and education authorities misuse education assessment data. Weak programs include submersion or subtractive bilingual education (i.e., the child is prevented from being able to use the first language for learning at school) and early-exit bilingual education (limited use of the home language for one or two years of primary education). None of these facilitate the further intellectual development of a marginalised student in the school system, and the linguistic building blocks required for learning new knowledge are removed or prematurely terminated. Thus, students perform poorly on standardised and system-wide tests and typical responses from educational authorities have been to terminate whatever limited provision has been available, as was the case through Proposition 227 in California (c.f. Krashen 1996) and, more recently, in relation to Indigenous Australian education by the government of the Northern Territory in 2008 (Simpson, Caffery, and McConvell 2009). There are no reliable studies that demonstrate that low income students who are linguistically marginalised succeed in submersion or early-exit programs (Heugh 2011b). Such decisions reinforce low self-esteem, exacerbate marginalisation, and frequently result in what Mohanty (2012) calls ‘push-out.’ Students simply absent themselves from an education system that lacks meaning or relevance. Educational linguists have understood equitable provision to be dependent upon strong, well resourced bilingual education in which the goal is biliteracy development in both the home language and the dominant language of the nation-state (e.g., García and Baker 2007). Most research in bilingual education of marginalised students indicates that it is essential that both languages be used as mediums of instruction for a minimum of five to seven years. This is in order that students are able to progress, uninterrupted, in relation to the curriculum and also to learn enough of the dominant language to be able to use this language productively for learning in subjects across the curriculum after this point (e.g., Cummins 1981; Thomas and Collier 1997; 2002). Examples of successful or strong bilingual programs, such as heritage or dual language programs, have been described for Europe (e.g., Extra and Gorter 2001) and the United States (e.g., García 2009; McCarty 2013). The numbers of students engaged in strong bilingual programs in northern contexts are relatively small, therefore the data sets from longitudinal studies of student achievement in such programs are often criticised (García and Baker 2007; Howard, Sugarman, and Christian 2003). Nevertheless, there are two longitudinal studies that together have gathered comprehensive data of more than 900,000 minority students (Thomas and Collier 1997; 2002). In these studies the researchers tracked students’ achievement in L2 (English) reading proficiency from Grade 1 to Grade 11 across several different language models. These include weak (e.g., English-only, early-exit, late-exit) and strong (dual language) programs. The majority of students were in weak programs, while relatively fewer were in strong programs. The students in the dual language programs had higher achievement than those in the weak programs. However, because the number of students in such programs is relatively small in comparison with those in the weak programs, the findings have elicited some criticism (Howard et al. 2003). Nevertheless, the patterns of achievement in 83

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these studies, including the differences found between weak and strong forms of bilingual education, show remarkable similarity to patterns of student achievement found in various studies in Africa (e.g., Ouane and Glanz 2011). As discussed above, marginalisation in the global south has characteristics that differ from those in the north. Whereas in the north, most children were enrolled in formal education throughout the 20th century, this has not been the case in southern contexts. Prior to 1990, the majority of marginalised students in the south were either not enrolled in primary education or they fell out of the schooling system before completing primary school (Bamgbose 2000). Thus the degree of systemic marginalisation from the schooling system has been extreme. UNESCO’s Education for All framework and the Millennium Development Goals, including universal primary education and gender parity for girls, have changed the dynamics. Most children are now enrolled in primary school, but this does not mean that they stay. Where marginalised students are in school in southern contexts, bilingual education is seldom provided, and where it is, it is inadequate and insufficient. In most southern countries, the contemporary language ecology includes minority, regional, and national languages, as well one or more former colonial language(s). The former colonial language is used as the language of economic, political and educational dominance, and is also the language of access to the international community. As an instrument of power, this language serves to marginalise speakers of endogenous languages in post-colonial states. For example, in India, although speakers of the national language, Hindi, are relatively privileged, they aspire to high level bilingualism in Hindi and English in order to enjoy full citizenship and to participate in the global sphere. Speakers of regional (state languages), such as Oriya in Orissa, are one step removed from participation at the national level, and two steps removed from access to international possibilities, but, since their aspirations are no less, they would need trilingual education in Oriya, Hindi, and English in order to have comparable access. Speakers of Tribal languages in Orissa are the most marginalised, and they would need to have education in the Tribal language, Oriya, Hindi, and English if they are to participate fully (Mohanty 2012). In Ethiopia, pastoralists in the Afar Region know that they need Afar for trade and survival at the local level, Amharic in order to engage in regional and national affairs, and they want very much that their children should develop a high level of proficiency in English. There is a chasm between what students need and what they receive, particularly in southern contexts. The greater the linguistic diversity in such settings, the less likely it is that the most marginalised students will receive equitable educational opportunities. Education systems, for the most part, have offered students a monolingual education in the international or former colonial language, as in most Francophone and Lusophone countries of Africa. At best, these students are offered limited access to early-exit mother-tongue education. The educational outcomes for students in these programs are less positive than those for marginalised students in similar programs in the global north (Bamgbose 2000; Ouane and Glanz 2011). In former British colonies, systems usually offer early-exit programs (mother tongue medium education [MTE] for three years followed by transition to English medium), and the outcomes, as evident in system-wide multi-country assessments of literacy, are usually dismal (Heugh 2011b). Elsewhere, Coleman (2011) demonstrates that access to the international language, English, in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan is limited to students from middle class homes in private schools. Although lower income families and students do all in their power to facilitate access to English, there are sociopolitical constraints and ill-fitting educational programs that result in the further marginalisation of students who do not have efficient access to English education. Research on linguistic diversity, marginalisation and education has been a regular feature of education in Africa from the early 20th century, with numerous commissions of enquiry directed 84

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towards identifying effective language education models for African children. Based on these studies, UNESCO has recommended mother-tongue education for the first few years of primary (i.e. early-exit programs) since the 1950s, but there have been no legal instruments to put this into effect. Post-colonial governments have mostly reduced the number of years of MTE (in former British colonies) or introduced weak early-exit bilingual education (e.g., in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mozambique). Some countries have elected to use the dominant regional or national African language for part or all of primary, followed by a switch to English medium (early-exit in Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi, Kenya; late-exit in Tanzania and Somalia). Speakers of less dominant African languages in these settings, invisibilised in the education system, have been most seriously marginalised. Achievement for speakers of the dominant African language has been disappointing, and even more so for more marginalised students (Bamgbose 2000; Ouane and Glanz 2011). In South Africa, while English and Afrikaans speakers have been required to have bilingual education since 1910, speakers of African languages were required to have trilingual education until 1997. During the first 20 years of apartheid education, 1955–1976, African students received eight years of MTE plus the teaching of English and Afrikaans as subjects. Secondary education involved a switch to English and Afrikaans dual medium education, with the African language retained as a subject. Government, African communities, and educational linguists had no idea at the time that, quite by accident, the apartheid language education model, even if poorly resourced, offered the best opportunities for African students to succeed in primary school and to remain to the end of secondary. African students at school during this period had the highest level of achievement in the secondary school-exit examinations in the country’s history. Student resistance to eight years of MTE in 1976, however, resulted in a reduction to four years of MTE until 1994. Despite a constitutional commitment to multilingual education, three iterations of post-apartheid educational transformation have resulted in the further reduction of MTE for African students to three years (i.e., early-exit bilingual education). Achievement of African students declined from 1978 to 1994, and it has declined even further in the 20 years of post-apartheid education (Heugh 2011b). In another example, system-wide data from Ethiopia offer some of the most recent and most significant evidence of the potential of multilingual education to reduce inequity and to increase opportunities for participatory citizenship. Since 1994, Ethiopia has implemented a bilingual and trilingual education system across the 11 administrative regions of the country, and in 32 languages. This resulted in a dramatic increase in primary school enrolment and retention to the end of primary. Assessment data for Grade 8 students between 2000 and 2008 show that students who have eight years of MTE in the local or regional language, with the national language Amharic and English as subjects, achieve more highly than students with fewer years of MTE, and are more likely to complete secondary school (Heugh 2013). Even though Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries of the world, the government initiated and implemented a multilingual system across the country with a minimal education budget between 1994 and 2004, and the evidence shows increasing student enrolment, retention, and achievement. The increase in student achievement is similar to that found in South Africa with a similar policy of eight years of MTE between 1955 and 1976. However, the Ethiopian government decided to reprioritise English in the system from 2005 onwards, and diverted 44% of the teacher education budget to invest additional resources in English, reducing MTE. Just as student achievement declined once the provision of MTE was reduced in South Africa, so too has this occurred in Ethiopia. In each case, the systems have attempted to introduce early-exit models and invested heavily in these, with no evidence of a positive return on investment. Argument that multilingual education is too costly does not hold true in Africa. Rather, monolingual or early-exit education offers limited or poor returns on investment (Heugh 2011a). 85

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Sociopolitical and economic changes on a global scale from the 1990s have altered the world order in ways that affect the scale and complexity of linguistic marginalisation in northern contexts. Whereas in the last decades of the 20th century, a strong bilingual program may have offered marginalised students adequate access to equitable education, this may no longer be the case. Significantly altered language ecologies increasingly mean that speakers of dominant languages, previously satisfied with monolingual education, may now require at least two languages for purposes of international communication. If marginalised communities in countries of the global north previously required two languages, they now require three. Just as degrees of marginalisation are evident in the south, these are becoming increasingly recognised in the north. For example, Saami communities in Northern Scandinavia might have similar linguistic requirements in school education to those of Tribal children in India (see a related discussion of Basque and Frisian education in Gorter and Cenoz 2012). Increasing mobility of both indigenous and migrant communities brings about changes in language ecologies of highly urbanised/metropolitan centres. The scale and complexity of linguistic diversity and marginalisation of the north is therefore moving closer to that of the south. These global changes in no way reduce the needs of linguistically marginalised students in education systems. Rather, they sharpen the focus on increased opportunities for inequity and social stratification, unless education systems find ways to mainstream multilingual education. In summary, there are several core issues and findings regarding linguistically marginalised students and (in)equitable opportunities for successful education in both contexts. Firstly, if education systems are to attempt to ensure equal access to meaningful education, there is evidence that linguistically marginalised students require a minimum of six or seven years of multilingual education in well resourced contexts of the global north. In less well-resourced contexts, as in the global south, students require at least eight years of strong multilingual education. Detailed and longitudinal studies of bilingual education in the north and system-wide assessment data of multilingual education systems in the south offer compelling evidence. This evidence shows gaps of achievement between marginalised students in submersion and early-exit programs compared with students learning through their home language. The evidence also shows improved achievement of students in strong bilingual/multilingual programs. The core issue remains, however, that large proportions of students remain marginalised in the schooling system in both the north and south. The difference is that in the south, marginalisation and inequity apply to most students.

Research Approaches The study of the education of linguistically marginalised groups is characterised by methodological diversity. Broadly, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used. Quantitative methods have usually taken the form of assessments, typically involving testing of elements of language proficiency, literacy, and numeracy. Such testing can measure a range of different forms of educational achievement, but in measurements of literacy, often dominant language literacy is included, and in some cases it may be the only measure. This is especially the case where data are obtained from standardised testing of national populations that includes both speakers of the dominant and marginalised languages. Quantitative research approaches are strongly supported by policy makers and development agencies, and the results from such methods are highly valued in education policy and program design. This is because quantitative data are considered useful for benchmarking and, thus, for identifying issues of success and failure in education. While quantitative research does have a place in understanding the education of linguistically marginalised students, research using testing has been particularly problematic in this area; it has 86

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frequently been flawed because of the monolingual habitus underlying the research approach. This point was made above in relation to early studies of bilingualism, but persists in many modern studies. One significant problem has been that such research data has usually been collected in the dominant language. This means that linguistically marginalised students are tested in their non-dominant language, usually without recognition of the consequences for the validity and reliability of the data. This problem is compounded when achievement is compared with that of dominant language students, who are tested in their first, sometimes only, language. In addition, most quantitative studies of the education of linguistically marginalised children have been one-off, synchronic assessments of educational performance at a particular time. This is actually highly problematic for assessing education in multilingual settings as longitudinal studies (e.g., Ouane and Glanz 2011; Thomas and Collier 1997) have demonstrated that it is not possible to evaluate the impact of any second language (majority language) program in fewer than four years, and that accurate interpretations are only likely over a minimum of five to six years. Quantitative benchmarking, when used in unsophisticated ways to inform policy, may lack validity and reliability. For example, the benchmarked results of large-scale national literacy and numeracy testing in Australia in 2008 were used as a rationale to close bilingual education programs for indigenous Australians who spoke English as an additional language (Simpson et al. 2009). The argument used was that such students performed consistently below the national average for literacy and numeracy. The problem here was the nature of the comparisons: Second language capabilities for indigenous students were measured against those of first language speakers of English, rather than benchmarking against similar students. In reality, the testing showed that students in bilingual programs performed better than other indigenous students acquiring English as a second language who were not in bilingual programs. This situation points to the sort of problems that can result from a lack of nuance in the collection, interpretation, and use of quantitative research, and points to questions of the ethical conduct and use of such research with linguistically marginalised populations. Since the 1980s, research on the education of linguistically marginalised children has increasingly used qualitative methods, especially ethnography, sometimes in conjunction with quantitative methods. Qualitative research allows for the possibility of more nuanced accounts that locate children’s school performance to their context to develop a rich description of their education. Such research investigates not only the process and outcomes of educational programs but also issues such as attitudes to educational programs and perceptions of their value, engagement and participation in education, and sociopolitical issues relating to the provision of education. This research has sought to understand recurring processes in the education of linguistically marginalised children that can explain educational problems in context. The results of this research have produced a more nuanced picture of educational success for the children of marginalised linguistic communities. Research approaches to the investigation of linguistically marginalised students are often hampered by a monolingual habitus in research design and implementation that privileges the language of the researcher over the language of the research participant (Liddicoat 2011), and this can have significant implications for the effectiveness of such research. Most recently, research in this area has taken a critical stance towards the education of marginalised groups and has focused on how power and ideology shape educational possibilities. In particular, language education policies can be seen as ideological frames that shape understandings of the nature and purpose of education (Liddicoat 2013). Within such contexts, schools and teachers can contest these possibilities by opening new spaces for students’ languages in teaching and learning (Ramanathan 2005). However, societal forces can also exert pressures that restrict possibilities for innovative action (Bekerman 2005). Education for minoritised students is thus subject to complex interactions of context that need to constitute elements of research approaches. 87

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New Debates Debates about the languages and education of marginalised communities have been polarised along at least two fault lines. The first is the tension between the theory and research within educational linguistics (which includes key areas within applied, socio-, and cognitive linguistics) vis à vis the short-to-medium term interests of educational authorities (in political systems based on three-to-five-year terms of office). The second, our focus here, is a set of competing positions within the various sub-fields of linguistics. The first of these involves terminology and either contested understandings of key terms or theoretical slippage in their use. The term ‘mother tongue’ or ‘mother language’ has recently been used pejoratively to stigmatise language maintenance, heritage, and bilingual programs as ahistorical, essentialist, and outdated. The pejorative discourse associated with this term is often linked to efforts to deny access to bilingual programs. Strategic terminological slippage, in which subtractive or early-exit bilingual programs are passed off as if they were late-exit or additive in design, has been used by government agencies, merchants of early-exit programs, and some development agencies (Ouane and Glanz 2011). Multilingual education is variously (mis)represented as: a (monolingual) education system that includes linguistically diverse student communities; various forms of linguistic accommodation within a monolingual mainstream system; multiple iterations of bilingual programs, hence multilingual education across the system; and multiple alternatives to mainstream or non-formal bilingual and trilingual programs. Red herring debates or terminological slippage are often used as smokescreens to avoid implementing linguistically equitable education. While there are persuasive sociolinguistic arguments regarding reframing terminology, these require conceptual clarity in order to avoid opportunistic misappropriation (see also Krashen 1996). It needs to be clear that when interested parties refer to bilingual education, that theoretical consistency would require that it is understood as the use of two languages for purposes of learning and teaching across the curriculum. Where the goal is to use more than two languages for learning and teaching across the curriculum, this is multilingual education. However, both bilingual and multilingual education extends beyond the notion of multiple languages in parallel. New debates point towards key pedagogical practices within bilingual and multilingual education. Until recently, bilingual education has been understood to mean parallel, separated language systems in schools. Reanimated debates within socio- and cognitive linguistics suggest that language might be better understood as a process, or as a verb, and that bilingual and multilingual people use their linguistic repertoires to make meaning. Thus, a re-take on code-switching as ‘translanguaging’ (García 2009; see also García & Woodley, this volume), or what Agnihotri (2007) refers to as ‘multilinguality,’ suggests the need for reconceptualising how we deliver bilingual and multilingual education. Translation and interpreting appear to be significant language skills that have been ignored in the last four decades of post-grammar-translation pedagogy. Such considerations have implications for curriculum design, assessment, and teacher education. Inequality in assessment has had serious implications for marginalised students everywhere. Limited forms of ‘language accommodation’ (e.g., permitting the use of dictionaries, additional time to write high stakes assessment instruments, etc.) are insubstantial and do not rectify imbalances in the validity and reliability of such testing regimes. There are, however, recently developed instruments that foreground linguistic diversity and equity (e.g., Shohamy 2011) and these have opened up further debates. The challenges remain in how teachers and education authorities will accommodate the linguistic repertoires of students in ways that make use of their language skills and build on these so 88

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that students may engage as productive citizens of the contemporary world. There are useful examples of curriculum design, assessment practices, learning resources, and teacher education in Africa and India, and there are useful examples of multilingual accommodations in urban settings in Europe and North America. However, the continued scale of linguistic marginalisation of students in high income countries and the majority of students in low income countries suggests that the debates are in their infancy.

Implications for Education The main implication of research in the education of linguistically marginalised children is that there needs to be a radical reconsideration of the role and nature of multilingual education. In particular, it means that multilingual education needs to be seen as the usual practice for educating such children and not as an exceptional or transitional arrangement. From this reconsideration, there flow a number of further implications. Multilingual education involves teacher education and preparation costs. As linguistically marginalised groups tend to have had fewer educational opportunities, there may be significant issues in teacher recruitment. As a result, specific educational programs may need to be established to develop such teachers. These teachers also require specific preparation for teaching in multilingual contexts. In particular, they need preparation to assist them in teaching both dominant and marginalised languages in ways that are linguistically and culturally additive and embrace diversity. However, Heugh (2011a) has argued that this cost is less than is claimed by opponents of multilingual education. The cost is, moreover, offset by the benefits of improved educational outcomes for marginalised groups. There are also implications for how linguistically marginalised children are assessed. Assessment needs to become sensitive to the fundamentally linguistic nature of any assessment task and to the ways that this plays out in various contexts of assessment. In order to do this, we will need innovative approaches to assessment that are more equitable in contexts of linguistic marginalisation. In particular, standardised testing is particularly problematic, as standardisation in itself may preclude the very possibility of linguistic and cultural diversity in assessment forms. There are also implications for the development of educational materials ranging from curricula to textbooks. If education is to be sensitive to and respectful of linguistic and cultural diversity, materials need to be developed in a way that reflects this. This often involves more than the translation of curricula or textbooks. It also involves the development of new materials that incorporate the linguistic and cultural traditions and knowledge of marginalised groups into school education programs. One consequence of the lack of commercial interest in marginalised languages has been that educational materials are often of poorer quality and have lower production standards than materials in the dominant language, a discrepancy that reproduces the marginalisation of the languages involved, at least in educational contexts.

Further Reading Coleman, H. 2011. Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. London: British Council. Hornberger, N. H. (Ed.) 2003. Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Martin-Jones, M., and Jones, K. (Eds.) 2000. Multilingual Literacies: Reading and Writing Different Worlds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Singleton, D., Fishman, J. A., Aronin, L., and ÓLaoire, M. (Eds.) 2013. Current Multilingualism. A New Lingusitic Dispensation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Skutnabb-Kangas, T., and Cummins, J. (Eds.) 1988. Minority Education: From Shame to Struggle. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., and Heugh, K. (Eds.) 2012. Multilingual Education and Sustainable Development Work. From Periphery to Center. New York and London: Routledge.

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7 Is There a Place for Home Literacies in the School Curriculum? Pedagogic Discourses and Practices in the Brazilian Educational Context Elaine Rocha-Schmid

Introduction In the last decades, a number of theorists have consistently identified schools as a place of cultural and linguistic conflicts (Aronowitz and Giroux 1993; Gee 1996; Heath 1983; Street 1984). In schools, lower income and minority language individuals have been more likely to have their culture and language dismissed and their voices unheard than those of their mainstream counterparts. This has been argued to be a result of schools’ tendency to reproduce societal unequal power relations by taking the dominant culture and language as a model for reproduction. As traditional notions of the ‘oral and written’ and ‘literate and illiterate’ paradigms started being contested in the 1980s, schools were urged to replace their monocultural take on literacy for an approach that draws on non-mainstream literacy and language for curriculum intervention. In this chapter, I discuss the discourses of language and literacy that have dictated the status of Brazilian low income students’ home literacies and language in the school curriculum. I draw on studies in linguistics and literacy from a sociocultural tradition that argue for the reconceptualisation of home and school literacies and, therefore, of what goes in the school curriculum in order to break the pattern that has ensured that the majority of the country’s lower social class individuals consistently fail at school literacies (see Bagno 2004a and Kleiman 1995a).

Historical Perspectives In the 1960s and early 70s, two different discourses in education coming from two different parts of the world tackled the relationship between non-mainstream individuals’ home cultures and school literacies. In the USA, at a time when many economically disadvantaged children were perceived to fail to acquire the knowledge valued at school, a number of studies in the field of education suggested a link between poverty and cultural and linguistic deficiencies (see Edwards 92

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1979 for a review of these studies). The notions behind the deficit hypothesis have undergirded many adult education and family literacy programmes with a compensatory ethos. In the context of education in Brazil, these views seem to still influence researchers’ and educators’ expectations of their impoverished pupils’ competence to acquire school literacies. From a different theoretical perspective, in the 1970s, Paulo Freire’s seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed set the stage for the re-appraisal of marginalised groups’ own cultures and voices within the classroom. Freire (1970) suggested a model for participatory pedagogy that would influence and inform work by a number of theorists around the world (see Giroux 1983; Delgado-Gaitan 1990; Schugurensky 1998). At the centre of his ideas for critical pedagogy is a teacher-student dialogical process on three levels: the identification of a context for analysis related to learners’ own cultures and lifeworlds, a critical analysis and problematisation of this context (e.g., the power relations of those involved in this context), and the understanding of why and how (in political and societal terms) such context came to be (Freire 1985). Freire’s work has received criticism on issues such as the directiveness of the pedagogical process, which critics find may result in authoritative teacher-student relations (see Schugurensky 1998; Rocha-Schmid 2010), and his failure to refer to gender and race issues, ‘as if oppression were only about class’ (Schugurensky 1998, 22). Freire’s notions of empowerment have, however, informed educational theorists and researchers with family literacy programmes and worked as antidote to deficit views (see, for instance, Borg and Mayo 2001). In Brazil, Freire’s notions of critical pedagogy have mostly been linked with the education of adults and adult literacy programmes. In fact, programmes of adult education in Brazil are mostly focused on the teaching of reading and writing and do not extend the links between home and school literacies, as can be the case in adult literacy programmes in other parts of the world (see Delgado-Gaitan 2005).

The New World Order: Changes in Discourse Since the 1980s, there have been a number of transformations in the debate of every sphere of the educational system. As in other parts of the world, the epistemological changes in Brazil that have been placed under the auspice of post-modernity (Bauman 1992) can be seen in the new discourses and policies of democratisation, pluralism, and neoliberalism. Schooling has become a reality for a greater number of impoverished Brazilian children, partly due to the end of dictatorship in the 1970s, and partly to a series of projects and policies implemented from the 1990s. Concomitantly, the discourse of pluralism—which within the social sciences in other parts of the world has been translated into an urge for multiculturalism and multilingualism initiatives (see Rampton 2006)—in Brazil reignites the debate of power relations through language and literacy that had, in the 1970s, been initiated by Paulo Freire. Mortatti (2010) explains that although constructivism passes in the 1980s to be the ‘official’ theoretical model by which the educational system (pedagogically and in terms of governance) is modelled upon, the debate of literacy and language amongst academics and policymakers is also informed by two other theoretical models: interactional sociolinguistics and literacy studies (332). These are respectively influenced by Labov’s work with dialects in New York City (1966; 1972) and Gee (1996) and Street’s (1984) notions for the New Literacy Studies. Consequently, there has been a surge in the number of studies that locate the Brazilian debate within the debate of literacy and linguistics from a sociolinguistics and sociocultural perspective (Kleiman 1995a; Soares 1998; Bagno 2004a). I will review some of the most influential publications at the centre of the current debate of literacy and linguistics in Brazil to what relates to home and school literacy connections. 93

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Core Issues and Key Findings The (Re)Conceptualisation of Literacy and Language in the School Curriculum The first influential publication is Kleiman’s (1995a) ‘Os significados do letramento: uma nova perspectiva sobre a pratica social da escrita’ (‘The meanings of literacy: a new perspective on the social practices of writing’). This is a collection of articles that together provide a sound instance of the issues that are at the centre of the debate of how lower income individuals’ language and literacy are conceptualised and dealt with in Brazilian schools and society at large. The different theoretical approaches that each author takes (often originating in conflicting theoretical discourses) provide the reader with a taste for the complexity and heterogeneity of the debate on literacy in Brazil (see Mortatti 2010 for a historical perspective and critique of these discourses). Here I refer to three chapters that most closely draw on old and new conceptualisations of the relations between orality and writing and have, respectively, been put in practice in the classroom in a way that either intensifies a rupture between home and school literacies and cultures, or attempts to bring students’ vernacular into the classroom to forge a bridge for the acquisition of school literacies. The reference to relations of orality and writing is relevant here, as these have been associated with the paradigms of illiteracy and literacy. In societies with a strong history of popular oral cultures, in which literacy has recently been introduced to the masses, as is the case in Brazil, these dichotomies become strong representatives of home and school literacies and of how home cultures are conceptualised and valued in society at large. In other words, as schools place their focus on academic literacy—mostly represented by official documents, literary classics, and grammatical books, lower social class individuals’ home cultures go mostly unacknowledged in the curriculum or are dismissed as inappropriate. This dynamic has been argued to alienate these individuals and be responsible for their failure with school literacies (Heath, 1983). Also of literacy theorists’ concern is the fact that these individuals’ homes have mostly been assumed to be stripped of literacy practices altogether, which in modern societies can hardly be the case, as I further elaborate in this chapter. In the first chapter of Kleiman’s book, ‘Literacy models and literacy [alfabetizacao] practices at school’, which draws on ethnographical studies in adult literacy programmes, Kleiman identifies three situations of conflict that arise as outcomes of adult literacy programmes that conceptualise literacy as an autonomous model, as suggested by Brian Street (1984), and which, as a consequence, have a compensatory ethos. An autonomous perspective on literacy presupposes that literacy is a ‘neutral technology that can be detached from specific social contexts’ (Street 1984, 1). Street (1984) explains that an alternative approach to literacy “stresses the significance of the socialisation process in the construction of the meaning of literacy for participants” (2). The next three sections delve into Kleiman’s three situations of conflict further.

1. Conflicting Discourse Practices: The Construction of Functions That Do Not Complement One Another In the first instance, the author explains that by taking writing events (e.g., the writing of a recipe) from an ‘autonomous perspective’ as neutral and factual to replace certain activities that students culturally engage in through orality (e.g., the oral exchange of recipes and collaborative cooking present in many families), the adult educator tries to create a function for the written language which in fact has been perfectly fulfilled in students’ lifeworlds by verbal interactions. In other words, the students do not have difficulties in relation to the process involved in following a 94

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recipe; the problem arises regarding the formal characteristics of a written recipe (Kleiman 1995b, 50). In a different instance, the adult educator and the students engage in a practical production of soap, cakes, and playdough, following patterns of oral interaction with which the students are more familiar. The written text is given a follow-up, supportive role: ‘So that we don’t forget the recipe’. In this way, a need for the written text is constructed, instead of the previous ‘replacement’ mode. The author concludes that in the first instance it is presupposed that writing is a neutral facilitator to mnemonic and mental processes. She contends, however, that, as Heath (1983) suggests, not every literate group verbalises or uses the written language to analyse a sequence of steps involved in the realisation of a task (activity), and certainly, groups with an oral tradition have other strategies to assist them with memorisation (Kleiman 1995b, 51).

2. Identities in Conflict: The (Re)Construction of the ‘Illiterate’ as a Less Valuable Being The second instance of conflict refers to the discourse of literacy as related to cognitive gains and, as a consequence, the ‘illiterate’ individual as seen as devoid of intelligence to conduct social interactions (e.g., in trading and business) (see also Graff 1987). Kleiman ponders that occurrences that undermine these individuals’ ability to function in society are not unusual in the Brazilian media, in the voice of politicians, and in adult literacy programme classrooms. She suggests that there is a need to foster a critical debate on the ‘literacy results’ to analyse the unequal social power relations that are omitted by these discourses. In this way, the autonomous model of literacy would be seen as just a model that needs to be problematised. This, along with the awareness of other types of literacy practices and their contexts, would help to demystify the discourses of literacy; it would be a first step towards bringing the education system closer to students’ realities, beyond asking students to assimilate to it.

3. Conflicting Values: Students’ Resistance to the Literate Culture In the third instance, Kleiman describes how the reading of a medication description ends up causing friction between the adult educator and her students, with the latter aligning themselves against the educators’ authoritative voice that tries to ‘impose’ on them the discourse of the pharmaceutical industry without promoting a debate that reassesses its agenda and addresses students’ own cultures and beliefs and their status and place in the wider society. (See also Gee 1996 for the complexities of the relations between ideological discourses and reading and writing.) Kleiman suggests that situations of conflict between the adult educator, who more often than not reproduces the voices of mainstream groups, and students, who have their values and language dismissed, very often result in students dropping out of these courses before being able to achieve their goal of reading and writing. In the chapter entitled ‘Orality and the construction of reading by children from illiterate families’, Sylvia Bueno Terzi (in Kleiman, 1995a) discusses the finding of her ethnographic study with school-aged children from an impoverished community in Brazil. Drawing on Heath’s (1983) work on home and school literacy links and on her own findings, the author posits that in literate families the development of oral and written language occurs concomitantly: “As a child learns to talk, she starts to learn the functions and uses of writing, being able to become a reader and text producer even before she can decode the written language (be alfabetizada)” (Terzi, 1995, 91). This, she argues, is not the case with children from what she refers to as ‘illiterate’ or ‘little literate’ backgrounds, who arrive at school without being exposed to interactions around school models of literacy. 95

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The author explains that once at school, these children’s acquisition of reading does not go beyond the process of word recognition to the more ideal recognition of the written text as another way of communicating meaning. This is the case because schools fail to take account of students’ pre-school experiences, assuming school literacy as a universal skill; they approach reading and writing as purely coding and decoding. As a consequence, the interactions teachers engage students in bear no familiarity to the nature of interactions students experience outside school. In this way, the link between orality (as students from low income families know it) and writing is lost; the possibility (argued by the author) of the latter being developed through the means of the former is missed. Through ethnographic action-research, the author embarks on a nine-month project that aims at re-establishing the link between oral and written language for her low income participants in school. In more practical terms, her approach involves constructing a dialogue around the written text whereby both the interaction patterns and the context of the situation are designed to resemble the oral interactions students are more familiar with and to allow them to infer meaning from topics from their home oral experience. The author concludes that by the end of the study, participants had acquired the notion that literacy and orality were two means to the same goal (that of meaning making) and were able to draw on their funds of knowledge, allegedly mostly acquired from orality, to build their comprehension of school written texts. Terzi’s article provides a sound account of how reading and writing are conceptualised and consequently dealt with in the school researched, which can arguably be taken as using the institutionalised, traditional ways of approaching literacy common in other schools in the country. Its relevance to the discussion of home and school links for children from a low economic background is obvious—firstly, in its description of the ruptures of language and literacy they face when arriving at school and, subsequently, in the attempts the author/researcher engages in to overcome these constraints. By acknowledging and departing from children’s home interactions, levels of comprehension, and own strategies around texts, the author suggests an approach that falls into the perspectives of multiple literacies (see Auerbach 1997), which place the responsibility for bridging the home-school gap on schools rather than transferring it to parents, which can be the case with family literacy programmes (Gadsden 2008). In other respects, however, the use of concepts such as ‘illiterate’ or ‘little literate’ to refer to the families in the study contradicts the very notions the author draws her theoretical inference from. While the study reinforces the notions that individuals use both written and spoken modes to ‘supplement and reinforce’ each other (Heath 1983), it seems to miss the point that this socialisation around reading (and of reading in association with other modes—see Kress 2003 for issues of multimodality) also happens in low income communities, which are part of a literate society and therefore exposed to the written artefacts that are subsumed by it (Street 1984). If taken the way they are described in the article, the participants of Terzi’s study seem to live in a community devoid of literacy where their only claim to ‘cultural models’ is their oral interactions. It takes us back to a description of impoverished children’s background as that which departs from middle class literacies and interactions, which are taken as the standard model for analysis. In this way, a focus on a ‘lack or a deficit’ (Schultz and Hull 2002, 27) remains. An approach with a stronger sociocultural ethos would take into account how these children engage with the literacy material they do have at home (e.g., labels from products, siblings’ school books, religious books, bills etc.) and the literacy events they witness at home (e.g., their siblings doing their homework; role play around school interactions that may take place amongst school children and young siblings; their parents paying bills and going about other mailing). Proponents of multiple literacies have argued for a ‘culturally responsive approach’ (Bloome 2008, 255) that uses family literacies as curriculum intervention (Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti 2005). Drawing on these views, Bloome (2008) explains 96

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that “part of the dynamic addressed by culturally responsive pedagogy involves eschewing a priori constructions of students as having deficit cultural and linguistic backgrounds that make difficult students’ effective participation in classroom literacy practices” (255). He adds that The concept of funds of knowledge has been used to emphasize that the homes and communities of cultural and linguistic minority students are not deficit in social, linguistic and cultural capital, but rather that teachers need to design curriculum and instruction in ways that provide opportunities for students to bring to their participation in classroom literacy events the funds of knowledge available in their households and communities (Gonzales, Moll, & Amanti 2005; Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez 1992). (Bloome 2008, 255) These issues also suggest the intertextuality of discourses, whereby old and new concepts of literacy are still conflicting. The last study I refer to in Kleiman (1995a) approaches the issue of home-school links from a sociolinguistics perspective. Stella Maris Bortoni analyses and discusses data of teacher-student classroom interactions collected in a small rural community in Central Brazil. With a larger aim to address the question of whether schooling enables students to acquire ‘formal registers’ of their first language, the author analyses teachers’ patterns of code switching between standard Portuguese and the local rural variant in terms of whether these are related to teachers’ views of what constitutes a literacy event. Drawing on Hymes’ (1974) ethnography of communication and notions of speech events and Philip’s (1972) ‘structures of participation’ (see Erickson and Schultz 1977, 6, cited in Bortoni 1995), Bortoni identifies four different types of speech events throughout the lessons observed: 1) 2) 3) 4)

Short interactions (speech acts [Hymes 1974]): jokes, disciplining students, short explanations. Long explanations or comments about a task that is being carried out (e.g., feedback about a mathematical problem-solving task). Feedback on the reading aloud. IRE (Introduction, Response, and Evaluation) speech event (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975).

Bortoni’s analysis takes into consideration phonological and grammatical aspects to distinguish between the rural Portuguese variant spoken by the participants and standard Portuguese. The author concludes that the two teachers in the study code switch according to the type of interactions being carried out. Interactions of Type 1 above were mostly carried out in the rural variant, while Types 3 and 4 (which are more closely associated with school practices) were predominantly carried out in standard Portuguese. The author suggests that the level of standardisation of the teachers’ speech was directly related to the conceptualisation they hold of distinctions between oral events and literate ones. The teachers in the study were also found not to focus on correcting students’ uses of their vernacular (a practice considered usual in Brazil at the time of the study). The author comments that a culturally sensitive approach (Erickson 1987; see also Ladson-Billings 1994) would acknowledge and raise students’ awareness of the differences between the standard variant and other marginalised variants. Bortoni concludes that the interactional patterns observed in the classroom contributed to shift the perspective from the dichotomy of ‘good Portuguese and bad Portuguese’ to ‘the Portuguese we use to read and the Portuguese we use to talk’ (Bortoni 1995, 140). In addition, she posits that working on a more positive platform seems to have fostered an environment of respect and friendship between teachers and students in the classroom. She 97

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suggests that this approach may result in students’ acquiring features of standard Portuguese, which are valued in more formal events of communication, without dismissing students’ own vernaculars. Bortoni’s study alludes to issues of language discrimination that are symptomatic of social inequality in Brazilian society. Questions about issues of acceptance of students’ vernacular within schools are relevant in a context that has been characterised by a strong focus on prescriptive teaching of the standard language, in which the written text has been taken as a model for oral communication. The article is on par with the sociolinguistic perspective that has been taken by a number of linguists and educational theorists on the approach to issues of standardisation, the status ascribed to other variants, and the subsequent ‘teaching’ of the first language in Brazil in the last decades. I discuss below some of the issues that arise from this debate.

Vernacular Language and the School Curriculum A number of studies in the last three decades have drawn on the work of sociolinguists in other parts of the world, mostly on Hymes’ (1964) ethnography of communication, Labov’s (1966; 1972) notions of interactional sociolinguistics, and Halliday’s (1978) systemic linguistics to support the claim for a re-conceptualisation of language and its study. I briefly draw here on Marcos Bagno’s (2004a) book Linguistica da Norma (The Linguistics of the Norm) to summarise the issues of language discrimination and language inculcation that have been at the centre of this debate and that have relations to the discussion being pursued herein. The understanding of these issues has been argued as crucial for the understanding of the process of sociocultural inequality reflected upon and achieved through language discrimination in society and, in a micro dimension, for the factors that lead to teachers’ conceptualisations of literacy and the battle they engage in with their students for the acquisition of the standard variant (see Faraco 2004; Luchesi 2004; and Bagno 2004b). Bagno (2004b), Faraco (2004) and Luchesi (2004) draw on historical facts to explain these issues. They contend that on par with the Eurocentric agenda of the Brazilian elites in regards to culture and language, which has been in place since colonial times and detrimental to the culture and language of the great majority of Brazilians, the set of linguistic features that came to be seen as the norm to which all should aspire, and which still adorns the pages of the many normative grammar books available in the country, was based on a European Portuguese variant registered in literary classics of the 19th century. In spite of being closer to the variant spoken by the elite than to any other variant spoken in Brazil, mostly due to the fact that those grammarians, policymakers, and the print media who declare themselves guardians of the standard language are themselves members of this elite, the artificial nature of this standard and the rather predictable gap—in syntactic, semantic, and phonological terms—between this and other variants spoken in Brazil have been argued as some of the factors contributing to the intensive prescriptive approach to language in Brazilian schools and, in turn, the marginalisation of different vernaculars. As a consequence, two main equivoques are encountered in the way language has been approached in schools. First, there is the notion that the written text should be taken as a model for the oral mode, and, second, there is a focus placed on the prescriptive teaching of grammar, both in schools and in the media. The latter is evidenced in the shape of television and radio programmes, newspaper and magazine columns, and so on, (Bagno 2003) which have the aim to teach native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese to speak their own language ‘correctly’. This involves pointing out perceived ‘errors’ that are found in the speech of a great part of the population. 98

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Castilho (in Bagno 2004a, but written in 1978) explains that despite the democratisation of schooling in the 60s and 70s, every element present in state schools conforms to the dominant class language and culture. He posits that attempting to replace a social group’s linguistic variant with another reinforces the ‘complex of linguistic incompetence’ already existent in the lower social classes (Castilho 2004, 33). Silva (2004, 261) also ponders that the act of taking the written text as the model for oral language creates a conflict between the school standard and the ‘friendship group’s’ standard. Given the nature of the standard valued at school, she argues, however, that the process of erasing one vernacular in favour of the written variant and the consequent feeling of lack of linguistic competence Castilho refers to is not only a reality for lower income social groups, but also for students from a middle class background. In this way, the gap between students’ language and the language aimed at school has been fossilised not only by the literacy practices that the latter values and tries to pass on as universal to different sociocultural groups, but also by the language it imposes on these groups as a model for reproduction.

Research Approaches Schultz and Hull (2002) suggest that studies on the nature of school and home literacy continuities and discontinuities have been mostly conducted through the theoretical lenses of (1) the ethnography of communication (Hymes 1964; Heath 1983); (2) cultural historical activity theory built on Vygotsky’s work (see Scribner and Cole 1981), and (3) the New Literacy Studies (see Street 1984; Gee 1996). Marsh (2010) refers to the sociocultural, cultural, and sociological theories as the three broader fields of study that have informed work with a focus on home-school literacy links. She explains that under these three fields of study there are a number of concepts generated in relation to literacy studies. It is not possible to provide here a comprehensive account of the methods used by theorists working in all of these theoretical traditions. It is possible to point out, however, that the great amount of work in sociocultural studies, and particularly in New Literacy Studies, has followed an ethnographic tradition of data collection within homes and learning institutions (see Barton and Hamilton 1998; Bartlett 2007; and Grenfell, Bloome, Hardy, Pahl, Rowsell, and Street 2012a). The classroom domain has been used as a field of ethnographic studies more traditionally by ethnographers of communication (Hymes 1974) and more recently by theorists drawing on Bhabha’s (1994) notions of the classroom as a third space (see Gutierrez 2008). In Brazil, recent work in this area has significantly been conducted within the theoretical perspective of the New Literacy Studies, interactional sociolinguistics, and cultural studies following Vygostky’s (1962) work on cognitive development. These studies have predominantly been conducted within schools (see, for instance, Colello 2007; Cruz 2007). These new perspectives on literacy have also motivated work from an ethnographic approach that looks into literacy within other domains (see Souza’s 2011 work with black youth artists; Franchetto 2008 on the conflicts between oral and writing practices in indigenous communities; and Tavares and Ferreira 2009 on home literacy practices and the networks of lower income families).

New Debates and Implications for Education Literacy The theorisation of literacy through the lens of the New Literacy Studies has in the last decades encouraged a number of researchers to document the out-of-school literacy practices of individuals around the world. Many studies have also pointed out how marginalised groups 99

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have successfully been involved in literacy practices in different domains while failing at school literacies. More recently, however, literacy theorists have drawn attention in retrospect to the tendency encountered in this line of studies to overemphasise a ‘school-home literacy divide’ and, in turn, to romanticise out-of-school literacies while villainizing school practices (Brandt and Clinton 2002; Hull and Schultz 2002; Street 2012a). While the discontinuities between home and school literacies seem to be a fact to many non-mainstream children, Schultz and Hull (2002, 12) posit that “We may fail to see the presence of school-like practice at home (. . .) or non-school-like activities in the formal classroom. Such contexts are not sealed tight or boarded off; rather, one should expect to find, and one should look to account for, the movement from one context to the other” (12). The authors add that the account that is made of schools, teachers, and academic literacies are often too harsh at a time when teachers are increasingly confronted with the mere implementation of policies, rather than being involved in consultation and discussion. Taking the criticism of aspects of New Literacy Studies into account, Street (2012a, 45) ponders that it is now time for theorists to move beyond these theoretical critiques and to develop positive proposals for interventions in teaching, curriculum, measurement criteria, and teacher education in both the formal and informal sectors, based upon these principles. He contends that it will be at this stage that the theoretical perspectives brought together in NLS will face their sternest test: that of their practical applications to mainstream education. Street and colleagues (see Grenfell et al. 2012) build on the concepts of the NLS, in conjunction with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, in search of a sociocultural approach that fulfils Street’s suggestion above. An aspect of their debate is the role ethnography can have in empowering both educators and their students in the search to promote awareness of and familiarisation with community practices. Street’s (2012b) project Learning for Empowerment Through Training in Ethnographic-style Research (LETTER) has trained adult literacy practitioners in India and Ethiopia on how to conduct ethnographic-style research to investigate into their students’ community practices. These practitioners have been able to go from a passive position as spectators in a teacher training program to one of active ethnographers in control of how to best incorporate their findings onto their classroom practices. The expectation is that an ethnographic approach to investigate students’ community literacy practices may function as an antidote to the many preconceptions of different groups’ languages and literacies that still persist. At the same time, it may give teachers some sense of autonomy amidst increasing accountability.

Digital Literacies Looking into students’ practices from an ethnographic approach could also provide educators with a more informed awareness of their students’ uses of digital literacies. Erstad (2011, 105) ponders that rather than describing youth’s digital use homogeneously, ‘[we] need to specify variations and digital divides among young people at different age levels, and in different cultural contexts, and also to specify different aspects of digital media, from gaming to social media, texting, and so forth’ (p. 105). A closer investigation of students’ uses of digital literacies could help us to ‘[identify] what impact such technologies have on specific social practices in which people are involved’ (Erstad 2011, 105). Moreover, it would also contribute to a more learnercentred pedagogy in which students’ funds of knowledge would not only be acknowledged, but would also be taken as valid aspects towards course syllabi.

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Parental Involvement There is a need for research that assesses the place of parents and students’ voices within schools. There are the questions of 1) whether there would be a place for family literacy programmes in the educational system in contexts like the one discussed herein; and 2) whether these would even be desirable given the compensatory nature that these programmes have been argued to assume (see Rocha-Schmid, 2010). On this matter, Gadsden (2008, 172) suggests that the field should engage in ‘a more in-depth focus on and analysis of culture’ that goes beyond the narrow categorisation of ethnicity and race. In a context of harsh social inequity, descriptions of cultural differences tend to be debated at the level of social classes without much further attention to individuals’ other identities, such as participation in religious, sports, or political groups, which are prone to inform and widen their literacy practices.

Language Language theorists in Brazil warn of the need of a reconceptualisation of language and its study. This, they argue, ought to include the problematisation of the relations between the standard language and the sociocultural and economic factors that have historically contributed to language as a means of social inequity representation and reproduction (Bagno 2004a). This should lead to: 1)

2) 3)

the awareness that the written form should not and cannot be taken as a model for oral communication (a practice that has resulted in the discrimination of any production that does not comply with its rules of correctness); the recognition and acceptance (not only tolerance) of other variants; and the prevalence, at school, of those grammars that incorporate a descriptive (rather than prescriptive) account of written and oral uses of different linguistic variants.

Faraco (2004) posits, however, that this should be a debate that goes beyond school gates and into the public and political societal domains. This chapter has reviewed some of the main debates being carried out in the area of educational linguistics and literacy studies in Brazil. It has been suggested that the issues of language discrimination and traditional conceptualisations of a rigid literacy and orality paradigm have played a very strong role in schools’ failure to serve the country’s lower social class individuals. On a more positive note, political and epistemological changes observed in the last decades have brought about a discourse that calls upon schools to transform themselves to better serve these individuals’ children. The expected result is that home cultures and languages will stop being objects of shame (see Barlett 2007) and be instead supported and drawn upon in children’s acquisition of the academic literacies that are so valued in official domains.

Further Reading Bartlett, L. 2010. The Word and the World: The Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil. Cresskill: Hampton Press. Pahl, K., and Rowsell, J. (Eds.) 2006. Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: Instances of Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ribeiro, V. M. 2003. Letramento no Brasil. Sao Paulo: Global Editora. Soares, M. 2003. Alfabetizacao e letramento. Sao Paulo: Contexto.

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References Aronowitz, S., and Giroux, H. A. 1993. Postmodern Education: Politics, Culture, and Social Criticism. Minneapolis/ London: University of Minnesota Press. Auerbach, E. 1997. Family Literacy. In V. Edwards and D. Corson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (Vol. 2: Literacy). London: Springer Press, 153–161. Bagno, M. 2003. A Norma Oculta: Lingua e Poder na Sociedade Brasileira. Sao Paulo: Parabola. Bagno, M. (Ed.) 2004a. Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola. Bagno, M. 2004b. Lingua, Historia and Sociedade. In M. Bagno (Ed.), Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola, 179–198. Bartlett, L. 2007. Human capital or human connections? The cultural meanings of education in Brazil. Teachers College Record, 109(7), 1613–1636. Barton, D., and Hamilton, M. 1998. Local Literacies. New York: Routledge. Bauman, Z. 1992. Intimations of Post-Modernity. London: Routledge. Bhabha, H. K. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge. Bloome, D. 2008. Literacies in the classroom. In B. V. Street and N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., Vol. 2: Literacy). New York: Springer, 251–262. Borg, C., and Mayo, P. 2001. From ‘adjuncts’ to ‘subjects’: Parental involvement in a working-class community. British Journal of sociology of Education, 22(2): 245–266. Bortoni, S. M. 1995. Variacao Linguistica e Atividade de Letramento em Sala de Aula. In A. B. Kleiman (Ed.), Os Significados do Letramento. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras, 119–143. Brandt, D., and Clinton, K. 2002. Limits of the local: expanding perspectives on literacy as a social practice. Journal of Literacy Research, 34(3), 337–356. Castilho, A. T. 2004. Variacao Dialetal e Ensino Institucionalizado da Lingua Portuguesa. In Bagno, M. (Ed.), Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola, 27–36. Colello, S. M. G. 2007. A Escola que (Nao) Ensina A Escrever. Sao Paulo: Paz e Terra. Cruz, M. E. A. 2007. O letramento academico como pratica social: Novas abordagens. Gestão e Conhecimento, July/August 4(1), 3–13. Delgado-Gaitan, C. 1990. Literacy for Empowerment: The Role of Parents in Children’s Education. New York: Falmer. Delgado-Gaitan, C. 2005. Reflections from the field family narratives. In multiple literacies. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(3), 265–272. Edwards, J. R. 1979. Language and Disadvantage: Studies in Language Disability and Remediation. London: Arnold. Erickson, F. 1987. Transformation and school success: the politics and culture of educational achievement. In Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 18(4), 335–356. Erickson, F., and Schultz, J. 1977. When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Institute of Comparative Human Development, 1(2), 5–10. Erstad, O. 2011. Citizens Navigating in Literate Worlds: The Case of Digital Literacy. In M. Thomas (Ed.), Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies. New York/London: Routledge, 99–118. Faraco, C. A. 2004. Norma-Padrao Brasileira: Desembaracando Alguns Nos. In M. Bagno (Ed.), Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola, 37–61. Franchetto, B. 2008. A guerra dos alfabetos: Os Povos Indígenas na fronteira entre o oral e o escrito. Mana April 14(1), 31–59. Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Freire, P. 1985. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey. Gadsden, V. 2008. Family Literacy. In B. V. Street and N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., Vol. 2: Literacy). New York: Springer, 163–177. Gee, J. P. 1996. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. London: Routledge Falmer. Giroux, H. A. 1983. Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey. Gonzales, N., Moll, L., and Amanti, C. (Eds.) 2005. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Practices. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Graff, H. J. 1987. The Legacies of Literacy: Continuities and Contradictions in Western Culture and Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

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Grenfell, M., Bloome, D., Hardy, C., Pahl, K., Rowsell, J., and Street, B. 2012. Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge. Gutierrez, K. 2008. Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(2), 148–64. Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Heath, S. B. 1983. Ways With Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hull, G., and Schultz, K. 2002. Introduction: Negotiating the boundaries between school and non-school literacies. In G. Hull and K. Schultz (Eds) School’s Out: Bridging Out-of- School Literacies with Classroom Practice. New York: Teachers College Press 1-8. Hymes, D. 1964. Introduction: Towards ethnographies of communication. In J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (Eds.), The Ethnography of Communication, Washington, DC: American Anthropology Association, 1–34. Hymes, D. 1974. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kleiman, A. B. 1995a (Ed.). Os Significados do Letramento. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras. Kleiman, A. B. 1995b. Modelos de Letramento e as Praticas de Alfabetizacao na Escola. In A. B. Kleiman (Ed.), Os Significados do Letramento. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras 15–61. Kress, G. 2003. Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Labov, W. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistics Patterns. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Ladson-Billings, G. 1994. Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children. New York: Josey-Bass. Luchesi, D. 2004. Norma Linguistica e Realidade Social. In M. Bagno (Ed.), Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola, 63–92. Marsh, J. 2010. The Relationship Between Home and School Literacy Practices. In D.Wyse, R. Andrews, and J. Hoffman (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of English, Language and Literacy Teaching. London: Routledge, 305–316. Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., and Gonzalez, N. 1992. Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132–141. Mortatti, M. R. L. 2010. Alfabetização no Brasil: conjecturas sobre asrelações entre políticas públicas e seus sujeitos privados. In Revista Brasileira de Educação May/August, 15(44), 329–410. Philips, S. U. 1972. Participant Structure and Communicative Competence: Warm Springs Children in Community and Classroom. In C. Cazden, V. John, and D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of Language in the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, 370–394. Rampton, B. 2006. Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rocha-Schmid, E. 2010. Participatory pedagogy for empowerment: A critical discourse analysis of teacher-parents’ interactions in a family literacy course in London. International Journal of Lifelong Education, May-June 29(3), 343–358. Schugurensky, D. 1998. The legacy of Paulo Freire: A critical review of his contributions. Convergence— International Journal of Adult Education, 31(1 and 2), 17–29. Schultz, K. and Hull, G. 2002. Locating literacy theory in out-of-school contexts. In G. Hull and K. Schultz (Eds) School’s Out: Bridging Out-of-School Literacies with Classroom Practice. New York: Teachers College Press, 11–31. Scribner, S., and Cole, M. 1981. The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Silva, R. V. M. 2004. Variacao linguistica e ensino. In Bagno, M. (Ed.), Linguistica da Norma. Sao Paulo: Edicoes Loyola, 291–316. Sinclair, J., and Coulthard, M. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse. London: Oxford University Press. Soares, M. 1998. Letramento: Um Tema em Tres Generos. Belo Horizonte/Sao Paulo: Autentica. Souza, A. L. S. 2011. Letramentos de Reexistencia: Poesia, Grafite, Musica, Danca, Hip-hop. Sao Paulo: Parabola. Street, B. V. 1984. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Street, B. V. 2012a. New Literacy Studies. In M. Grenfell et al. (Eds.), Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge, 27–49. 103

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Street, B. V. 2012b. LETTER: Learning for empowerment through training in ethnographic-style research. In M. Grenfell et al. (Eds.), Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge, 73–88. Tavares, A. C. R., and Ferreira, A. T. B. 2009. Praticas e eventos de letramento em meios populares: Uma analise das redes sociais de criancas de uma comunicades da periferia da cidades do recife. Revista Brasileira da Educacao, 14(41), 258–267. Terzi, S. B. 1995. A Oralidade e a Construcao da Leitura por Criancas de Meios Iletrados. In A. B. Kleiman (Ed.), Os Significados do Letramento. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras, 91–117. Vygotsky, L. S. 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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8 Non-Native Teachers and Advocacy Enric Llurda

Historical Perspectives Non-native language teachers have historically remained invisible in mainstream applied and educational linguistics, their contribution disregarded or looked down on. The dominant vision in the language teaching profession has entrenched the native speaker as the ideal teacher, and therefore only native speakers have been endowed with the knowledge and authority to pass on the language to learners, much like a religious guru can implement certain sacred rituals that are forbidden to non-members of the group. Only when native speakers have not been available have non-natives been tolerated as teachers of the language, although they could never aspire to the same level of authority and legitimacy of ‘real’ native speakers. They have been accepted as surrogate teachers, but have had no right to claim a legitimate role in the language teaching task, and so their voice has hardly—if ever—been heard. The literature on language teaching and language acquisition has, therefore, been historically dominated by a native speaker bias, which has affected the way second language acquisition has been conceptualized as well as the guiding principles of second language teaching. For instance, if we look into the different methods and approaches that appeared in the second half of the 20th century, we can find several discrepancies regarding the teaching of grammar, the type of materials used in class, and the use of spontaneous language vs. planned structures (Richards and Rodgers 2001). What we cannot find is any discrepancy in the teacher model that underlies all those proposals and ideas for classroom intervention. In all cases, the native speaker has remained the default teacher, the one who spoke ‘with no errors’ and could therefore guide the student into the realm of the new language. In short, the unchallenged assumption was that you cannot invite somebody to a place unless it is ‘your’ place; you cannot teach a language unless it is ‘your’ language, and you can only claim the language to be ‘yours’ if you are a native speaker. The invisibility of non-native teachers has had its manifestation in how methods of language teaching were designed, packaged, and promoted, but also in research of classroom-based interaction, in which the issue was not even mentioned or discussed, and more especially in the whole field of teacher training, completely ignorant of the specificity and the needs of this particular group of teachers. What were non-native teachers expected to do? They were supposed to pay close attention to native speakers’ performance and to work hard to imitate them in all aspects. Yet, they could 105

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never escape a sense of inadequacy, a feeling of being ‘impostors’ pretending to be what they surely were not (Bernat 2008). This view has, fortunately, changed a great deal in the last twenty years. Contemporary educational linguistics has incorporated the notion of the non-native teacher and the need to challenge the authority of the native speaker as fundamental elements of the discipline, which has managed to critically deal with previously established notions and foundations. The leading force questioning the native speaker as the default teacher has been in the area of English teaching, but there is some evidence that the movement is spreading out onto the teaching of other languages (Callahan 2006). The reason English teaching has been the leader in the advocacy of non-native teachers must be traced back to the leading role of English as the most widely learned second language, as well as the increasing presence of non-native speakers of English in influential academic positions at the international level. Kachru’s influential notion of ‘World Englishes’ and the nativization of English in ‘outer circle countries’ (Kachru 1986; 1992) is fundamental to understanding this move. The direction initiated by Kachru was later completed by the formulation of English as a Lingua Franca (Seidlhofer 2011) with its challenge to native speaker ownership of English (Widdowson 1994; 2012). Kachru opened the door to new varieties of English and engaged the linguistic community in a description of the English(es) used by multilingual speakers of English in countries other than the traditionally considered English-speaking countries. His work was key in promoting the acceptance of diversity among English speakers. The global presence of English and the increasing use of English among non-native speakers is one of the reasons why so many people now consider it totally unnecessary to aim at speaking English like native speakers. The fact that the world has more non-native speakers of English than native speakers, and the great number of English interactions in which participants’ first language is not English, gives non-natives the right to claim the language their own, and consider themselves—as never before in history—co-protagonists in the English language teaching (ELT) profession. In this context, we need to situate the first studies that brought non-native language teachers to the fore in academic publications. Medgyes published his first piece on this topic around thirty years ago (Medgyes 1983). In that paper, he used the term ‘schizophrenic’ to describe the state of mind of non-native teachers who (openly or secretly) wish to become native-like. Thus, he openly discussed for the first time the struggle of non-native teachers wishing to be recognized in the profession while at the same time feeling somehow inadequate for the job. The first research-based piece focusing on non-native teachers, however, did not appear until ten years later, with the publication of the results of an international survey comparing the characteristics of native and non-native teachers of English (Medgyes 1994; Reves and Medgyes 1994). Medgyes’s survey pictured non-native English teachers (NNESTs) as having a bright side and a dark side as compared to native teachers (NESTs). The bright side was based on the advantages derived from the shared learning experience with their students, such as the prediction of difficulties or the use of strategies. The dark side was tied to a ‘language deficit’ and an ‘inferiority complex’. Medgyes concluded that both NESTs and NNESTs needed to be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and he argued that a combination of both would be ideal in any educational environment. This approach was empowering, although it did certainly simplify and somehow overgeneralize the picture. Yet, Medgyes’ pioneering work shook the profession and became the basis upon which a great deal of future research was built, as can be observed by looking at the wide range of studies that have been inspired by or have even directly used Medgyes’ questionnaire. Medgyes also emphasized the language deficit of NNESTs, an approach that was criticized by Samimy (1997), because “the overemphasis on the linguistic deficit could perpetuate a sense of marginalization among nonnative professionals rather than promote a sense of empowerment” (Samimy 1997, 817). However, Medgyes further insisted on the idea of the 106

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importance of language proficiency development by NNESTs (Medgyes 1999), and his arguments were supported by other researchers (Derwing and Munro 2005; Lim 2011; Llurda 2005b) who, in addition to acknowledging the unfairness of a situation in which NNESTs are constantly suspected for lack of (NS) proficiency, emphasized the need to be competent users of the language in order to adequately display their teaching skills. This point of departure in research on non-native teachers has undoubtedly determined the direction of subsequent studies. The need to undermine existing discriminatory practices generally favouring NESTS over NNESTs, and the commitment to advocate for NNESTs’ rights and conditions has strongly determined research on NNESTs, placing the emphasis on the assets of NNESTs, rather than on their potential weaknesses. This may have been misinterpreted in certain contexts, up to the point that some NSs have felt the need to claim their own status after they may have experienced some discriminatory practices, especially in countries with regulations preventing foreigners to access permanent teaching jobs in the state school system. Such a view has been more prominent in contexts were foreigners may have been othered and isolated from the local community (e.g., Japan), creating also a sense of distrust and potential discrimination (Houghton and Rivers 2013). The dominant thread of NNEST research, however, has aimed at developing awareness of NNESTs as a tool to increase self-confidence and overcome marginalization. Thus, in-depth qualitative studies have flowered in the last few years, focusing their attention on NNESTs’ lives and ideological construction of reality (Hayes 2010; Ilieva 2010; Reis 2011; De Oliveira and Lan 2012).

Core Issues and Key Findings Non-native teachers’ identities have been strongly determined by what Phillipson (1992) labelled “the native-speaker phallacy” or, in a more elaborate form, what Holliday (2005) named “native speakerism”: a particular way of “othering” or marginalising NNSs, and consequently one of the many manifestations of racism (Holliday 2005). Race is, in fact, a key element in the discussion of native and non-native teachers, as discriminatory practices are often associated with practices of segregation of “the other”, the foreigner, the stranger who does not belong to the inner circle or the native community, and such discriminatory practices are conveniently disguised as common sense. The effects on teacher identities of racialized categories associated to the native/non-native distinction are explored and discussed in the works of Amin (1997), Chacon (2006), Kubota and Lin (2006), and Motha (2006). Native speakerism has contributed to the impression that native teachers are better suited to teach a language and additionally that students prefer them over non-native teachers. Such a claim was widely held until some researchers did actually ask students on their views towards native and non-native teachers and found that students were much more aware of the virtues of a language teacher than expected, and could appreciate non-native teachers by their true value rather than applying preconceived stereotypes (Benke and Medgyes 2005; Lasagabaster and Sierra 2005; Mahboob 2004; Pacek 2005; Watson Todd and Pojanapunya 2009). However, using a matched-guise technique, Butler (2007) found that Korean primary students’ attitude toward the American-accented English guise was superior to the Korean one, and they preferred the former as a prospective teacher. In short, when students’ opinions are taken into account, we find some bias towards NESTs (Moussu 2010), which is rather compensated by a high appreciation of NNESTs’ value and qualities by students who have experienced both native and non-native teachers (Benke and Medgyes 2005; Cheung and Braine 2007; Lipovsky and Mahboob 2010; Moussu 2010; Mullock 2010; Pacek 2005). Moreover, Moussu (2010) focused on students’ first language, expected grades, teachers’ countries of origin, and class subject (grammar, reading, 107

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etc.) in order to establish a connection between these variables and the attitudinal responses given by students on native and non-native teachers. For instance, Asian students held less positive attitudes towards all teachers, and particularly towards NNESTs, than students from the Mediterranean area. Teachers’ first language was a relevant variable, but as shown in previous studies (Inbar-Lourie 2005; Liu 1999), students did not always guess the native or non-native identity of their teachers. Interestingly, students’ attitudes at the end of the semester were better than at the beginning, but this improvement was more visible in the case of non-native teachers. These results confirm that preconceived ideas favouring native teachers over non-native ones are well extended, although everyday experience has the power to transform those stereotypes into awareness of actual teaching skills by any given teacher, be it native or non-native. Yet, non-native teachers have been repeatedly found to have some relative strengths over natives, and particularly over those native teachers who are monolingual and monocultural, lack the experience of having learned a foreign language, and ignore the language and culture of their students. Research has found that bilingual and bicultural non-native teachers can greatly contribute to the language teaching profession (Llurda 2005a). Some recurrently found advantages of non-native teachers are their higher level of language awareness (Llurda 2005b; Medgyes 1994), their higher empathy and role model function (Faez 2012; Nemtchinova 2005), and their capacity to predict the actual difficulties students will encounter in the process of learning (McNeill 2005). Non-native teachers often have to face many instances of overt job discrimination. Mahboob, Uhrig, Newman, and Hartford (2004) and Clark and Paran (2007) respectively found that a majority of U.S. and U.K. employers in the ELT sector considered nativeness an important factor in hiring English teachers. Other factors were also taken into account in the recruiting process, but certainly being a native speaker appeared to be an asset and, other things being equal, the native speaker would be preferred over the non-native. In a similar vein, Selvi (2010) analysed job advertisements posted electronically in two leading English language teaching recruitment resources, to find that a majority of advertisements specified nativeness or made some reference to the native condition as part of the job requirements. In spite of evident cases of job discrimination and some biased perceptions held by social agents, there is a rather well-established consensus that the difficulties experienced by non-natives in being recognized and establishing their professional status are due to their own lack of self-confidence and low professional self-esteem (Moussu 2006; Nemtchinova 2005). Some evidence suggests that NNESTs themselves suffer a specific type of self-hatred that has been metaphorically labelled ‘impostor syndrome’ (Bernat 2008) or Stockholm syndrome (Llurda 2009a), consisting of secretly admiring the native speaker and denying themselves the legitimacy of being considered rightful language users and teachers. Some research has been conducted on establishing ways and procedures to improve the level of self-confidence and professional self-esteem, especially during teacher education (Barratt 2010; Golombek and Jordan 2005; Lee 2004; Llurda, Brady, Dogancay-Aktuna, Inbar-Lourie, and de Oliveira 2006). This is often connected to an emphasis on language development. Thus, Lim (2011) connects language proficiency to student teachers’ career decision-making, and Shin (2008) provides practical suggestions for improving non-native teachers’ conditions, with a strong emphasis on developing language skills and incorporating the discourses of local communities. Ilieva (2010) claims that students often end up parroting discourses on issues such as equity or multicompetence, but at the same time acknowledges the influence of such discourses on offering new identity options and empowerment linked to the development of agency. Reis (2011) also offers a socioculturally based narrative of the process of empowerment experienced by a Russian non-native speaker of English in the context of a graduate program in applied linguistics in the United States. The study is based on the idea that “through critical reflection and collaborative inquiry, NNESTs can challenge disempowering discourses and conceive of legitimizing 108

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professional identities” (Reis 2011, 34) and recounts the process by which a non-native graduate student engages in a dialogical questioning of the native speaker myth. One of the conclusions of this study is that “it is critical for teacher educators to create mediational spaces that allow NNESTs to collaboratively challenge disempowering discourses and conceive of legitimizing professional identities” (Reis 2011, 48). Attitudes of non-native teachers towards their own competence in teaching a language that is not their native one are strongly influenced by concepts such as ownership or legitimate use of a language. Young and Walsh (2010) argue that many NNESTs in their study show confusion regarding target language varieties, and yet they do participate in a standard language ideology, which was defined by Lippi-Green (1997) as “a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogeneous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class” (Lippi-Green 1997, 64). Jenkins (2007) contended that non-native teachers have “ambivalent attitudes towards their own English accents” (211) with almost all participants expressing “a strong desire for an NS English accent” (212), due to a generally assumed accent hierarchy, in which some native accents are clearly on top. It is reasonable to assume that users who hold very strong favourable attitudes towards the preservation of native varieties of the language will tend to deny legitimacy to non-native speakers of the language. On the contrary, teachers who embrace the idea of English as an international language or English as a Lingua Franca will legitimize their role as language educators (Llurda 2004; 2009a). Interestingly, native-supremacy attitudes are more strongly held by NNESTs who have had very little contact with communities of speakers of English. Conversely, NNESTs who have spent a prolonged period in an English-speaking country display more critical positions towards the alleged superiority of native varieties and show a stronger appreciation of the legitimacy of non-native uses of the language (Llurda 2008). Asking teachers about the strengths and weaknesses of native and non-native teachers has been one of the most frequently used sources of data related to this topic. Non-native teachers have been asked in different contexts and moments to reflect on their own condition and the specific contribution NNESTs could make to their language students. Reves and Medgyes (1994), Llurda and Huguet (2003), and Ma (2012) are three studies conducted in three different decades and geographical contexts. Reves and Medgyes (1994) conducted an international questionnaire involving teachers connected to the British Council international network, whereas Llurda and Huguet (2003) restricted their study to teachers working in the primary and secondary education sector in the city of Lleida, in Catalonia, with an emphasis on comparing responses given by teachers in the two educational stages (primary vs. secondary). Ma (2012) specifically attempted to look at strengths and weaknesses of native and non-native teachers in Hong Kong. In all three studies, the perceptions of the high and low points of non-native teachers were rather similar, with a perceived advantage of NNESTs over natives on communication and empathy with students, understanding of local education system, and increased language awareness, which also implied more clarity in grammar explanations. Conversely, non-natives were consistently found at a loss in language skills and target culture knowledge, together with a lack of spontaneity and an excessive reliance on textbooks. These results need to be placed in perspective given the strong evidence showing that NNESTs are not a homogenous group, neatly separated from natives, but rather constitute a very diverse group, placed alongside a continuum with so-called native speakers (Brutt-Griffler and Samimy 2001; Davies 2003; Faez 2011; Liu 1999; and Moussu and Llurda 2008). Thus, non-natives teaching in different settings (e.g., US and Japan) are likely to experience very different challenges, and therefore construct different identities. Additionally, the educational levels at which teachers 109

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are appointed, or the type of training received, and whether part of that training took place in an English-speaking country may also contribute to differentiate among NNESTs, as well as level of target language proficiency, a rather distinctive feature that cannot be ignored in the characterization of NNESTs.

Research Approaches Research on non-native teachers was for a long time dependent on the seminal work by Medgyes (1994), and therefore relied almost exclusively on survey data. Questionnaires were used to ask teachers in different contexts about their native-non-native condition and about their language and teaching skills. Still now, questionnaires are commonly used in research on this topic. However, the field has moved on to incorporate a wider range of research methods allowing for richer insights. Moussu and Llurda (2008) offered an extensive overview of research on non-native English teachers, and also dealt with theoretical and practical implications identifying past, present, and future lines of research. Regarding implications, it was made clear that status and empowerment were directly involved and affected by research, which could thus not remain neutral, as it must take a stance on the critical analysis of the socioeducational environment and conditions in which non-native teachers develop their professional task. These authors reviewed the main research methods used to investigate this topic and pointed out the excessive reliance on questionnaires and self-reports. An analysis of the methods employed in the field brought the authors to conclude that existing research had made use of the following techniques: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

non-empirical reflections on the nature and conditions of NNESTs; personal experiences and narratives; surveys; interviews; and classroom observations.

One of the points made by Moussu and Llurda (2008) was the need for research with a more ‘objective’ component. Holliday and Aboshiha (2009) criticized this idea, which they considered sustained by a modernist viewpoint (671), as opposed to their own postmodern approach. In criticizing “the struggle to be objective” (671), they advocated for more complex and varied approaches of gaining understanding into the nature of non-native teachers, and especially ones that aim at identifying how ideology remains present, albeit hidden, in the professional discourses. This point of view is worth looking at, as it emphasizes the value of what they termed thick description: “a wide range of instances from different locations and times” (Holliday and Aboshiha 2009, 672), although in arguing for the value of this method they may tend to underemphasize the value of research based on quantitative data, which very nicely complements postmodern approaches, as well as experiential or introspective qualitative research. In this sense, the increasing use of mixed-methods designs in educational research offers new ways of looking at the traditional dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative research. Research on non-native teachers should take advantage of the potential power of mixed-methods and use this methodology to help move the field forward. It would be good news to see a series of upcoming studies breaking the traditional dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative research and bringing both together to further our understanding of NNESTs. In the last few years, we have seen studies using in-depth interviews (Benson 2012; Hayes 2010) and autobiographies (Lim 2011; Park 2012) to research non-native teachers’ identities, and 110

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thus our understanding of the complex environments and situations experienced by a diversity of NNESTs has enriched. Yet, the main point in Moussu and Llurda’s (2008) discussion on research methods still holds true, as there is a lack of studies taking a more distant, generalizable, view on non-native teachers. Watson Todd and Pojanapunya (2009) did use the “Implicit Association Test (IAT)”, thus incorporating an innovative research design adapted from the field of social psychology, by means of which they determined implicit attitudes of students towards non-native teachers in Thailand. But still, research using other methods is strongly needed in order to complement data obtained through interviews, dialogue, and self-reports with data obtained by other means, such as direct observation of classroom performance and direct measurement of performance indicators. An increasing number of studies based on narratives and interview data have been published. Some particularly insightful studies are Ilieva (2010), Reis (2011), and Park (2012), all providing reflective accounts on non-native teacher trainees in English language teaching programs in North America, and Hayes (2010), who contributes the personal history of a Tamil English teacher in Sri Lanka during times of war. Liou (2008) combines survey data with interviews to provide a complex picture of multiple identities taken by non-native teachers of English in Taiwan, relating their professional identities to the current role of English as an international language. And following Moussu and Llurda’s (2008) suggestion to explore new methods of research in order to widen the scope of studies on non-native teachers, Selvi (2010) focused on online job advertisements to demonstrate the “multifaceted nature of discriminatory hiring practices”, including such aspects as variety of English spoken, location of academic degrees obtained, and location of residence (172). All in all, we may conclude that there has been some progress in the variety of methods and depth of analysis since Moussu and Llurda’s (2008) review article, and thus the picture is now becoming richer and more complex, with good reasons to expect new studies in the near future that will contribute to our understanding of non-native teachers.

New Debates Beyond the comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of NNESTs and NESTs, one of the main goals of research on NNESTs has been to contribute to the empowerment of this group of teachers. A defining element was a critical approach to mainstream assumptions based on the supremacy of the native speaker in ELT. Such assumptions, I have contended elsewhere (Llurda 2009b), are deeply rooted in the monolingual bias that has traditionally characterized linguistics, applied linguistics, and educational linguistics. Therefore, focusing on NNESTs brings a new way of approaching language, language learning, and language teaching, which Mahboob (2010) calls the NNEST lens, characterized by its multilingual, multinational, and multicultural perspective. Recent work has emphasized the need to move beyond the rather limiting paradigm of comparing NESTs and NNESTs, as it constrains the work on NNESTs to a never-ending circle of surveys in which the same results are permanently obtained, and which do not contribute to increase our understanding of the NNEST condition or to decrease the level of discrimination and disempowerment experienced by this group. Moussu and Llurda (2008) stated their vision of what future directions NNEST research should take, and they explicitly asked for more studies focusing on diversity within NNESTs and more classroom observation studies. Whereas a few of the former have been conducted, not much has been published based on classroom observation of NNESTs. More recently, Mahboob (2010) and Braine (2010) also referred to what directions NNEST research should take in the future. Thus, Braine (2010) asked for more collaborative 111

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research by NSs and NNSs, as well as longitudinal studies that provide in-depth insights into NNESTs, considering “the day-to-day challenges they face as both users and teachers of English, their relationship with the English language beyond the classroom, their professional growth, and their place in society” (88). One area that has repeatedly been referred to in the literature but which still suffers from a lack of research is self-confidence and professional self-esteem. It has been said that one of the greatest problems experienced by NNESTs is their lack of self-esteem, which is responsible for some of their reported weaknesses as well as for their generalized acceptance of the discriminatory practices that they experience in the language teaching profession (Lee 2004; Llurda et al. 2006; Moussu 2006; Nemtchinova 2005). However, there is not yet any large study, other than tentative approximations of the issue, that deals with NNESTs and self-esteem and investigates how to overcome the deficit approach that characterizes many NNESTs’ professional identity. Undoubtedly, NNEST self-esteem will be narrowly tied to the concept of English as an International Language (Sharifian 2009) or English as a Lingua Franca (Seidlhofer 2011). NNESTs, especially those working outside the Inner Circle (Kachru 1992), need to embrace this concept in order to be accepted as legitimate users of the language, rather than permanent learners who cannot yet be granted ‘ownership’ of the language. Supporting the notion of English as a Lingua Franca is basic to establishing NNESTs side by side with NESTs, equally positioned to claim the status of proficient user of the language. Finally, the question of teaching methodology and its adequacy for local contexts and individual characteristics needs to be critically questioned and problematized. The traditional assumption of what was acknowledged to be ‘good language teaching’ has strongly determined the way teachers, both native and non-native, have been judged. However, the notion of what method to use and whether there is such a thing as an ideal method, regardless of the local context, has been put into question (Kumaravadivelu 2003), which calls for a reconsideration of the notion of “good language teaching practices” against which teachers’ professional competence has been measured. Future research needs to look at NNESTs in their local contexts and establish ways that allow us to understand what constitutes an adequate/inadequate practice in a given local context. In other words, we need to move beyond centre-based models of language teaching and develop new ways of redefining teaching competence, so as to be able to critically appraise individual NNESTs’ performances.

Implications for Education All in all, research on NNESTs has had a deep impact on educational linguistics. Let us now consider some of its most relevant implications. In the first place, it has transformed the way language teaching is construed, evolving from its conception as an activity ideally involving native speakers to one in which different individuals contribute their share to the intended goal of helping learners develop their language skills. At the same time, placing the focus on the contributions made by non-native teachers has brought a more open view of language models and standards, calling into question the need to reproduce a restricted set of socially prestigious forms of language. Simultaneously, it has been instrumental in promoting social justice by raising awareness of the discrimination encountered by many competent and well-prepared teachers who, because of their non-native identity, have not accessed jobs for which they were qualified and ready. Discrimination based on accent in the United States was amply explored by Lippi-Green (1997), and the lack of sound reasons for maintaining a critical divide between native and non-native speakers was convincingly stated by Davies (2003). Research on NNESTs has shown how much discrimination still exists and how it is embedded on unfounded and preconceived 112

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ideas of what constitutes good language teaching. Such awareness has enormously contributed to the enhancement of professionals’ self-esteem, encompassing language teaching professionals, but also university professors participating in international meetings and conferences, or teaching assistants at North American, British, or Australian universities. Additionally, the NNEST movement has served as a gathering place for a diversity of researchers interested in language and education. They have found a platform for sharing ideas and mutual encouragement to gradually penetrate an academic world vastly dominated by English native speakers, who act as gate-keepers controlling access to scientific knowledge, while at the same time imposing their cultural and language norms. Finally, as a consequence of what has just been said above, research on NNESTs has brought a new way to look at language teaching and every area of study related to language. Such a new way of looking at linguistics in its widest sense is what Mahboob (2010) has termed “the NNEST lens”, which entails a new way of approaching recurrent problems in language, language teaching, and language-based research. In sum, the impact of research on non-native teachers can help language teachers avoid preconceived ideas about language and teaching and find the teaching solutions that best fit their particular educational situations. Teachers may, as well, develop an increased tolerance for deviations from arbitrary norms and focus on communicative ability rather than ‘formal purity’. They can, additionally, grow a critical attitude and actively challenge those situations in which the native speaker is the sole recipient of language authority, based on a ‘right-of-birth’ principle. All the above is tied to a new critical understanding of language and language teaching currently developing in applied and educational linguistics. Teachers have the power to ultimately bring this understanding to the classrooms by looking beyond established language norms and broadening their range of vision to incorporate the existing diversity of language use and users.

Further Reading Braine, G. (Ed.) 1999. Nonnative Educators in English Language Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Braine, G. 2010. Nonnative Speaker English Teachers. Research, Pedagogy, and Professional Growth. New York: Routledge. Kamhi-Stein, L. (Ed.) 2004. Learning and Teaching From Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Llurda, E. (Ed.) 2005. Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession. New York: Springer. Mahboob, A. 2010. The NNEST Lens. Non Native English Speakers in TESOL. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Medgyes, P. 1994. The Non-Native Teacher. London: Macmillan. Moussu, L., and Llurda, E. 2008. Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: History and research. Language Teaching, 41, 315–48.

References Amin, N. 1997. Race and the identity of the nonnative ESL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 580–83. Barratt, L. 2010. Strategies to prepare teachers equally for equity. In The NNEST Lens. Non Native English Speakers in TESOL, edited by A. Mahboob, 180–201. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Benke, E. and Medgyes, P. 2005. Differences in teaching behaviour between native and non-native speaker teachers: As seen by the learners. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 195–216. New York: Springer. Benson, P. 2012. Learning to teach across borders: Mainland Chinese student English teachers in Hong Kong schools. Language Teaching Research, 16, 483–499. Bernat, E. 2008. Towards a pedagogy of empowerment: The case of ‘impostor syndrome’ among pre-service non-native speaker teachers in TESOL. English Language Teacher Education and Development Journal, 11, 1–8. 113

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Braine, G. 2010. Nonnative Speaker English Teachers. Research, Pedagogy, and Professional Growth. New York: Routledge. Brutt-Griffler, J., and Samimy, K. 2001. Transcending the nativeness paradigm. World Englishes, 20, 99–106. Butler, Y. G. 2007. How are nonnative-English-speaking teachers perceived by Young Learners? TESOL Quarterly, 41, 731–755. Callahan, L. 2006. Student perceptions of native and non-native speaker language instructors: A comparison of ESL and Spanish. Sintagma. Journal of Linguistics, 18, 19–49. Chacón, C. 2006. My journey into racial awareness. In Color, Race, and English Language Teaching: Shades of Meaning, edited by A. Curtis and M. Romney, 49–63. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cheung, Y. L., and Braine, G. 2007. The attitudes of university students towards non-native speaker English teachers in Hong Kong. RELC Journal, 38, 257–277. Clark, E., and Paran, A. 2007. The employability of non-native-speaker teachers of EFL: A UK survey. System, 35, 407–430. Davies, A. 2003. The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. De Oliveira, L. C., and Lan, S.-W. 2012. Preparing nonnative english-speaking (NNES) graduate students for teaching in higher education: A mentoring case study. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 23, 59–76. Derwing, T. M., and Munro, M. J. 2005. Pragmatic perspectives on the preparation of teachers of English as a second language: Putting the NS/NNS debate in context. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 179–192. New York: Springer. Faez, F. 2011. Are you a native speaker of English? Moving beyond a simplistic dichotomy. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 8, 378–399. Faez, F. 2012. Diverse teachers for diverse students: Internationally educated and Canadian-born teachers’ preparedness to teach English language learners. Canadian Journal of Education, 35, 64–84. Golombek, P. and Jordan, S. R. 2005. Becoming ‘black lambs’ not ‘parrots’: A poststructuralist orientation to intelligibility and identity. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 513–533. Hayes, D. 2010. Duty and service: Life and career of a Tamil teacher of English in Sri Lanka. TESOL Quarterly, 44, 58–83. Holliday, A. 2005. The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holliday, A., and Aboshiha, P. 2009. The denial of ideology in our perceptions of ‘non-native speaker’ teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 43(4), 669–689. Houghton, S., and Rivers, D. (Eds.) 2013. Native-Speakerism in Japan. Intergroup Dynamics in Foreign Language Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ilieva, R. 2010. Non-native English-speaking teachers’ negotiations of program discourses in their construction of professional identities within a TESOL program. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66, 343–69. Inbar-Lourie, O. 2005. Mind the gap: Self and perceived native speaker identities of ELF teachers. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 265–282. New York: Springer. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kachru, B. B. 1986. The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models of Non-Native Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Kachru, B. B. (Ed.) 1992. The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (2nd ed.). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Kubota, R., and Lin, A. 2006. Race and TESOL: Concepts, research, and future directions. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 471–493. Kumaravadivelu, B. 2003. Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lasagabaster, D., and Sierra, J. M. 2005. What do students think about the pros and cons of having a native speaker teacher? In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 217–242. New York: Springer. Lee, I. 2004. Preparing nonnative English speakers for EFL teaching in Hong Kong. In Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals, edited by L. Kamhi-Stein, 230–250. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Lim, H.-W. 2011. Concept maps of Korean EFL student teachers’ autobiographical reflections on their professional identity formation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27: 969–981. Liou, I. 2008. English as an International Language and Teachers’ Professional Identity. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Deakin University. 114

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Lipovsky, C., and Mahboob, A. 2010. Appraisal of native and non-native English speaking teachers. In The NNEST Lens. Non Native English Speakers in TESOL, edited by A. Mahboob, 154–179. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Lippi-Green, R. 1997. English with an Accent. New York: Routledge. Liu, J. 1999. Nonnative English-speaking professionals in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 85–102. Llurda, E. 2004. Non-native-speaker teachers and English as an International Language. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 314–323. Llurda, E. (Ed.) 2005a. Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession. New York: Springer. Llurda, E. 2005b. Non-native TESOL students as seen by practicum supervisors. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 131–154. New York: Springer. Llurda, E. 2008. The effects of stays abroad on self-perceptions of non-native EFL teachers. In Global English Teaching and Teacher Education: Praxis and Possibility, edited by S. Dogancay-Aktuna and J. Hardman, 99–111. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Llurda, E. 2009a. Attitudes towards English as an International Language: The pervasiveness of native models among L2 users and teachers. In English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogical Issues, edited by F. Sharifian, 119–34. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Llurda, E. 2009b. The decline and fall of the native speaker. In Continuum Contemporary Applied Linguistics, Volume One: Language Teaching and Learning, edited by V. Cook and L. Wei, 37–53. London: Continuum. Llurda, E., Brady, B., Dogancay-Aktuna, S., Inbar-Lourie, O., and de Oliveira, L. 2006. Exploring NNESTs’ professional self-esteem and confidence. Colloquium presented at the 40th Annual TESOL Convention, Tampa, Florida, March 15–19. Llurda, E., and Huguet, A. 2003. Self-awareness in NNS EFL primary and secondary school teachers. Language Awareness, 12, 220–233. Ma, L. P. F. 2012. Strengths and weaknesses of NESTs and NNESTs: Perceptions of NNESTs in Hong Kong. Linguistics and Education, 23, 1–15. Mahboob, A. 2004. Native or nonnative: What do students enrolled in an Intensive English Program think? In Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals, edited by L. Kamhi-Stein, 121–147. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Mahboob, A. (Ed.) 2010. The NNEST Lens. Non Native English Speakers in TESOL. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Mahboob, A., Uhrig, K., Newman, K., and Hartford, B. S. 2004. Children of a lesser English: Status of nonnative English speakers as college-level English as a Second Language teachers in the United States. In Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals, edited by L. Kamhi-Stein, 100–120. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. McNeill, A. 2005. Non-native speaker teachers and awareness of lexical difficulty in pedagogical texts. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 107–28. New York: Springer. Medgyes, P. 1983. The schizophrenic teacher. ELT Journal, 37, 2–6. Medgyes, P. 1994. The non-native teacher. London: Macmillan. Medgyes, P. 1999. Language training: A neglected area in teacher education. In Nonnative Educators in English Language Teaching, edited by G. Braine, 177–196. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Motha, S. 2006. Racializing ESOL teacher identities in U.S. K–12 public schools. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 495–518. Moussu, L. 2006. Native and non-native English-speaking English as a second language teachers: Student attitudes, teacher self-perceptions, and intensive English program administrator beliefs and practices. PhD dissertation, Purdue University. Moussu, L. 2010. Influence of teacher-contact time and other variables on ESL students’ attitudes towards native- and nonnative-English-speaking teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 44, 746–768. Moussu, L., and Llurda, E. 2008. Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: History and research. Language Teaching, 41, 315–348. Mullock, B. 2010. Does a good language teacher have to be a native speaker? In The NNEST Lens. Non Native English Speakers in TESOL, edited by A. Mahboob, 87–113. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Nemtchinova, E. 2005. Host teachers’ evaluations of nonnative-English-speaking teacher trainees—A perspective from the classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 235–262. 115

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Pacek, D. 2005. ‘Personality not nationality’: Foreign students’ perceptions of a non-native speaker lecturer of English at a British university. In Non-Native Language Teachers. Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, edited by E. Llurda, 243–262. New York: Springer. Park, G. 2012. ‘I am never afraid of being recognized as an NNES’: One teacher’s journey in claiming and embracing her nonnative-speaker identity. TESOL Quarterly, 46, 127–151. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reis, D. S. 2011. ‘I’m not alone’: Empowering non-native English speaking teachers to challenge the native speaker myth. In Research on Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Professional Development, edited by K. E. Johnson and P. R. Golombek, 31–49. New York: Routledge. Reves, T., and Medgyes, P. 1994. The non-native English speaking EFL/ESL teacher’s self-image: An international survey. System, 22, 353–57. Richards, J., and Rodgers, T. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Samimy, K. 1997. Review on The Non-Native Teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 815–817. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Selvi, A. F. 2010. ‘All teachers are equal, but some teachers are more equal than others’: Trend analysis of job advertisements in English language teaching. WATESOLNNEST Caucus Annual Review, 1, 156–181. Sharifian, F. (Ed.) 2009. English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogical Issues. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Shin, S. J. 2008. Preparing non-native English-speaking ESL teachers. Teacher Development, 12, 57–65. Watson Todd, R., and Pojanapunya, P. 2009. Implicit attitudes towards native and non-native speaker teachers. System, 37, 23–33. Widdowson, H. G. 1994. The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 377–339. Widdowson, H. G. 2012. ELF and the inconvenience of established concepts. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 1, 5–26. Young, T. J. and Walsh, S. 2010. Which English? Whose English? An investigation of ‘non-native’ teachers’ beliefs about target varieties. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 23, 123–137.

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Part 3

Contexts of Multilingual Education

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9 Established and Emerging Perspectives on Immersion Education Siv Björklund and Karita Mård-Miettinen

In this chapter, immersion education is presented as one type of bilingual education program. It has often been stated that the term “bilingual education” itself, as well as a number of other important terms used within bilingual education programs, is both vague and multifaceted and therefore difficult to define (for a list and a discussion on some key concepts, see, e.g., SkutnabbKangas and McCarty 2008). The same is true of the term “immersion education”, which, during its almost 50 years of existence, has become a worldwide education program. Since definitions of immersion, which are somewhat misleading, occur in different contexts, the intention of this chapter is to highlight essential features of immersion education that help readers to identify immersion education characteristics.

Historical Perspectives The birth of language immersion education is closely related with a public debate in Quebec Canada during the 1960s on how English and French could locally be more beneficial for the individual. This debate resulted in a new, innovative approach to teach language in school in a way that should optimally prepare students for active use of the second language learnt in school. The communicative aspect was regarded as crucial for the local bilingual community, in which a good command of two languages was important for students’ future professional careers (see, e.g., Swain and Lapkin 1982; Johnson and Swain 1997). The demands of the local community to focus language teaching in school on students’ active language use led to a total revision of the traditional framework for language teaching in school. It was suggested that language teaching should not be limited to one or two hours of language lessons per day. Instead the language-to-be-learnt (the second language of immersion students) should be used as the language of instruction in subject teaching as well. This was a radical suggestion because up till then the importance of first language instruction (mother tongue instruction) in bilingual education programs had been heavily stressed as an essential component for successful individual bilingual development. The importance of the first language is indisputable in bilingual education. Unlike minority speakers in a majority speaking school or community, majority speakers will have little or no use of their second language in or outside school, and, therefore, their chances of becoming bilingual are low, without being surrounded by or immersed 119

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in the second language. By heavily increasing the portion of the second language use during the school day, immersion students would be given almost equal opportunities to use their second language as minority speakers have in majority communities. The above brief description of the birth of immersion clearly shows that sociolinguistic reasons were fundamental for the establishment of language immersion. Societal bilingualism played an important role for the start of the first immersion program (see, e.g., Lambert and Tucker 1972), and the distinction between majority and minority speakers was one of the core features mentioned for immersion characteristics until the end of the 20th century (see, e.g., Swain and Lapkin 1982; Genesee 1991; Johnson and Swain 1997). In Johnson and Swain’s book Immersion Education (1997), immersion was still clearly defined as a program for majority speakers who learn a minority language in immersion. The changed sociopolitical realities, with increased ethnic diversity in countries with established immersion programs, have now started to change the enrollment structure from only majority speakers to immigrant families sending their children to immersion schools. Hence, the core feature of all children in immersion being majority speakers and sharing the same first language that is supported in the program has been revised by the notion that all home languages the children have need to be supported within the program (Swain and Lapkin 2005). It is also important to point out that societal bilingualism may include geographically different areas where linguistic conditions may be different on local, regional, and national levels. Even though the national level is mostly used as a point of departure when defining immersion, the balance between a majority and a minority language may differ regionally. In areas with minority languages, immersion programs may offer an opportunity to promote minority language and culture to both majority and minority students. In this case, the number of majority and minority speakers in an immersion classroom is balanced in order to get an optimal language program for each individual student. For example, in Welsh and Irish immersion programs, some minority speakers are usually enrolled in the program, since this choice may be the only available one for sustaining the use of a threatened minority language and for providing successful individual bilingual development. It is, however, important to distinguish these kinds of immersion programs from transitional bilingual programs, aiming at assimilation of minority speakers to a community where another language is dominant and used by the majority of speakers.

Immersion Programs: Features, Aims, and Contexts When immersion was introduced in Canada in 1965, it started with kindergarten-aged children and care was taken to provide enough time for the development of immersion students’ first and second languages. In line with the pioneer program, immersion education is still predominantly based on programs in which children participate during several school years, and in which the percentage of instruction time in the first and second language is in proportion to grade level and program alternative (Swain and Lapkin 1982). For program alternatives, early, middle, and late immersion have been implemented in Canada and imply that the program starts at different student age or grade levels. Early immersion is introduced in kindergarten or grade 1, middle programs in grades 3 and 4, and late immersion in grades 6 and 7. Due to socioeducational context, early immersion programs are very popular in both Canada and Europe, whereas late immersion is widely used in, for example, Australia. Alongside the criterion of student age at the outset of the program, the intensity of the exposure to the second language is another important criterion (Swain and Lapkin 1982). Programs are either total programs, which start with 100% instruction time in the second language during the first year(s) in immersion and gradually decrease to 40–50% during the last years in the 120

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program, or partial programs, where instruction time is distributed evenly (50%:50%) between the first and the second language from the beginning of the program. When combining the two criteria, programs may be run as, for instance, early total or early partial immersion programs. Regardless of program alternative, immersion education is defined as additive bilingual education, which offers bilingual enrichment to students. At the start of the program, students have no or only limited skills in the second language and the development of the first language of the students is not put at risk even if the immersion language is extensively used as the means of instruction during the students’ school day. It is also expected that teachers in immersion adhere strictly to the principle of using only one language in communication with immersion students both inside and outside the classroom. Another vital principle is that programs are voluntary (parents or, in the case of middle and late immersion, students themselves opt for immersion). This principle of self-selectiveness may have a positive effect on the results, and, therefore, immersion is also sometimes referred to as a prestigious program for bilingual enrichment, addressing motivated students in a majority context (e.g., de Mejìa 2002). After almost five decades of immersion education, programs have been implemented and adapted to various linguistic contexts, sometimes sociolinguistically very different from the original Canadian context (e.g., Fortune and Tedick 2008, 244). The above described one-way immersion programs are today a worldwide phenomenon. Within these programs one can separate second and foreign language immersion. In a second language immersion program (e.g., French immersion in Canada, Swedish immersion in Finland) the second language of immersion students is used on a daily basis in the local community. There is an obvious need to master the language to be able to take advantage of the bilinguality of the surrounding community and to get individual advantages on, for example, the local job market. Foreign language immersion (e.g., English in China and France) is more oriented towards preparing students for a challenging multilingual and multicultural future and improving language teaching methods to get students to more readily and actively use international and widely used languages. In the United States, not only one-way but also two-way immersion programs have been put into practice with good results (see, e.g., Lindholm-Leary 2001). In two-way immersion, or dual immersion, the varying local/regional/state linguistic conditions have been considered and adapted to individual students’ linguistic needs. In these programs, both majority and minority language speakers with dominance in their first language and home support for this language are grouped together. Two main models are used in which the ratio between the instruction time in first and second language lies between 50:50 and 90:10. The most common language pair is Spanish-English, and in the 50:50 model the program starts with an even language distribution for the mixed Spanish-English group, whereas in the 90:10 model Spanish functions as the major means of instruction during the first years and levels down to 50% at later grade levels. Besides somewhat different orientations between one-way and two-way immersion alternatives, the main purpose of the enriched bilingual experience may include various target groups. Participation in immersion and motivation of the individual may vary in a continuum where different grades of instrumental and integrative reasons interplay, as stated above. In the Basque country, Wales, and Ireland, immersion programs are more oriented towards language maintenance and in the Hawaiian and Māori immersion programs, towards language revitalization. Though intercultural competence is seen as essential for all immersion programs and should not be isolated from the language learning part, culture naturally becomes more accentuated in programs where integrative reasons are driving forces for enrolment in immersion. In purely instrumental immersion programs, the focus will be on teaching second language skills and does not necessarily include cultural activities beyond teaching of well-known festivities and distinguished persons of culture, whereas the cultural component is a natural part of teaching and 121

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forms an equally important part as, or even a more important part than, language skills in maintenance and revitalisation immersion programs. The varied implementations of immersion education in different linguistic contexts have posed new challenges on how definitions of immersion can be refined, but remain explicit enough to distinguish this bilingual education program from other bilingual forms. Core features have been questioned and discussed. As regards the use of students’ first and second languages, both languages should be used as means of instruction for content teaching, but the intensity and duration of the second language use may vary greatly. In an article from 2004, Genesee (p. 549) states that “at least 50% of the prescribed non-language related curriculum of studies for one or more years” should be a minimum criterion for identifying immersion. This criterion certainly is a minimum requirement for immersion to be considered as a program.

Research in Immersion Programs Immersion programs are regarded as one of the most extensively researched and evaluated single educational programs in the world. These evaluations have always combined a focus on second language development with a thorough assessment of first language development as well as overall content achievement. Because immersion programs are content-driven programs (for term, see Met 1998) the immersion curriculum is the same as the non-immersion curriculum where the immersion program is locally implemented. Therefore, it is possible to compare the outcomes even though there are many aspects (socioeconomic and linguistic background of the students, teaching methods and strategies, materials, etc.) that vary across programs. The results of the Canadian immersion research published in numerous reports have played an especially important role in the development of the immersion programs throughout the world (e.g., Johnson and Swain 1997). The initial research projects in immersion education were strongly product-oriented, with the purpose to reassure educators, parents, and administrators that immersion is able to keep up with the expected language and content objectives. The numerous international product-oriented research projects have resulted in an overall conclusion that immersion programs are successful and produce good language and content learning outcomes as well as positive attitudes toward schooling, the immersion program, language learning, and the immersion language and its speakers. Below we briefly summarize some key results. As to first language proficiency and content knowledge, immersion students are reported to reach the same level or surpass their non-immersion peers by the end of their immersion experience. Initial lag in first language writing and reading has been reported, especially in those programs in which first language reading and writing is postponed to grades 3 and 4 and above. The good first language results have been attributed to the benefits from the bilingual ability the students are developing in immersion. A further example of well-developed bilingual ability is that former immersion students are reported to be able to demonstrate/convey their content knowledge in their first language, even though a major part of the content teaching has been given to them in the immersion language (Björklund and Mård-Miettinen 2011). Recent immersion studies have further shown that early bilingualism in immersion also favors the acquisition of additional languages within the program (Björklund and Mård-Miettinen 2011). Studies on students’ second language development dominate product-oriented immersion research. The overall research results report high levels of comprehension skills as well as fluency and confidence in second language production (e.g., Johnson and Swain 1997). Shortcomings or a developmental plateau have been reported in second language grammatical accuracy and in sociolinguistic competence in comparison to first language speakers of same age, especially in 122

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contexts in which the immersion students have minimal contact with the immersion language outside the classroom and school. Other factors, such as pedagogy in the classroom and attitudes and motivations of individual immersion students, have been found to influence the development of productive second language skills. Another type of product-oriented research, which has proved to be important in immersion, is presented in studies investigating issues of the suitability of immersion for all kinds of students. In light of the self-selectiveness of the immersion enrolment process and the fact that immersion addresses prominently majority speakers, it is fairly easy to associate immersion with elite bilingualism. Though there is a tendency in many contexts for parents of high or upper socioeconomic backgrounds to choose immersion for their children, there are also results from several studies that show that immersion is effective for children representing low socioeconomic backgrounds. For example, results from Catalonia in the 1990s consistently showed that Castilian-speaking students from low socioeconomic backgrounds with predictions to be low achievers at school scored much better than expected—on age-level—in immersion (Artigal 1991). It is, however, more difficult to identify what factors are crucial for this positive development; there are individual factors and needs, pedagogical strategies, and school/societal surroundings, to mention just a few aspects to consider. Repeatedly obtained results across diverse immersion contexts do indicate that immersion teaching per se may be beneficial for low achievers. Teaching strategies and strategies for efficient classroom work have been identified and are constantly being scrutinized and refined within immersion (see Cummins 1998; Lyster 2007; Met 1998; Snow 1987; Swain 1985) and these might be vital for low achievers, as well. There are also some studies involving students with special needs in immersion. The research results point in the same direction as those provided with low achievers. It is still premature to generalize but the tendency is that even when some students in immersion have limited cognitive or linguistic capacity, they learn to produce the second language, at least orally. Even if restricted to oral production, this competence is an advantage and an enriching experience for students living in bi- and multilingual surroundings (e.g., Laurén 2006). More studies are indeed needed, even if immersion research results tend to indicate the same positive effects on intellectual and linguistic progress, as is the case with other bilingual individuals (see, e.g., Bialystok 2007; Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, and Christian 2006). From the end of 1980s onward, the focus in international immersion research has clearly moved from the learning product to the classroom processes (Day and Shapson 1996; Johnson and Swain 1997). During the first immersion decades, second language acquisition (SLA) was emphasized to parallel first language acquisition. Second language learning was believed to happen incidentally along with content learning, with the help of a considerable amount of comprehensible input along with implicit error correction by the teachers (Krashen 1982; Swain and Lapkin 1982). From the mid-1980s on, immersion researchers have worked on identifying classroom processes for efficient immersion education, in terms of the students’ gaining accuracy and complexity in second language production. It has been found that teaching strategies that generate advanced and comprehensible student output are needed for students (Genesee 1991; Swain 1985). The notion of implicit error correction and negotiation of meaning have been accompanied by the need for negotiation of form and form-focused instruction in a context-embedded way in order for the students’ second language ability to develop from fluency to accuracy and complexity (Lyster 2007). Lyster emphasizes that good immersion teaching provides a balance between communicative, meaning-focused interaction and activities in which students’ metalinguistic awareness is developed by pushing them to notice and use the second language accurately. 123

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Further, systematic and conscious planning for language growth within all content teaching given in the immersion language has been identified as a key element for content learning and for second language development in immersion education (Genesee 1991; Met 1998; Fortune, Tedick, and Walker 2008). It is important that every content lesson is also seen as a language lesson with content and language demands and objectives. The students need to be provided with linguistic tools for successful content learning (content-compatible language) as well as a possibility to develop their language proficiency along with content learning (content-obligatory language) (Met 1998). One of the most important programmatic and curricular features of successful immersion education is identified to be organizing the curriculum around thematic units that integrate content from several school subjects in a meaningful and holistic way. The planning of thematic units is time-consuming but worthwhile. During a thematic unit, the students work with the same key vocabulary and expressions for a longer time, using them in a variety of ways for different language functions (see, e.g., Gianelli 1997). The longer time allotted to each thematic unit allows students enough time to work with both content and language, instead of progressing in a more fragmented way in which new language and content items are linearly introduced during each new lesson. Providing possibilities of using and reusing theme-related language is essential for immersion students, since it is not enough for students to learn only key words of the thematic unit. They have to be trained to naturally and accurately use their second language when engaging in different theme-related activities and to become context-sensitive for second language variation. A large thematic unit gives a natural platform for the teachers to plan a variation in activities and to challenge the students cognitively and linguistically in different ways during the thematic unit (Cummins 1984). At the same time, the use of thematic units encourages more student-centered teaching approaches, in which students are readily activated and new information will be embedded in familiar contexts, thereby offering students better possibilities for remembering new items and connecting them meaningfully.

Research Approaches At the early beginning of language immersion in the middle of the 1960s, both the emphasis on teaching a second language for communication purposes and the use of a second language as a language of instruction for subject teaching were important incentives for identifying and developing theoretical foundations of immersion education. Since second language acquisition was vital for immersion students’ second language development and academic achievement, prevailing theories within SLA became a natural point of departure for theoretical frame building. This was particularly needed, as SLA has always been firmly rooted in applied linguistics with a focus on language learning and language pedagogy, contrary to first language acquisition research and its established research areas of linguistic universals and nature and structure of language. Immersion was, in fact, seen as a way to perceptibly put in praxis, for example, the input hypothesis, which states that acquisition of language takes place when learners understand language that contains structure a bit beyond the learner’s current level of competence (Krashen 1982). The rich, varied, and abundant input in an immersion classroom came very close to first language acquisition processes and led to more native-like real communication situations where function is more important than language correctness and linguistic form. According to Krashen (1982), immersion education proved strong empirical evidence that, as long as input is made comprehensible, simultaneous subject and language teaching is successful. Within the immersion context, the input hypothesis was later criticized and complemented with the output hypothesis, which shifts the focus point from second language comprehension to production. Based upon 124

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interventions on classroom second language talk in immersion, Swain states that in order to learn a language, a learner should not only comprehend a message but should be pushed towards the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely, coherently, and appropriately (Swain 1985). This theory implies that it is essential for the learning process of the second language learner to a) use the language and to b) get feedback on both linguistic function and form in order to process the second language—not only semantically, but also syntactically. During the 1980s, another important theoretical model for better attending to second language learners in immersion arose from the need to better assess oral production and fluency in a second language. Existing assessment in second language teaching was heavily dominated by form-focused methods, which gave little or no attention to a broader view of language competence. New definitions of communicative competence (Canale 1983; Canale and Swain 1980) included not only a linguistic component but also sociolinguistic, strategic, and discourse components. This theoretical model of communicative competence is still discussed and used in research and teaching today, but has been complemented with alternative definitions, as well—for example, one by Bachman and Palmer, who define two main competencies (organizational and pragmatic knowledge) within communicative competence (Bachman and Palmer 1996). A third theoretical set of hypotheses of SLA during the 1980s proved to be very helpful to explain the mechanism at work when immersion students were observed to learn content at age-appropriate level in a language they had not yet mastered. Another seemingly contradictory result was that the first language of immersion students was as good as, or even better than, that of non-immersion students, even if the instruction time in the first language was dramatically cut in immersion in comparison with non-immersion teaching. The interdependence or iceberg hypothesis and the threshold hypothesis, presented by Jim Cummins (1984), provided theoretical foundations for all these results, vital for the further expansion of immersion. For example, according to Johnson and Swain (1997), additive bilingualism, when connected to immersion education, comprises native-like proficiency in the first language and high proficiency in the second language. Even though the definition separates first and second language proficiency, the assumption in immersion education is that the languages learned in the program form a linguistic interdependence (Cummins 1984). In addition, the dichotomy of BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills) and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) skills within second language competence (Cummins 1984) was useful for providing sustainable language growth in the immersion language development of individual students. The student- or learner-centered theoretical frameworks from the early 1980s were gradually accompanied with more classroom- and didactic-centered theories in immersion research at the end of the 1980s. The Immersion Teacher Handbook, published by Snow in 1987, listed efficient teaching strategies in immersion and discussed the dual role of immersion teachers who have to take on both the role of a content teacher and a language teacher in the immersion classroom. The constant balancing between content and language in immersion teaching is a prevailing research issue that awakens interest among researchers (see, e.g., Snow, Met, and Genesee 1989; Met 1998; Fortune, Tedick, and Walker 2008). From first, early acquisition in an immersion language, described as a joint interaction in cooperation with others in an immersion group and allowing for creation of indexical territories for emerging immersion language (Artigal 1991), the pedagogy-oriented theories have shifted towards clear constructivist approaches, where learning is seen as an active process, in which a student actively constructs new concepts and ideas based upon current or past knowledge. The conducted research can either be more cognitive-/ student-oriented (cognitive constructivism) or interaction-/discourse-oriented (social constructivism; see, e.g., Swain 2000 on collaborative dialogues). Also, influences of sociocultural theory and ecology of language learning in a language classroom (for definition, see, e.g., van Lier 2004) 125

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are seen in immersion research conducted from 2000 onwards. A current issue is the discussion of the possible effects of the use of the first language as a promoting or hindering learning tool for immersion language development (see, e.g., Swain and Lapkin 2013). Another prevailing research issue within immersion is the balance between experimental and analytic teaching of a language. The initial, incidental learning approach in immersion has been vividly discussed and refined during decades and has, in particular, been discussed in Lyster’s research (Lyster 2007). In his framework, the counterbalanced approach, analytic traits are embedded in holistic teaching, which enables teachers to shift focus to developmental language discussions within ongoing content teaching.

New Debates The section of this chapter on different immersion program alternatives and the various reasons for the establishment of immersion education shows that immersion as a bilingual education form has not stagnated. Instead, it has been adapted and constantly conformed to changing linguistic conditions and needs. As shown earlier in this chapter, this flexibility, as such, poses challenges to find a unifying definition of immersion education in future. The original intention to give monolingual majority speakers a chance to become functionally bilingual during their education applies to some contexts, but in many (urban) settings monolingualism is no longer a frequent common point of departure for school-aged children. In this case, the definition of immersion becomes an ethic question of inclusion or exclusion of simultaneous bi- or multilingual speakers into programs. Changing sociopolitical realities have already oriented immersion toward enrolment of children from immigrant families or children with immigrant backgrounds who, via immersion, get better chances to learn the two languages of the local community than in a traditional education program (Swain and Lapkin 2005). The effects of immersion are also manifested in other ways, especially on students’ immersion language fluency. During the last three decades immersion has proven to be a very effective tool to revitalize threatened languages. Language nests (see, e.g., May and Hill 2005) and immersion have worked very successfully in revitalisation of indigenous languages in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, mainland United States, and Hawai‘i. A recent example is Skolt Sami, a variant of Sami language that is today spoken as a first language by only 300 adults in northern Finland, but is now, via language nests, introduced to kindergarten children. At the same time, these examples show how important school is as an institution for supporting language learning on both individual and societal levels. When immersion was first set up, only one immersion language was focused on, and on an international level, immersion education is still mostly associated with bilingualism and biculturalism. Nevertheless, there are contexts, in particular in the European countries, where the inclusion of just a second language is not enough, since traditional non-immersion language programs include two obligatory foreign languages. To better meet the language conditions in those contexts, the aim of functional bilingualism in immersion moves towards the formulation of functional multilingualism as the main aim of immersion (see Björklund 2005; Cenoz 2009). In both functional bi- and multilingualism, functional language use must be flexible as well as continuous, taking into account grade and age levels of the immersion students. Thus, functional multilingualism is defined as a language competence level at which immersion students can act and participate naturally in the daily use of all languages involved in the immersion program and in line with their age (for more details, see Björklund 2011). The inclusion of additional languages alongside with a main immersion language raises both educational and sociopolitical issues. The teaching of additional languages can be restricted to a couple of explicit language lessons per week or be content-based and used frequently, and 126

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teachers of additional languages may or may not apply the principle of using the language-tobe-learnt as the only medium of instruction during their lessons (Björklund and Mård-Miettinen 2011; Björklund, Mård-Miettinen, and Mäenpää 2012). The perception of all teachers involved in immersion education as being part of an immersion program and following the didactic principles of immersion may be a crucial aspect of successful multilingualism. The consequences for outcomes of immersion program functioning totally program-based have to be exploited further, as product-oriented results indicate that learning additional languages in immersion seems very effective (Björklund and Mård-Miettinen 2011; Cenoz 2009). It is, however, not sufficient to scrutinize only classroom variables as the languages involved in immersion undoubtedly will have different prestige or social status in different contexts. It is of utmost importance that program design be developed in order for all languages to be valued equally and distributed in line with an optimal definition of each student’s individual multilingual and multicultural competence. Another way of dealing with multiple languages in immersion is double immersion (see Genesee, 1998). In this program, two immersion languages are used as media of instruction in content teaching, but these languages are separated. During the first part of the school day, the medium of instruction is immersion language one, and during the second part, immersion language two is used. Naturally, first language instruction is also included as a third element in this kind of program, and the program is especially well designed for students of heritage language backgrounds. The integration of language and content (dual-focused education, content-based language learning, CLIL) is today not only used within immersion programs, but also seen as a possible way to deal with the increasing demands to get both sufficient and efficient language and subject teaching within the compulsory education period of many countries. In Europe, in particular, the language policy of EU has strongly supported content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Growing awareness of the integration of content and language learning may benefit not only bilingual education, but also language acquisition, language teaching, and cognitively related issues in general. Optimally, programs and approaches where content and language learning are integrated are innovative and creative meeting points for academic/content teaching and language teaching and ways to schedule more languages in students’ school days at no cost of lessons devoted to different disciplines. Immersion is in many countries well developed and program-based from kindergarten to the end of the compulsory education, whereas subsequent education levels in general do not include similar immersion-like wide variations. A sustained life-long learning process of language(s) would greatly benefit from continuous immersion at secondary and tertiary levels of education, also. For example, in Canada and the Basque Country, some universities offer content courses intended for students whose second language is used as the medium of instruction. To supplement or support students’ language needs, there are a range of different provisions arranged to facilitate the content learning processes of students; often extra courses (adjunct courses) provide second language support. In comparison with immersion research conducted on other education levels, results from university level immersion are scarce and need more attention in the future. Long-term effects of immersion are needed, not only as longitudinal studies of individual students’ second language learning from early age to adulthood, but also to conduct follow-up studies of second and third generations of immersion students. Effects of the choice of immersion have impacts on both individual and societal levels if enrollment in immersion goes beyond enriched individual bilingual development and alters identity building and cultural patterns in subsequent generations. The societal impact is especially apparent in immersion for revitalization of languages, and, if long-term effects can be noted, it proves that immersion may function as a powerful instrument of language policy to maintain and (re)build multilingual and multicultural communities. 127

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Implications for Education The nature of immersion programs has challenged teacher education in the countries with established immersion education. Preschool teachers, primary school teachers, and subject teachers are traditionally educated to teach monolingual students in the students’ first language. Language teachers are educated to teach the language, not to teach content in the language. In immersion education, a preschool teacher, a primary school teacher, and a subject teacher are expected to be simultaneously a content teacher and a language teacher—to wear two hats, as expressed by Snow (1987). In-service and pre-service immersion teaching certificate programs have been established to guarantee that immersion education is given by qualified preschool, primary school, and secondary school teachers who are fluent in the immersion language; have command of the students’ home language; and are familiar with issues of bilingual and multilingual development, second language pedagogy, immersion pedagogy for biliteracy and for teaching content in a second language, evaluating content and language development, and so on. If immersion education is to function as a coherent entity, all teachers of immersion (subject teachers, L1, L2, and Lx teachers) must be educated to share similar pedagogical visions, value the contribution of fellow teachers of the program, and be confident about all teachers being responsible for their own parts of the program. This approach requires close cooperation among all teachers and a school administration that shares the same goals and visions and allows for necessary planning time. It is also crucial that immersion education is recognized as one program alternative in national curriculum guidelines and that characteristics of immersion teaching are identified, specified, and outlined as prerequisites for effective teaching. In light of the positive results of immersion education, it may be surprising that immersion is not put into practice on a very large scale. In, Canada, results from PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment of the OECD) in 2000 show that among 15-year-old students, enrolment in immersion varies from 2% of the overall student population to 32% in New Brunswick. The small scale on the national level has impacts on the actual teaching in immersion in various ways. As a program, immersion has had to conform to existing (monolingual) education structures, rather than being developed from a bilingual perspective. The role of L1 for, for instance, teaching of literacy skills is still somewhat controversial in early immersion and raises questions among both teachers and parents, since learning to read and write is mostly taught in students’ second language, thereby challenging the implicit paradigm of the importance of L1 in literacy teaching in monolingual school structures, which—on the other hand—has mostly focused on L1 students being in a minority situation both within school and society. Another important direct consequence of conforming to existing structures is very evident at the school level. Suitable teaching material developed for immersion is practically nonexistent. Commercial material is mainly developed for L1 students and language books for L2 learners within a regular language program. Immersion teachers usually find themselves between these two different teaching materials and prepare a lot of material themselves by adapting available material, finding relevant and authentic new material, and supporting students’ language input with the help of rich and varied textual sources. The time-consuming preparation for suitable teaching material is no doubt an area in which immersion teachers often feel frustrated. In this case, joint preparation and shared distribution of developed material is beneficial for all teachers and a way to sustain high motivation and a good standard among immersion teachers. It is equally important to motivate and acknowledge immersion as an education program on the student level, where an appropriate identification of students’ actual level of their mastery of the immersion language at the end of the program, as well as an official recognition (certificate of attendance in immersion and total amount of time spent in content/subject 128

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teaching in a second language) can concretely manifest and acknowledge the student’s input into immersion. The mentioned challenges of implementing immersion into regular teacher education are also affected by the fact that immersion is a quite small-scale educational program on the national level. This issue becomes even more multifaceted and challenging in special teacher education. As in regular, non-immersion programs, some students in immersion will encounter difficulties during their education time, and immersion classes should have the means to back up students when special needs education becomes relevant. It is of utmost importance that struggling learners be assisted in the best way by educators who are familiar with both bilingual issues stemming from the immersion program and general language and learning difficulties. Research in this field needs to be expanded further, as regards both more cognitive-oriented research and handbooks for practitioners (for some recent results, see, e.g., Fortune 2011; Fortune with Menke 2010). It is also likely that immersion, where multiple languages are learnt within the program, can contribute to this research field when holistic studies of students’ multilingual and multicultural competence are focused. Also, the recent orientation towards more cross-disciplinary research approaches and a growing body of functional and action-based research in immersion entail methodological tools to integrate, challenge, or even reconstruct existing theoretical frameworks in second language acquisition and thereby maintain the inspiring and leading role immersion has had in research areas of second/foreign language learning and teaching. The thorough research conducted on immersion education since it was first implemented plays a significant role in the success story of immersion education. Clearly defined concepts and guidelines, as well as product-oriented and process-oriented research objectives, has helped immersion education navigate through changing linguistic and educational conditions and provide solid foundations for other forms of bilingual approaches and for the future, yet to come.

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Bilingual education is the use of two languages in the instruction and assessment of learners (García 2009).1 Bilingual education programs vary in their goals, language use, and students served, and are shaped by sociocultural and sociopolitical factors, historical contexts, and the power of speakers and languages. Students in bilingual education programs may be language majority or language minority students. A bilingual education program offers all students the possibility of becoming bilingual and biliterate. Language majority children develop the ability to use a language other than the dominant one, which they speak at home. Other students in bilingual education programs may be immigrants, refugees, Indigenous peoples, or simply live in households where a non-dominant language is spoken. For these students, bilingual education programs offer the possibility of developing the language of school in ways that support their home language practices and identities. Bilingual education differs from traditional language education in which a “foreign” or “second” language is taught. Firstly, in bilingual education the two languages are used as a medium of instruction. However, in traditional language education programs the additional language is explicitly taught as a subject. As such, bilingual education is first and foremost an educational approach to educate students holistically, with language and literacy development in two languages as an educational goal. With the additional language also used to educate meaningfully, the epistemology about language in bilingual education often differs from that of traditional language education. Traditional language educators see language as a system of standardized structures through which students listen, speak, read, and write. In contrast, bilingual educators focus on the development of language practices; that is, on the languaging of students (Becker 1995; Maturana and Varela 1998 [1973]), which is a product of social action and consists of fluid and flexible resources through which students make meaning of what they are learning (more on languaging to follow). Bilingual education and traditional language education also differ in their approach towards the relationship between language and cultural practices. Whereas learners in bilingual education are encouraged to be able to function across cultures, and sometimes to appropriate the different cultural practices as reflective of their integrated selves, learners in traditional foreign language classrooms are expected to become familiar with an additional cultural context, but not necessarily to function competently within it. Pedagogically, bilingual education integrates language and content, whereas traditional foreign or second-language education tends 132

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to emphasize teaching the language explicitly. Finally, bilingual education has the potential to offer a just education, leveling the power differentials among language groups, as minoritized languages are used in education. Bilingual education, thus, distinguishes itself in the way in which the two languages are used to construct meaningful content, while affirming diversity and tolerance. We consider below the historical development of bilingual education, some of its core issues, the research approaches and key findings, new debates, and, finally, implications for education.

Historical Perspectives Bilingual education is not a new approach to education or to language education. Throughout history, most elites have been educated bilingually. In the 19th century, the development of public schools became a mechanism of nation-states to establish the dominance of a single state language, and education became mostly monolingual. Bilingual education continued on its own trajectory throughout the 19th and early 20th century. On the one hand, the elite continued to support privately financed schools offering bilingual education that sought to develop two powerful languages. Known as prestigious bilingual education, these bilingual schools for the elite still exist today. On the other hand, some more powerful autochthonous minorities, especially throughout Europe, developed systems of bilingual education in which both the dominant language and the community language were taught. This was especially so in cases where language and religion coincided, as the community sought to ensure sustainability of the sacred language. These educational programs are known as maintenance bilingual education. In both prestigious and maintenance bilingual education, education was carried out in two languages, often from the first years of schooling. In the mid-20th century, bilingual education became entrenched as an educational option both for language minorities and language majorities. It was in North America where the field became fertile, and where it was expanded from the more traditional formats of prestigious and maintenance bilingual education. In Québec, Canada, majority Anglophone Canadians demanded bilingual education for their children that would make them truly bilingual, enabling them to live a fruitful life in a Francophone Québec that was becoming more politically powerful. In response to these parents, Wallace Lambert and his colleagues at McGill University developed immersion bilingual education programs. Through this bilingual approach, English-speaking Canadian children were taught initially through French only, with English used increasingly, until by the fourth grade, English was used 50% of the time. At around the same time, educators in the United States started to experiment with bilingual education as a way to educate the nation’s language minorities who were failing in U.S. schools—Spanish-speaking Latinos and Native Americans. The approach was the inverse of immersion bilingual education. In the United States, the child’s home language—usually Spanish, but also Navajo and others—was used in the early grades either solely or mostly, with English introduced gradually. Whereas in Canadian immersion, bilingual education French and English eventually achieved equal time allocation, in U.S. bilingual education, what became known as transitional bilingual education, the minority language was to disappear from instruction as soon as the child gained proficiency in English. Whereas the goal of Canadian immersion bilingual education was the students’ bilingualism, the goal of the U.S. transitional bilingual education was students’ English monolingualism. This was not the first time that transitional bilingual education was used to educate language minorities for monolingualism. In colonial situations throughout Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, local languages were used in the early years of primary education to enable the transition to the colonial language. In 1953, UNESCO passed a resolution that affirmed the value of this 133

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educational policy for language minorities: “We take it as axiomatic, too, that the best medium for teaching is the mother tongue of the pupil” (p. 6). Nothing was said, however, about the sustainability of bilingualism for these students; the non-dominant language was seen as a problem. The ethnic revival that spread throughout the world in the 1960s fuelled bilingual education efforts. Transitional bilingual education efforts were touted as not enough by some and as too much by others. Many language minority communities and politicians clamored for forms of bilingual education that would lead to sustainability of diverse language practices and not shift to the dominant language. In contrast, some language majority politicians and others felt threatened by the growing diversity that a new global order was imposing. At the same time, globalization led some majority parents to want bilingualism for their own children. García (2009) has pointed to the new conceptualization of bilingualism and bilingual education that these sociopolitical transformations produced. Originally bilingualism and bilingual education had been conceptualized from a monolingual monoglossic perspective, where bilingualism was understood as simply the pluralization of monolingualism. From this perspective, bilinguals were thought to have two balanced language systems, supporting the notion that one language plus a second language equals two separate languages. Wallace Lambert (1975) proposed two types of school bilingualism—subtractive and additive. Subtractive bilingualism refers to what happens when a child’s home language is subtracted as he or she learns the school’s language. It is what happens in transitional bilingual education. On the other hand, additive bilingualism occurs when an additional language is added to the child’s home language. It is what happens in prestigious bilingual education or immersion bilingual education. Missing from this conceptualization is what happens in the in-between spaces or border spaces—that is, where the child is neither monolingual nor biliterate and brings into school very complex language practices, as we will see below. As globalization and new technologies resulted in the greater movement of people, information, and goods, the world’s linguistic complexity came into full view, and traditional models of bilingual education, as well as subtractive and additive models of bilingualism, proved to be insufficient. The world’s majority was not monolingual, nor fully or balanced bilingual, as had been conceptualized in the monoglossic view prevalent in the early 20th century. Instead, with a more heteroglossic lens of bilingualism, in contrast to the monoglossic lens described above, the fluid and complex language practices of bilinguals came into view. Additionally, most of the world’s population became recognized as being at different points on the bilingual continuum. For example, some Indigenous minorities had experienced a great deal of language loss. Although they still held their bilingualism as a mark of their identity, they were now closer to the monolingual end of the bilingual continuum. Other autochthonous minorities, such as the Welsh, now more than ever claimed their bilingualism as mark of their identity and were further along on the bilingual continuum. Then there were nation-states where the entire population was bilingual and wanted to ensure a bilingual future. Still other nation-states saw the plurilingualism of their citizens as a good thing, with many acknowledging the fact that their children had parents and families who spoke different languages, sometimes within the same home, sometimes across different national contexts. The result of acknowledging these sociolinguistic realities has been that our traditional conceptions of additive and subtractive bilingualism no longer hold, and the old models of bilingual education—prestigious, maintenance, immersion, and transitional—do not always make sense. To the monoglossic models of additive and subtractive bilingualism, García (2009) has added two more types of bilingualism that confirm a heteroglossic view of bilingualism—the recursive dynamic model and the dynamic model. Both of these types of bilingualism are in no way linear 134

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or add two languages as wholes. Recursive dynamic bilingualism refers to drawing on language practices that have almost been silenced, in order to revitalize them and bring them forward toward a future. It refers, for example, to the bilingualism of schools in communities such as that of the Māori of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Māori language cannot be simply added whole, since the Māori community is revitalizing language practices not from scratch, but from bits and pieces, as ancestral language practices are reconstituted for new functions. On the other hand, bilingual schools in some contexts support dynamic bilingualism. These bilingual school programs acknowledge that the children hold different degrees of bilingualism because their families speak different languages or because they have lived and worked across national contexts. The bilingualism of these children also cannot be simply added or subtracted whole, since their language practices are already multiple, non-linear, and complex when they come into school. The European Schools for children of civil servants, for example, acknowledge their children’s dynamic bilingualism, as we will see below. As we said before, the traditional models of bilingual education are simply not adequate to reflect the more complex multilingualism of the world today. Thus, other types of bilingual education have been developed. It is important to underline that the greater power and visibility of language minorities in the 21st century has resulted in bilingual education programs for them, and by them, where they exercise a great deal of agency. Immersion revitalization bilingual education programs and developmental bilingual education programs are two such programs. In Aotearoa/ New Zealand, the revitalization of Māori needed an early start. The result was the development of “language nests” preschools, known as Kōhanga Reo, which involved Māori-speaking elders in the community interacting in Māori with the very young. This model of early childhood bilingual education has been adopted by other groups who speak threatened languages—Hawaiian peoples and Native Americans in the United States; Canada’s First Nations; and the Saamis of Norway, Finland, and Sweden, among others. In the case of the Māoris, the early childhood schooling is continued in Kura Kaupapa Māori schools, offering immersion bilingual education in Māori in elementary grades. These efforts to offer immersion schooling to communities whose languages have been decimated are different from the immersion bilingual education efforts in Canada described above, although they share some characteristics. They are known as immersion revitalization bilingual education. On the other hand, there are communities that have suffered language loss, but not to the same extent as the Māoris. For them, developmental bilingual education programs (sometimes called developmental maintenance bilingual education), with a focus on the language that is threatened, are often more appropriate. Welsh bilingual education programs often fall under this type. These programs differ from those called maintenance above, in that they focus on the protection and development of the minority language, which has endured much hardship under previous educational arrangements. In addition, students in these classes often display a broad range of bilingual abilities, and are not always speakers of the minority language prior to schooling. The greater sense of a multilingual world has meant that more language majorities are looking for bilingual education options for their children. In the United States, two-way bilingual education programs (often referred to as dual language bilingual education) have been developed to accommodate students learning languages other than English (often Spanish), as well as students developing English. Although those learning English are always language minority students, those developing another language are English-speaking children of many kinds, including those whose families may have spoken languages other than English. Sometimes all the children in these programs share one ancestral language, although they fall at every point on the bilingual continuum, including some children who may already be English monolinguals. When bilingual programs serve one language minority group whose members exhibit very diverse language practices, the programs are often referred to as one-way bilingual education. In effect, they are developmental bilingual education programs. 135

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Increasingly in a globalized world, an education in two languages is simply not enough. And so, multilingual education programs in more than two languages have grown. In the European Union, the European Schools for children of civil servants offer education in more than two languages to students in different language tracks within their schools. These programs are known as poly-directional bilingual education. They are similar to the U.S. two-way bilingual education programs in that they are meant for children of different ethnicities and language backgrounds. However, although in the United States children in two-way bilingual education programs are integrated in the same classroom, the European Schools have several language tracks, and only integrate students linguistically after they have developed some measure of bilingualism. Nowhere has the value of bilingualism been more affirmed today than in the European Union. Taking note from the success of bilingual education, CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) bilingual education programs are substituting foreign language programs, with one or two subjects taught in a language other than that of the dominant school system. The greater sense of a multilingual world has also resulted in nation-states and autonomous regions where two languages (and sometimes more) are spoken by the entire population, and are part of their identity. Although the language arrangements of these programs depend on the national context in which they are carried out, there is a developmental focus for all languages. Schools in Luxembourg, for example, follow a type of multiple multilingual education, enabling all their school children to become trilingual—in Luxembourgish, German, and French—through school. As the world becomes more and more multilingual, rendering traditional bilingualism insufficient, some schools are experimenting with yet another form of bilingual education, what García and Kleifgen (2010) have called dynamic bi/plurilingual education. In all the programs described above, the language allocation in classrooms is strictly controlled in top-down fashion by schools and educators. However, in dynamic bi/plurilingual education programs, the locus of control of language rests with students, as they are given agency to negotiate their linguistic repertoires. In these schools, most often at the secondary level, there is a great deal of peer teaching and collaborative learning. For example, in a class in which students read a book in English, the teacher provides space for students in groups to discuss the reading using home languages before sharing ideas with the whole class in English. There are also opportunities for students to read, write, and conduct research in multiple languages (see García and Sylvan 2011). Although all the types of bilingual education considered in this section are different, they rest on similar core principles. The next section considers what those principles are and how they function.

Core Issues Bilingual education rests on three core principles: the central role of language and bilingualism in society and education, the role of bilingualism in enacting identities and ideologies and leveling issues of power, and the ways in which bilingualism can be used to educate. We discuss the first two core issues in this section, while reserving the last one for the section covering the implications for education.

Language in Society and Education In the last two decades, our actions in a globalized world of dynamic movement and advanced technologies, coupled with advances in complexity theory, have transformed the ways in which we think about language. The new understandings of language as practices, of languaging, have had an impact on our epistemologies about bilingualism. Becker (1995) reminds us that to learn a new way of languaging is not just to learn a new code; it is to enter another history of 136

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interactions and cultural practices and to learn “a new way of being in the world” (227). That is, becoming bilingual does not refer to “picking up” new language structures, but it is about acting differently as new positionings are taken. The Chilean biologists Maturana and Varela argue that it is language that brings forth the world. They explain: “We work out our lives in a mutual linguistic coupling, not because language permits us to reveal ourselves but because we are constituted in language in a continuous becoming that we bring forth with others” (1998, 234–235, our italics). It is our language practices that bring us forth as individuals, at the same time that they constitute us differently as we interact with others. Language is not external to us; it is not, as Pennycook (2010, 9) has said, “an autonomous system that preexists its use,” or “competence as an internal capacity that accounts for language production.” Instead, Pennycook says, language is “a product of the embodied social practices that bring it about” (9, our italics). If we accept this definition of language as a form of human action, embodied in the social world of human relationships, and intimately connected to all other forms of action—physical, social, and symbolic—then it is easy to understand why language plays such an important part in education. All learners need to embody their language practices in schools if they are to make meaning of their education. Bilingual education gives all students the possibility of doing so—that is, of doing language, of languaging in ways that constitute them, connect them, and relate them to their human actions and those of others. The field of bilingual education has been deeply influenced by the psycholinguistic constructs that were developed very early by Jim Cummins (1979). Central to the development of bilingual education in the 20th century was Cummins’ construct of interdependence. For Cummins, there is interdependence between the two languages, enabling transfer of linguistic abilities and knowledge across languages, since there is a Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) across languages. Cummins also posits that it takes learners of an additional language one to three years to develop BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills), and five to seven years to develop CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency), thus arguing for sustained bilingual instruction throughout the grades. Although still grounded in the idea that language was an autonomous system of structures, Cummins had already envisioned the changes in epistemologies about language and bilingualism that have been ushered into the 21st century. In the 21st century, super-diverse patterns of multilingualism are evident (Blommaert 2010), with different linguistic features not bound by geographical territories and national spaces, but rather representing complex local practices of interactions that are dynamically enacted by human beings. These super-diverse patterns of languaging go beyond our conceptualization of bilingualism and multilingualism of the past. While bilingualism in the past was seen as having command of two languages, and multilingualism as having command of more than two languages, languaging in society today is considered in its complexity of action as dynamic bi/multilingualism (García 2009; Herdina and Jessner 2002; Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008). But there are more than just fluid language practices that impact bilingual education in the 21st century; there are issues of identity, ideologies, and power that are important to consider, and these are the subject of our next section.

Identities, Ideologies, and Power As human action, language practices function as semiotic and symbolic tools that can be used in the formation of identities. Language practices are instrumental in developing and sustaining subjectivities in homes, communities, and especially schools. Today’s understandings about identity are far from those of German Romantics, and in particular those of Johann Gottfried Herder 137

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(1744–1803), who defined identity as natural and immovable, and closely connected to the language a people spoke. Scholars in the late 20th century such as Joshua A. Fishman (1989) argued that language also has a rhetorical function, and as such may discursively construct the group’s subjective belief in a common ethnic identity. Traditional types of bilingual education were based on a unitary monoglossic approach to language and identity, ensuring that each of the languages performed a single identity and sociolinguistic function that resulted in a bicultural individual able to keep language and cultural practices separate. Postmodern scholarship has demonstrated the situational and subjective construction of identity (Bhabha 1994; Heller 1987; Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985; Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004). This scholarship has also described the fluid identities affected by the complex linguistic repertoires and spaces where individuals embody or enact multiple identities today. As Pavlenko and Blackledge make clear, language and identity are mutually constitutive in that language provides “the linguistic means through which identities are constructed and negotiated” (2004, 14). This is the position taken up by heteroglossic types of bilingual education, acknowledging the construction of transcultural individuals whose identities are negotiated as they adapt to the image they have of themselves in relationship to the interlocutor, and as they decide whom they want to be. Postmodern scholarship has also pointed to the fact that attitudes, values, and beliefs about language are always ideological, and are enmeshed in social systems of domination and subordination of groups, having to do not only with ethnicity, but also with class, gender, and power (see for example Irvine and Gal 2000; Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004). Language and identity options may be limited or not, or negotiable or not, depending on particular sociohistorical contexts. Language practices can signal ideological positions, and can construct boundary markers for inclusion and exclusion of the Other (Kroskrity 2000). Children’s bilingual development is deeply affected by the constraints and options in their socialization in communities and schools. School children exhibit considerable agency as they resist and construct new ways of using language and new identities, not necessarily those of the home and immediate community, but also not necessarily those of the school and the dominant society. Given the greater range of linguistic and social choice that bilingual children of dominant groups have, they will obtain greater cognitive and social advantages from their bilingualism than those whose choices are more restricted by their social and historically situated conditions. Thus, schools need to provide a greater range of choices for all students, and develop and empower all students to negotiate their multiple identities and language practices.

Research Approaches and Key Findings Research on bilingual education has repeatedly affirmed its effectiveness in educating language minority children, as well as language majority children. The study of bilingualism in education has used positivist models of quantitative research methodology to explore its effectiveness in educational outcomes. Because of the centrality of this issue in the United States where bilingual education continues to be suspect, the most comprehensive quantitative studies, often comparing different types of bilingual education, have been conducted there. We review here a few such studies. Ramírez (1992) conducted a longitudinal study of 554 kindergartener-to-sixth grade Latino students in five states who were in three types of programs—English-only programs, transitional early-exit bilingual education programs, and late-exit developmental bilingual education programs. Students in late-exit developmental bilingual programs in which their home languages were used for at least five years had the most academic success. In 2002, Thomas and Collier compared achievement on nationally standardized tests of students who entered school 138

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without English proficiency and were enrolled in different kinds of programs. They found that the strongest predictor of English language achievement was the amount of formal schooling the students received in the home language. Thomas and Collier showed that developmental bilingual education programs and two-way bilingual education programs were the only types of programs that enabled emergent bilinguals to reach the 50th percentile in both languages in all subjects. Lindholm-Leary (2001) conducted a comprehensive evaluation of programs serving students who were learning English in California. Like Thomas and Collier, Lindholm-Leary concluded that students who were in instructional programs in which English was initially used for only 10 to 20% of the time did as well on English proficiency tests as those in English-only programs or 50:50 dual language bilingual education programs. By sixth grade, however, students in dual-language bilingual education outperformed transitional bilingual education students. These quantitative findings in the United States have been confirmed by recent meta-analyses. For example, Krashen, Rolstad, and McSwan (2007), Slavin and Cheung (2005), and Goldenberg (2008) have shown that students in bilingual programs outperform those in English-only programs on tests of academic achievement. Likewise, the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth (August and Shanahan 2006) and the synthesis conducted by Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, and Christian (2006) concluded that bilingual education approaches are more effective in teaching students to read than are English-only approaches. Our new understandings that language and literacy practices are shaped by local, social, and economic conditions, and that language and literacy practices contribute to the reproduction of asymmetrical relations of power, have resulted in increased use of qualitative methodologies in studying bilingualism. Qualitative methods conceive of knowledge as reuniting epistemology and hermeneutics and go beyond the distinctions that have served to “subalternize” the kinds of “border” knowledge that bilinguals and multilinguals bring to school (Mignolo 2000). For example, ethnographies of cases of bilingual education (for example, Blackledge and Creese 2010; and Bartlett and García 2011) show how language practices in schools matter to people on their own terms. Critical discourse analysis, such as Pennington’s analysis of bilingual classroom discourse at a high school in Hong Kong (1999) enables researchers to study the structure of discursive practices, while connecting language ideologies and language practices to relationships of power. Historical or document analysis, in which researchers collect documents that are then subjected to interpretive policy analysis, is also broadly used, especially to study bilingual education policy and the multiple reading of the policies by various stakeholders as interpretive communities. A recent extension of document analysis methods is what has become known as linguistic landscape studies, documenting the multilingual ecology and physical spaces of bilingual classrooms and how they are used by students. Despite the research evidence, debates surrounding the efficacy of bilingual education continue. There are also new debates, especially surrounding some past assumptions, such as the existence of a first, second, and native language and the dualities in bilingualism. These debates are considered in the next section.

New Debates First and Second Languages? Native Languages? The changing epistemologies about language and bilingualism discussed above mean that traditional terms used in speaking about bilingual education are not always useful. For example, some scholars speak about first languages, second languages, and even third languages, whereas seen through a heteroglossic lens, the language practices of bilinguals are not made up of two or more autonomous language systems. The grammar of bilingual speakers consists of features that are 139

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socially assigned to one language or the other, but for the bilingual person there isn’t an L1, an L2, or an L3, except perhaps as the chronological order of acquisition. What then do we call the heteroglossic practices that characterize bilingual speech? In the last decade, alternative terms have proliferated. Jørgensen (2008) refers to the combination of features that are not discrete and complete “languages” in themselves as polylingualism. Jacquemet (2005) speaks of transidiomatic practices to refer to the communicative practices of transnational groups that interact using different communicative codes. Canagarajah (2011) uses codemeshing to describe a single-integrated system in writing for rhetorical effectiveness. Metrolingualism is the term proposed by Otsuji and Pennycook (2010) in speaking about the fluid language practices in urban contexts. Perhaps the term that has had the most traction in the literature to refer to these flexible language practices is that of translanguaging. The term translanguaging was coined in Welsh (trawsieithu) by Cen Williams (1994). In its original use, it referred to a pedagogical practice in which students are asked to alternate languages for the purposes of receptive or productive use; for example, students might be asked to read in English and write in Welsh and vice versa (Baker 2011). Since then, the term has been extended by many scholars (Blackledge and Creese 2010; Canagarajah 2011; Creese and Blackledge 2010; García 2009; forthcoming; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012; García and Sylvan 2011; Hornberger and Link 2012; Lewis, Jones, and Baker 2012a; 2012b). Translanguaging for García (2009; 2011; forthcoming) refers not to the use of two separate languages or even the shift of one language or code to the other, since there are not two languages. Rather, translanguaging is rooted in the belief that bilingual speakers select language features from one integrated system and “soft assemble” their language practices in ways that fit their communicative situations. That is, bilinguals call upon social features in a seamless and complex network of multiple semiotic signs, as they adapt their languaging to suit the immediate task environment. Bilingualism, as a soft-assembled mechanism, comes into existence with enaction, with each action being locally situated and unique to satisfy contextual constraints, and creating an interdependence among all components of the system. The greater presence of plurilingual individuals and multilingualism in the world means that it is impossible today to talk about “native” speakers of any language. As many have argued (Kramsch 2009; Bonfiglio 2010), the concept of being a “native” speaker is anchored on concepts of ethnicity, race, class, status, and privilege, and acts as a system of exclusion. “Doing” bilingualism goes beyond the concept of being a “native” speaker, as it includes all who appropriate that languaging in their lives.

Dualities in Bilingualism? Bilingualism as 1+1 = 2 is no longer viable in our globalized, multilingual world. The Council of Europe (2000) uses the term plurilingualism to refer to an individual’s ability to use several languages to varying degrees and for distinct purposes. That is to say, European citizens are encouraged to have at their disposal a varying and shifting repertoire of language practices to fulfill different purposes. Although it is a new European concept, it is important to recognize that the multilingual practices of many Africans have always reflected this more dynamic linguistic repertoire (see Makoni and Pennycook 2007). Although bilingual scholars throughout the world are shifting the conversation in the direction of plurilingualism, the United States has gone in reverse. The term “bilingual” is being further silenced, and the categorization as “two” has been solidified in the now popular term “dual language.” Bilingual education in the United States has always been associated with a history of social struggle around civil rights issues, mostly having to do with Latinos. The critical 140

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definition of political struggle for the educational rights of language minorities, and specifically of Latinos, has made U.S. bilingual education contentious. By 1974, the time of the second reauthorization of the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, authorized in 1968 for the first time), bilingual education in the United States had been defined as “transitional,” with few exceptions. And the Supreme Court decision of Lau v. Nichols (1974), which ruled that children developing English must have a different educational program, never required bilingual education. As maintenance bilingual education programs disappeared under political pressure, transitional bilingual education programs grew. Bilingual education became less a program to develop language and literacy in two languages, and more a program to develop the English of those who increasingly became known as “English language learners.” By the time No Child Left Behind was implemented in 2002, the word “bilingual” had become a “bad word,” and “dual,” insisting that the two languages had to be strictly separated, came into popular use (Crawford 2004). Claiming “dual” languages, learners, books, pedagogies, etc., runs counter to the shapes of the dynamic bilingualism of societies that truly value the multiple and fluid language practices of the 21st century. The insistence on keeping the two languages as dualities is partly responsible for the failure of U.S. schools in developing their students’ bilingualism. In the separation, language practices in languages other than English never become a part of an American identity, and are instead branded as the languaging of immigrants and the “Other.” In identifying English as the “second language” of “English language learners,” bilingual Americans are never given permission to truly appropriate English language practices as their own. In insisting that the two languages be kept separate, bilingual Americans are made to think that their fluid language practices are inferior (García, Zakharia, and Otcu 2013). For example, in maintaining that Spanish and English language practices should always be separate, Latino bilinguals are made to believe that their language practices are nothing but “Spanglish.” Scholars analyze their “code-switches,” instead of acknowledging the translanguaging that characterizes all dynamic bilingual communities of practice. This has implications for education, which is the topic of the next section.

Implications for Education Bilingual education is good for education and language learning, for both language minorities and language majorities. But bilingual education in the 21st century must go beyond the emphasis on the dominant language (as happens in the United States) or monolingual proficiency in two languages (as in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). As bilingual education is reimagined under a dynamic framework of bilingualism, it is important to do away with what Cummins (2007) has called “the two solitudes,” and consider the use of translanguaging in schools, rather than a strict separation of languages. Translanguaging is used by students and teachers as they make sense of their bilingual worlds, using their entire linguistic repertoires across various modalities (reading, writing, speaking, and listening), and across different people in order to meaningfully learn. For example, although a lesson might be officially in one language, students may discuss, research, and produce work using all their language practices. Teachers who use translanguaging may not be bilingual themselves, but they always encourage their students to use their entire linguistic repertoire in making meaning (García, Flores, and Woodley 2011). As such, these teachers provide students with handouts, books, media, and print material in many languages, and encourage students to find others (see Celic and Seltzer 2012). Incorporating translanguaging pedagogies in today’s classrooms ensures that the bilingualism of all children is used as a resource, even when there are no bilingual education programs. In many ways, translanguaging acknowledges the dynamic language practices of bilinguals as human 141

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action. It allows the formation of multiple identities capable of leveling the power differentials among language practices and language hierarchies that continue to exist in schools that are organized by nation-states. Translanguaging is capable of releasing the histories and enunciations of all people that have been buried and constrained within the fixed identities of national ideologies. It may be the only way of sustaining bilingual education for all children in the 21st century.

Further Reading Baker, C. 2011. Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (5th ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, J. A. 1976. Bilingual Education. An international sociological perspective. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. García, O. 2009. Bilingual Education in the 21st century. A global perspective. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Note 1 Most of the conceptualization and information that follows can be found in García (2009).

References August, D., and Shanahan, T. (Eds.). 2006. Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on language-minority children and youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Baker, C. 2011. Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (5th ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Bartlett, L., and García, O. 2011. Additive schooling in subtractive times. Bilingual education and Dominican immigrant youth in The Heights. Nashville, TN: Vandervilt University Press. Becker, A. L. 1995. Beyond translation: Essays toward a modern philosophy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Bhabha, H. 1994. The location of culture. London: Routledge. Blackledge, A., and Creese, A. 2010. Multilingualism. London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. 2010. The socioinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bonfiglio, T. P. 2010. Mother tongues and nations. The invention of the native speaker. Berlin: De Gruyter/Mouton. Canagarajah, S.A. 2011. Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal, 95(iii), 401–417. Celic, C., and Seltzer, K. 2012. Translanguaging: A CUNY-NYSIEB guide for educators. New York: CUNY-NYSIEB. Available online: www.cuny-nysieb.org Council of Europe. 2000. Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Language Policy Division, Strasbourg. Available online: www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/CADRE_EN.asp Crawford, J. 2004. Educating English learners: Language diversity in the classroom, 5th ed. [formerly Bilingual education: History, politics, theory, and practice]. Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services. Creese, A., and Blackledge, A. 2010. Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? Modern Language Journal, 94(i), 103–115. Cummins, J. 1979. Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 22–51. Cummins, J. 2007. Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 221–240. Fishman, J. A. 1989. Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistic perspective. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. García, O. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century. A global perspective. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O. 2011. From language garden to sustainable languaging: Bilingual education in a global world. Perspective. A Publication of the National Association for Bilingual Education, Sept/Oct, 5–10. García, O. forthcoming. Theorizing and enacting translanguaging for social justice. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (Eds.). Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy. London and New York: Springer. 142

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García, O., and Kleifgen, J. A. 2010. Educating emergent bilinguals. Policies, programs and practices for English language learners. New York: Teachers College Press. García, O., Flores, N., and Woodley, H. H. 2012. Transgressing monolingualism and bilingual dualities: Translanguaging pedagogies. In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Harnessing linguistic variation for better education (pp. 45–76). Bern: Peter Lang. García, O. and Sylvan, C. E. 2011. Pedagogies and practices in multilingual classrooms: Singularities in pluralities. The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 385–400. García, O., Zakharia, Z., and Otcu, B. (Eds.). 2013. Bilingual community education and multilingualism: Beyond heritage languages in a global city. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W. M., and Christian, D. (Eds.). 2006. Educating English language learners. New York: Cambridge University Press. Goldenberg, C. 2008. Teaching English language learners. What the research does—and does not—say. American Educator, 32(2), 8–23, 42–44. Heller, M. 1987. The role of language in the formation of ethnic identity. In J. Phinney and M. Rotheram (Eds.), Children’s ethnic socialization (pp. 180–200). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Herdina, P. and Jessner, U. 2002. A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hornberger, N., and Link, H. 2012. Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A bilingual lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(3), 261–278. Irvine, J., and Gal, S. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities (pp. 34–84). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Jacquemet, M. 2005. Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language and Communication, 25, 257–277. Jørgensen, J. N. 2008. Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(3), 161–176. Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. What language learners say about their experience and why it matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krashen, S., Rolstad, K., and McSwan, J. 2007. Review of “Research summary and bibliography for structured English immersion programs” of the Arizona English language learners Task Force. Institute for Language and Education Policy. Tacoma Park, MD. Kroskrity, V. 2000. Regimenting languages: Language ideological perspectives. In V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities (pp. 1–34). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, and Oxford: James Currey. Lambert, W. E. 1975. Culture and language as factors in learning and education. In A. Wolfgang (Ed.), Education of immigrant students (pp. 55–83). Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Larsen-Freeman, D., and Cameron, L. 2008. Complex systems and applied linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Lau v. Nichols. 1974. 414 U.S. 563 (1974). Le Page, R. B., and Tabouret-Keller, A. 1985. Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, G., Jones, B., and Baker, C. 2012a. Translanguaging: Developing its conceptualisation and contextualisation. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice, DOI:10.1080/ 13803611.2012.718490 Lewis, G., Jones, B., and Baker, C. 2012b. Translanguaging: Origins and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice, DOI:10.1080/ 13803611.2012.718488 Lindholm-Leary, K. J. 2001. Dual language education. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S., and Pennycook, A. 2007. Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Maturana, H., and Varela, F. 1998 [1973]. The tree of knowledge. The biological roots of human understanding. Boston and London: Shambhala. Mignolo, W. 2000. Local histories/Global designs. Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Otsuji, E., and Pennycook, A. 2010. Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(3): 240–254. Pavlenko, A., and Blackledge, A. 2004. Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 143

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Pennington, M. C. 1999. Framing bilingual classroom discourse: Lessons from Hong Kong secondary school English classes. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 2(1), 53–73. Pennycook, A. 2010. Language as a local practice. London and New York: Routledge. Ramírez, J. D. 1992. Executive summary, final report: Longitudinal study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children. Bilingual Research Journal, 16(1–2), 1–62. Slavin, R., and Cheung, A. 2005. A synthesis of research on reading instruction for English language learners. Review of Educational Research, 75(7), 247–284. Thomas, W., and Collier, V. 2002. A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long term academic achievement. Final report. Available online: http:/crede.berkeley.edu/research/llaa/1.1_final.html UNESCO. 1953. The use of vernacular languages in education: Monographs of fundamental education VII, (p. 48). Available online: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000028/002897eb.pdf Williams, C. 1994. Arfarniad o Ddulliau Dysgu ac Addysgu yng Nghyd-destun Addysg Uwchradd Ddwyieithog. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, Bangor.

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11 The Intersections of Language Differences and Learning Disabilities Narratives in Action Taucia Gonzalez, Adai Tefera, and Alfredo Artiles

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a critical synthesis of the literature on the intersections of language differences and learning disabilities (LD1) using a sociocultural approach. Researchers have traditionally ignored the complex intertwining of these markers of differences. For this reason, we focus in this chapter on the growing population of emergent bilinguals2 with LDs. We argue this population occupies a liminal space between language and ability differences, which is consequential because institutional practices can thrust emergent bilinguals into odd positions, sometimes stressing their language traits or needs; at other times, highlighting their disabilities. Emergent evidence suggests that living in this in-between space can sometimes limit these learners’ educational opportunities or create dilemmas, challenges, and/or puzzles for the research, practice, and policy communities. In order to examine the complexity of these intersections, we use narrative as a metaphor for the stories that are being created around emergent bilinguals with LD. There seems to be a single dominant narrative used to describe and address the educational needs of emergent bilinguals that could be described as having a Labovian linear structure (Riessman 2008). Based on an individualistic stance informed by psychological and medical premises, this narrative’s plot envisions a fragmented individual, which compels educators to determine the main determinants of developmental and learning processes—for example, does language acquisition trump learning difficulties in explanations of student educational performance? In contrast, we posit there are several narratives evolving over time about this population that can be described as narratives in action in which researchers, practitioners, and policy leaders shape “turn-by-turn” (Ochs and Capps 2001, 2; Wortham 2001) the tropes of multiple narratives on this population based on alternative assumptions about language differences, the role of culture in learning, and the ways in which the intersections of language and ability differences shape school performance. The shifts at every turn of these living narratives are contingent upon competing policies, practices, and interests (i.e., interlocutors). With multiple interlocutors creating new turns in the conversations, these narratives are not predetermined but rather unpredictable and “open to contingency, improvisation, and revision” (Ochs and Capps 2001, 62).

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Rather than subscribing to a linear narrative that would compel us to merely describe these learners using a list of static markers, we first delineate the broader contexts in which the narratives on this population are unfolding. We then narrow in on the emerging disproportionate placement of these students in special education as a case in point. We conclude with an overview of research approaches used in studies on emergent bilinguals and a discussion of the debates in these narratives. The central argument underlying our critique is that addressing the complex intersections of differences under which these learners live will require substantial systemic transformations and new turns in the narratives of emergent bilinguals with LDs.

The Evolving Linguistic and Cultural Educational Landscape of the United States Across the U.S., the racial and linguistic make-up of the country is quickly evolving to be the most diverse in its history. This increasing diversity acts as an interlocutor in the narratives of emergent bilinguals and disability, in that emergent bilinguals are a heterogeneous population with narratives that wind across and alongside that of disability narratives. According to the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), from 1997 to 2008, the growth in the percentage of emergent bilinguals was 51% (OELA 2011). While the number of emergent bilinguals is highest in the western and southwestern regions of the U.S., the number in the southern and southeastern parts of the country has rapidly grown in the last ten years (OELA 2011). This growing diversity is occurring not only in the often expected racially and linguistically diverse urban regions of the U.S., but in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas (Orfield and Luce 2012; Tefera, Frankenberg, and Siegel-Hawley 2011) as well as rural parts of the country (Strange, Johnson, Showalter, and Klein 2012). Of the 325 languages spoken in the U.S., in 44 states and the District of Columbia, Spanish was the most-spoken home language for emergent bilinguals (see Table 11.1) (National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition [NCELA] 2011). In fact, in 14 states, Spanish-speakers constituted more than 80% of all emergent bilingual students. NCELA also reported that a significant number of emergent bilinguals also spoke Vietnamese, Chinese, and Arabic (see Table 11.1). While the predominance of Spanish speakers may give the illusion of homogeneity, we argue that there is an abundance of heterogeneity that is often overlooked.

Table 11.1 Top Ten Languages Most Spoken by Emergent Bilinguals at Home, 2009–2010 Language

Number of Emergent Bilinguals

Spanish

3,582,884

Vietnamese

85,252

Chinese

69,821

Arabic

51,606

Hmong

46,311

Haitian

33,845

Tagalog

26,885

Somali

19,699

Navajo

10,507

Note: Adapted from NCELA (2011, 1).

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Contradictions and Consequences of Shifting Educational Laws and Policies for English Learners and Students With Disabilities The proliferation of multiple (often contradictory) policies has created many new turns in these narratives. Historically, the U.S. has fought to maintain English as the dominant language in education (Gándara et al. 2010). The struggle for fair and just educational policies and practices for emergent bilinguals has, as a result, been arbitrated in U.S. courts over the last forty years. The landmark Supreme Court case, Lau v. Nichols (1974) stated that students who speak English as a second language have a right to a “meaningful education.” In their analysis of shifting education laws for Chicana/o and Latina/o students, Artiles, Waitoller, and Neal (2011) identified three key cases—Diana v. State Board of Education, 1970; Covarrubias v. San Diego Unified School District, 1971; Guadalupe Organization Inc. v. Tempe School District No. 3, 1972—that were pivotal in addressing issues related to inaccurately placing emergent bilinguals in special education. Together, these cases contributed to the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 1975 (now Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]). The primary intent of IDEA has been to provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) for students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (LRE). While IDEA aimed to provide a fair and appropriate education for students with disabilities, the publication of A Nation at Risk (Gardner 1983) induced a state of emergency, positing the U.S. education system’s mediocrity as a threat to the nation’s ability to compete globally. This resulted in a call for greater commitment to higher standards in education and was the impetus for increased accountability for all learners. The report contributed to the 1994 Goals 2000 and ultimately the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was renamed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). NCLB weaves an alluring yet flawed narrative of equity with the requirement that all “subgroups” of students meet the same standard via standardized test scores. Students facing the harshest consequences of NCLB are those Artiles (2011) referred to as living “double-bind” identities, including racial and linguistic minority students labeled with disabilities, for they are the least likely to have adequate opportunities to learn and the most likely to face the negative repercussions of current policy. In short, the educational policies intended to respond to the nation’s growing cultural and linguistic diversity have resulted in the convergence and torqueing of multiple policies that are narrowly designed with boxes in mind. Emergent bilinguals—a diverse group with sociocultural (i.e., linguistic, historical, racial) differences—do not fit neatly into federal-policy-built boxes such as NCLB and IDEA. While some narratives may benefit from neat boxes, others, at the intersections of multiple differences, are stuck between converging policies and interests. Particularly troubling is evidence that incongruent state thresholds for disproportionality determination in special education has resulted in the illusion that many states do not face problems related to disproportionality (Artiles 2011). The consequence of this cannot be overlooked as research attempts to examine the special education placement patterns of emergent bilinguals, a topic that is discussed in greater detail in the following section. The demographic shifts, competing and contradictory policies, and persistent inequities outlined thus far serve as a contextual backdrop to the emergent bilingual and disability narratives that are unfolding.

Educational Casualties in the Name of Equity: The Case of Disproportionality We suggest in the preceding section that the complexity of torqueing policies in narratives about emergent bilinguals along with the health of such policies can deepen inequalities for the very groups targeted in these policies. A case in point is the disproportionate representation of minority 147

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students in special education. Disproportionality is “the representation of a group in a category that exceeds our expectations for that group, or differs substantially from the representation of others in that category” (Skiba et al. 2008, 265), but it can also include “underrepresentation in programs for students with gifts and talents” (Artiles, Rueda, and Salazar 2005, 283). The U.S. educational system has historically underserved culturally and linguistically diverse students, creating inequitable and disparate educational outcomes. For example, although Brown v. Board of Education marked a new turn for historically underserved students by integrating schools, it also marked new forms of stratification within schools in the form of policies that created within-school segregation. Special education serves as one example of this within-school segregation. It has served to help students with disabilities, but at the same time, it has contributed to within-school racial stratification, not only through the labels assigned to students, but also through the different services and experiences they receive (Artiles 2009; Ong-Dean 2009). In large part, IDEA was an outcome of the Civil Rights Movement as a way to provide services to students with disabilities. Although disproportionality can be based on socioeconomics, sex, or language, racial disproportionality has been documented for about 45 years. Currently, African Americans and American Indian students are the racial groups most heavily affected by disproportionality, yet emerging analysis indicates that regionally Latina/os and emergent bilinguals are also overrepresented in some disability categories (Artiles 2009). At the national level in the United States, emergent bilinguals are not disproportionately identified for special education, but recently researchers have undertaken a variety of analytic approaches for understanding the intersection of these narratives. These analytic approaches for studying emergent bilinguals with learning disabilities include looking at within-group differences (Artiles et al. 2005), longitudinal work examining change over time (Linn and Hemmer 2011; Samson and Lesaux 2009), and state level identification and placement patterns (Sullivan 2011). These studies, much like new interlocutors entering the telling of these narratives, have created new turns that demonstrate new understandings in emergent bilingual disproportionality. We are beginning to understand that in one researched southern California district, emergent bilinguals with lower proficiency levels in their first language are more likely to be overrepresented in special education (Artiles et al. 2005). We know that while emergent bilinguals are underrepresented in special education in kindergarten and first grade, they are overrepresented in third grade, which raises questions as to whether emergent bilinguals are receiving academic support too late because of confusion between language proficiency and LD (Samson and Lesaux 2009). Contrary to the Artiles et al.’s (2005) study, Sullivan (2011) found that districts in Arizona with high numbers of emergent bilinguals were less likely to over-identify students with LDs and specific language impairments. Sullivan’s study also showed that identification patterns changed over time. Linn and Hemmer (2011) examined emergent bilingual identification patterns in Southeastern Texas school districts over a seven-year time period, 2004–2010. They found significant emergent bilingual over-identification, albeit with decreases, over time. Shifrer, Muller, and Callahan’s (2011) study that analyzed various sociodemographic indicators (SES, parents’ language) found that students that had participated in English as a second language (ESL) classes were significantly over-identified in special education (see also Artiles and Kozleski 2010). These recent analyses create a mosaic of understandings regarding emergent bilinguals in special education. Attention to within-group diversity requires us to untangle the tightly woven braid that history has created between race and disability. Although the braid is heavy and thick, attention to the contours and the fibers begins unraveling the thread of language from this tight construct. Emergent bilinguals serve as a powerful example to the heterogeneity within minorities in special education. We should note that the bulk of research findings outlined thus far are grounded in a linear narrative that privileges individual factors. Nevertheless, alternative narratives are emerging. For 148

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instance, the question arises as to whether the disproportionality of emergent bilinguals indexes the creation of a “safety zone” (Lomawaima and McCarty 2006), which is based on ideological constructions of a U.S. ideal. Society draws fluctuating boundaries between what are considered “safe and dangerous cultural difference[s]” in response to perceived threat to the U.S. ideal (Lomawaima and McCarty 2006, 5). Schools respond to “dangerous” cultural differences with separate programs, separate curricula, and separate teachers that have been prepared in distinct programs that often serve as a way to erase or lessen those differences, but also to create the illusion of safety within the boundary between safe and dangerous. Language and ability differences are two such constructs that are regulated with safety zones. We posit that emergent bilinguals’ disproportionality in special education could be regarded as an indicator (amongst others) of labor produced around safety zones. Artiles (2011) explained how these threats (i.e., race, language, ability differences), or “notions of difference[,] have been interlaced in complicated ways throughout the history of American education” (431). Not only have race, language, and disability been woven together, but they have also been woven into an ideological construct of danger (Artiles 2011). Different disabilities constitute different degrees of danger to the U.S. ideal. Language and racial differences are threats that have been regulated, in part, through disability identification that largely creates boundaries through separate programs. Yet, the boundary between safe and dangerous is not only tied to time; it is tied to other factors, as well (e.g., place, local histories), which is why research on the disproportionate representation of emergent bilinguals in special education must be examined as a multidimensional concept. The overrepresentation of emergent bilinguals in special education serves as a case in point to the complexity of perceived safety zones across U.S. history and geography. Researchers are building on this narrative using new analytical frameworks to create new narrative turns and understandings, which has raised further questions about this intersection. While some studies have replicated previous findings, we have seen that disproportionality research on emergent bilinguals is highly contextual, in terms of not only geography, but also policies (e.g., language support programs) and over time.

Research Approaches A review of research approaches on emergent bilinguals with disabilities cannot be restricted to theory and methods since contextual, institutional, policy, and even disciplinary considerations ought to be included in such analysis. We summarize the main trends in research approaches with particular attention to LD because this is the largest group of the population with disabilities and of emergent bilinguals with special needs. The scholarship on emergent bilinguals with disabilities is organized around three types of study. These include (a) population issues, (b) antecedent and contextual factors that mediate LD diagnosis (e.g., predictors of reading achievement, referral issues, assessment practices), and (c) instructional interventions (Klingner et al. 2006). One of the most notable limitations of the research on emergent bilinguals with and without disabilities is the lack of attention to the heterogeneity of this population. Although over 70% of this population speaks Spanish as a first language, the available evidence reflects a strikingly diverse population in terms of nationality, age, social class, ethnicity, length of residence in the U.S., and so forth (García and Cuellar 2006). This means that we know surprisingly little about the profiles of emergent bilinguals that may be more vulnerable to disability identification. Artiles et al. (2005) found an LEA-identified subgroup of emergent bilinguals in California that was more vulnerable to disability diagnosis; nevertheless, the LEA’s definition of this subgroup was based on questionable assumptions about language proficiency, rather than the unique sociocultural differences within the subgroup (e.g., literacy in native language, length of time classified as an English 149

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learner). Specifically, the vulnerable subgroup of emergent bilinguals was considered to lack proficiency in their first language (L1) and second language (L2). This phenomenon has been described as semilingualism, a notion that has been controversial for several decades. As Artiles et al. (2005) explained, “[w]e should be mindful of the controversy surrounding this construct and the difficulties inherent in assessing cognitive and other abilities with language-dependent standardized tests for this group” (294). Another factor that muddles our understanding of the emergent bilingual population is the substantial variability across local education agencies (LEAs) and state educational agencies (SEAs) to define emergent bilingual status, language proficiency, and monitor the trajectories of these learners over time—i.e., generally this population is followed only for 2–3 years after they are reclassified as English proficient. This variability complicates the aggregation of findings because emergent bilingual samples across studies are defined with the disparate criteria of the LEAs and SEAs where the students were recruited. The same critique applies to the multiple measures of language proficiency used across geographical regions. In part because of the dearth of knowledge about this population, but also due to universalist assumptions about human development that privilege members of the dominant population, there has been a tendency to extrapolate evidence from assessment and intervention technologies (e.g., literacy interventions) produced with monolingual populations to emergent bilinguals with and without disabilities (Gutiérrez, Zepeda, and Castro 2010). This is obviously problematic, considering the validity threats embodied in this practice, and it flies in the face of advances in a cultural view of human development (Gutiérrez and Rogoff 2003). Complicating this state of affairs is the absence of unified and systematic efforts to collect evidence on this population at the national level, which renders a fragmented picture about these learners that cannot be monitored longitudinally. The scholarship on antecedent and contextual forces is scarce, though multilayered and complex. The instructional contexts, including teacher factors that shape emergent bilingual opportunities to learn (e.g., quality of instruction) seem to play a role in emergent bilingual learning rates and might constitute confounding factors in eventual decisions to refer emergent bilinguals to special education (Lopez-Reyna 1996; Ruiz 1995). Perhaps more troubling, contextual considerations related to these factors were rarely examined in diagnostic decisions for emergent bilinguals (Harry and Klingner 2006). Investigations about pre-referral interventions with emergent bilinguals are rare and have not, with a few exceptions, provided substantial insights (Artiles and Ortiz 2002). Decisions to refer students are also largely influenced by institutional factors (e.g., assumptions about student competence, narrow evidence used to gauge the nature of learning due to the kinds of assessments used) and tend to have a significant role in diagnostic decisions (Mehan 1991). There is some evidence about the potential for disability misidentification with emergent bilinguals because these students could exhibit behaviors associated with learning a L2 that could be construed as signs of LDs (Klingner et al. 2006). The research on assessment is fraught with problematic practices and deep inadequacies. This has been a consistent picture for at least two decades (Klingner et al. 2006). For instance, school psychologists have reported knowing ethical principles and guidelines for effective practice with emergent bilinguals, but not applying it in their own practice; other studies have also shown a troubling lack of knowledge of best (ethical and technical) practices with this population among school psychologists (Artiles, Trent, and Palmer 2004). Another troubling finding in this area of inquiry that bears on diagnostic decisions is that even when assessment evidence on students’ first language is available to eligibility teams, they can label emergent bilinguals without regard for such data (Harry and Klingner 2006). The research on predictors of learning (particularly reading) disabilities has been growing steadily in the last 10 years, in part due to the funding available from federal and private agencies. 150

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This scholarship focuses on the role of early reading sub-skills and has consistently identified a set of predictors of reading achievement that include phonological awareness, rapid naming, alphabetic knowledge, and print awareness. Nevertheless, major syntheses of reading research that included emergent bilinguals with and without disabilities have been critiqued for overemphasizing the aforementioned skills, even though other components, such as oral language skills, background knowledge, and vocabulary, had equally strong (or stronger) associations with early literacy development (Gee 1999; Gutierrez et al. 2010). A consistent message from these critiques of research syntheses is that “language and literacy development involves the lamination of component skills and sociocultural variables that help form the social situation of development” (Gutierrez et al. 2010, 336, emphasis added). A recent review of the National Early Literacy Panel report identified a number of areas in substantial need for additional research for young emergent bilinguals (see Gutierrez et al. 2010, 335–337). These research needs illustrate the dearth of fundamental knowledge in this area of inquiry and serve as a reference for the theoretical puzzles and research lacunae in the scholarship on emergent bilinguals with disabilities. The last set of studies targets instructional interventions for emergent bilinguals struggling to learn or with reading disabilities. Although we already identified significant knowledge gaps in this domain, it is important to outline broad trends in the work produced in the recent past. Intensive reading interventions tend to be designed with a reading approach that stresses sub-skill acquisition and mastery. Klingner et al. (2006) concluded that “early intervention programs that combine phonological awareness and other reading activities with ESL strategies may be the most promising, yet further research is warranted” (120). A consistent finding across a small number of studies is that the development of certain sub-skills (i.e., phonological awareness) and vocabulary level in L1 and L2 mediate in significant ways the development of reading in L2. Moreover, researchers have shown that emergent bilinguals with disabilities can benefit from reading comprehension strategy instruction. Not surprisingly, key differences have been identified between emergent bilinguals that are more and less proficient, typically showing that the former outperform the latter group on various indices (e.g., vocabulary, use of comprehension strategies, use of schematic knowledge). In addition, emergent bilinguals’ use of reading strategies in L1 transferred to reading in L2 (Klingner et al. 2006). To conclude, aside from the need to expand the number of studies on emergent bilinguals with disabilities, it is necessary that researchers interested in this domain invest in several substantive issues that were either implicit or briefly mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. First, this research community ought to transcend the limited visions and re-presentations of emergent bilinguals used in this scholarship as monolithic, culturally static, and laden with deficits (e.g., poverty, lack of skills, etc.). Artiles (2004) explained that this work requires more than adding details about samples’ traits. Beyond documenting the breadth of diversity within the emergent bilingual population, it means that researchers should understand the consequences of the cultural-historical re-presentations of racial and linguistic minorities that construct them as the Other. New representational practices will have implications for the historical narratives that constitute the identity of the special education field in relation to emergent bilinguals. Borrowing from Rorty, Artiles (2004) argued that LD’s historiography could be construed as a doxography, in which “the key topics and scholars in the LD field are timeless and uncontestable, and it does not acknowledge that societal changes and transformations in LD theory and research are perennially taking place” (551–552). The dramatic changes in the nation’s demography that we summarized above and interdisciplinary advances in learning research (e.g., neuropsychological basis of learning, learning and gaming, youth’s hybrid linguistic and identity practices in formal and informal contexts) demand that future research on emergent bilinguals with learning and other impairments redefine 151

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the field’s doxography. To date, we are only anticipating that these developments and innovations will disrupt traditional research approaches and reframe research questions and practices.

New Debates The emergent bilingual population and policy landscapes are shifting in unprecedented ways, just as the special education field is undergoing important transformations that impact disability definitions, prevalence of conditions, as well as theories and methods. Due to space constraints, we comment briefly on two developments in the special education field—namely, inclusive education and Response to Intervention (RTI)—and contextualize this discussion in terms of emerging population and policy changes. The inclusive education movement gained international visibility in the 1990s. The U.S. research community has historically grappled with questions on where and how to serve students with disabilities, and thus, considerable debates ensued around different versions of the inclusive education movement. Inclusive education is a concept with multifaceted definitions and discourses on educational justice (Artiles and Dyson 2005). Although the notion of inclusive education has become a proxy for placing students with special needs in general education classrooms, its original theoretical aspirations were substantially bigger (Artiles, Kozleski, Dorn, and Christensen 2006). Specifically, the idea of inclusive education aimed at transforming entire educational systems so that their constitutive components (e.g., policies, curricula, pedagogies, assessments, parent involvement programs, professional development efforts, etc.) would be sensitive and responsive to the range of human differences (e.g., socioeconomic, gender, ability, linguistic, ethnic, racial, immigration and refugee status, etc.). The vast majority of students with disabilities in the U.S. are educated in general education school buildings, though the question arises as to whether these students’ educational experiences take place in truly inclusive environments, particularly in the current accountability era. Unfortunately, the emerging evidence suggests accountability policies have deepened inequalities for the very students that were targeted in the inclusive education movement (Darling-Hammond 2007). The research evidence is mixed on whether emergent bilinguals are disproportionately placed in special education in districts and states with sizable emergent bilingual representation (Artiles et al. 2005; Sullivan 2011). Moreover, emergent bilinguals with disabilities can be placed in more segregated programs than their counterparts with the same disability diagnosis (De Valenzuela, Copeland, Qi, and Park 2006). It is also known that emergent bilinguals receive less language supports after being placed in special education, which most likely affects learning opportunities for this population (Artiles and Kozleski 2010), particularly since emergent bilingual placement in English-only programs increases the probability of their disproportionate representation in special education, compared to emergent bilinguals receiving bilingual education (Artiles et al. 2005). In these cases, therefore, it is ironic that the typical inclusive education approach (i.e., mere placement in ordinary schools and classrooms with little L2 support) can constitute a substantial barrier to emergent bilinguals struggling to learn and/or with disabilities, since the absence of appropriate supports and accommodations would only restrict emergent bilinguals’ opportunities to learn. RTI is the second major development in the special education field in the last decade that we review briefly in this chapter. The distinctive features of RTI, which tends to be organized around three or four tiers of intervention, are described as follows: RTI integrates assessment and intervention within a multi-level prevention system to maximize student achievement and to reduce behavior problems. With RTI, schools identify students at risk for poor learning outcomes, monitor student progress, provide evidence-based 152

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interventions and adjust the intensity and nature of those interventions depending on a student’s responsiveness, and identify students with [LD] or other disabilities. (National Center on Response to Intervention n.d., “Response-to-Intervention”) The 2004 reauthorization of IDEA brought attention to RTI at the federal level as LD could be identified, in addition to the discrepancy formula, through RTI strategies. Such visibility did not necessarily have an immediate effect on state practices. To illustrate, in 2009 only a few states had changed their LD diagnostic practices to rely solely on RTI (Southeast Comprehensive Center 2009). We should note there is considerable debate surrounding the strengths and impact of RTI. First, RTI’s conceptualization embodies appealing features. For instance, RTI allows educators to address the needs of struggling learners without having to sanction disability labels. This proactive stance breaks the longstanding educational practice of waiting long periods of time before a student is eligible to receive targeted interventions. Even a statement about being equity minded has been made about RTI, since supporters anticipate that minority student disproportionate representation in special education will likely be reduced in LEAs and SEAs that use RTI. On the other hand, questions have been raised about the feasibility of relying on standardized protocols and the imposition of unrealistic intervention fidelity requirements given the complex nature of schools, particularly in contexts that serve emergent bilinguals and other diverse groups. Other concerns include the lack of capacity among the teaching force to carry out this model, and barriers to scaling up RTI systems (Gerber 2005; Kavale, Kauffman, Bachmeier, and LeFever 2008). A significant criticism is related to RTI’s apparent neglect of cultural and linguistic issues (Artiles 2005; Klingner and Edwards 2006), even though some programs of research have begun to include diverse samples in their projects (e.g., Linan-Thompson, Cirino, and Vaughn 2007). An important critique was also raised against RTI’s “building blocks,” namely what counts as response and intervention in this approach. Artiles and Kozleski (2010) provided a sociocultural analysis of these basic components, which rendered crucial gaps and blind spots in the design and implementation of RTI. With regard to “response,” these authors situated RTI’s closed ended (largely cognitive) view of response (i.e., learning in RTI) in the field of learning sciences to remind educators that the notion of learning is now theorized in more complex ways that take sociocultural and psychological aspects of learning into account. When linguistic differences are added to this picture, a stronger case can be made for a situated analysis of learners’ responses (or lack of response) to instruction. This is particularly the case because emergent bilinguals’ engagement and uses of sociolinguistic and pragmatics tools and strategies are qualitatively different from native speakers, which could be misconstrued as non-responses, or even LDs. In turn, interventions can be conceptualized as “contexts for thinking” from a sociocultural perspective because interventions are tested in social conditions that differ markedly from the circumstances under which learners participate and learn in classrooms. This fact creates serious challenges to the applicability of experimentally derived RTI interventions in non-experimental conditions. As Greeno (1998) explained in the context of arguing for a situated view of learning, “we risk arriving at conclusions that depend on specific features of activities that occur in the special circumstances that we arrange, and that these specific features will prevent generalization to the domains of activity that we hope to understand” (7). This situation means that experimental tasks and activities can often require engagement and participation that are not aligned with the histories of participation or performance of students, hence heightening the risk of under-estimating learners’ competence levels (Cole and Bruner 1971). These concerns raised about interventions have consequential implications for the use of RTI with emergent bilinguals who are struggling to learn or with LDs. “[F]or example, it would be important to know the students’ familiarity 153

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with reading text in English under timed conditions. How would their performance be affected if they had a history of using only literacy materials in Spanish at home or if oral narratives had been their main form of literacy?” (Artiles and Kozleski 2010, 952). While RTI and inclusive education have not served as the holy grails of educational reform, they serve as indicators that attention is shifting from fixing children to fixing systems. These recent debates serve as a continued example of the struggle to support the students that fall between the educational system’s standardized boxes.

Implications for Education In this chapter, we examined how shifting demographics and competing policies have acted as interlocutors in these living narratives. We borrowed safety zone theory as a way to understand disproportionality as a barometer of perceived cultural and linguistic threats to the “U.S. ideal.” We provided a brief history of disproportionality and how the emergent bilingual narrative has intersected with the disability narrative, creating complex intersections of difference, followed by an overview of shifting research trends in this field. We concluded by discussing how inclusive education and RTI has been conceptualized in schools and what that means for emergent bilinguals with disabilities. What do the narratives on emergent bilinguals and disability mean for education? While the educational system has responded to learning differences through various means, the shifting cultural and linguistic landscape of the U.S. has demonstrated that there are many students that do not fit neatly into the standard boxes intended to respond to such learning differences. In fact, emerging bilinguals with disabilities are caught between and betwixt categories that are in some cases competing and contradictory. With this shifting landscape, the narratives of emergent bilinguals and disability have appeared to run parallel, converge, twist, diverge, and in some cases even torque. Our desire for cohesion and to work in neat boxes can make the trajectory of these nonlinear narratives feel disconcerting, yet out of these narratives that are being created in schools and through research come opportunities for “contingency, improvisation, and revision” (Ochs and Capps 2001, 62). As we improvise and as we revise the trajectories for emergent bilinguals with disabilities, we cannot look at the narrative of emergent bilinguals in isolation from disability or vice versa. We need to look at where and how these two narratives intersect to create their own complex story. As mentioned in the previous sections, frameworks and methods for students with disabilities may not adequately serve emergent bilinguals with disabilities. Researchers and practitioners are interlocutors participating in the construction of this narrative. As the U.S. becomes more diverse, this issue of fitting into categories is becoming increasingly fuzzy. While we can build more boxes, or specialization categories, we will battle with the same tensions of trying to force fits or making decisions that afford some students opportunity at the expense of others. Another option is to focus on the spaces between the intersecting narratives of emergent bilinguals and disability as bellwethers for the new “U.S. ideal”; a new narrative turn for the living narratives of emergent bilinguals and disability.

Further Reading Artiles, A. J., Rueda, R., Salazar, J. J., and Higareda, I. 2005. Within-group diversity in minority disproportionate representation: English language learners in urban school districts. Exceptional Children, 71(3), 283–300. McDermott, R., Goldman, S., and Varenne, H. 2006. The cultural work of learning disabilities. Educational Researcher, 35(6), 12–17. 154

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Ortiz, A. A., Robertson, M., Wilkinson, C. Y., Liu, Y. J., McGhee, B. D., and Kushner, M. I. 2011. The role of bilingual education teachers in preventing inappropriate referrals of ELLs to special education: Implications for response to intervention. Bilingual Research Journal, 34(3), 316–333. Solano-Flores, G. 2006. Language, dialect, and register: Sociolinguistics and the estimation of measurement error in the testing of English language learners. The Teachers College Record, 108(11), 2354–2379.

Notes 1 LD is the largest population in the U.S. special educational system, and the most common disability category emergent bilinguals are labeled with. Although we focus on disability, we also refer to LD throughout this chapter. 2 In this manuscript we refer to English Language Learners (ELLs) as emergent bilinguals (Garcia, Kleifgen, and Falchi, 2008). While this may feel like a cumbersome alternative to the ELL acronym, we feel it is an important discursive practice that focuses on linguistic strengths rather than deficits, taking small social steps toward alternative possibilities and narratives.

References Artiles, A. J. 2004. The end of innocence: Historiography and representation in the discursive practice of learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37, 550–555. Artiles, A. J. 2005, November. RTI for all: Reflections on sociocultural questions and challenges. Commemoration of P.L. (pp. 94–142). Los Angeles, CA: Loyola Marymount University. Artiles, A. J. 2009. Re-framing disproportionality research: Outline of a cultural-historical paradigm. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 11(2), 24–37. Artiles, A. J. 2011. Toward an interdisciplinary understanding of educational equity and difference: The case of the racialization of ability. Educational Researcher, 40, 431–445. Artiles, A. J., and Dyson, A. 2005. Inclusive education in the globalization age: The promise of comparative cultural historical analysis. In D. Mitchell (Ed.), Contextualizing inclusive education (pp. 37–62). London: Routledge. Artiles, A. J., and Kozleski, E. B. 2010. What counts as Response and Intervention in RTI? A sociocultural analysis. Psicothema, 22, 949–954. Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E., Dorn, S., and Christensen, C. 2006. Learning in inclusive education research: Re-mediating theory and methods with a transformative agenda. Review of Research in Education, 30, 65–108. Artiles, A. J., and Ortiz, A. (Eds). 2002. English Language Learners with special needs: Identification, placement, and instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Artiles, A. J., Rueda, R., and Salazar, J. J. 2005. Within-group diversity in minority disproportionate representation: English language learners in urban school districts. Exceptional Children, 71(3), 283–300. Artiles, A. J., Trent, S. C., and Palmer, J. 2004. Culturally diverse students in special education: Legacies and prospects. In J. A. Banks and C. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 716–735). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Artiles, A. J., Waitoller, F., and Neal, R. 2011. Grappling with the intersection of language and ability differences: Equity issues for Chicano/Latino students in special education. In R. R. Valencia (Ed.), Chicano school failure and success: Past, present, and future (3rd ed., pp. 213–234). London: Routledge. Cole, M., and Bruner, J. 1971. Cultural differences and inferences about psychological processes. American Psychologist, 26, 867–876. Darling-Hammond, L. 2007. Race, inequality and educational accountability: The irony of “No Child Left Behind.” Race, Ethnicity and Education, 10, 245–260. De Valenzuela, J. S., Copeland, S. R., Qi, H. C., and Park, M. 2006. Examining educational equity: Revisiting the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education. Exceptional Children, 72, 425–441. Frey, W. 2011. A demographic tipping point among America’s three year olds. Brookings Institute. Retrieved from www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/02/07-population-frey Gándara, P., Losen, D., August, D., Uriarte, M., Gómez, M. C., and Hopkins, M. 2010. Forbidden language: A brief history of U.S. language policy. In P. Gándara, and M. Hopkins (Eds.), Forbidden language: English learners and restrictive learning policies (pp. 20–36). New York: Teachers College Press. 155

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García, E., and Cuellar, D. 2006. Who are these linguistically and culturally diverse students? Teachers College Record, 108, 2220–2246. Garcia, O., Kleifgen, J., and Falchi, L. 2008, January. From English language learners to emergent bilinguals. New York: Teachers College Press. Gardner, D. 1983. A nation at risk. Washington, DC: The National Commission on Excellence in Education, U.S. Department of Education. Gee, J. 1999. Reading and the New Literacy Studies: Reframing the National Academy of Sciences report on reading. Journal of Literacy Research, 31, 355–374. Gerber, M. 2005. Teachers are still the test: Limitations of response to instruction strategies for identifying children with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38, 516–524. Greeno, J. 1998. The situativity of knowing, learning and research. American Psychologist, 53, 5–26. Gutiérrez, K., and Rogoff, B. 2003. Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19–25. Gutiérrez, K., Zepeda, M., and Castro, D. 2010. Advancing early literacy learning for all children: Implications of the NELP report for dual-language learners. Educational Researcher, 39, 334–339. Harry, B., and Klingner, J. 2006. Why are so many minority students in special education? Understanding race and disability in schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Kavale, K. A., Kauffman, J. M., Bachmeier, R. J., and LeFever, G. B. 2008. Response-to-Intervention: Separating the rhetoric of self-congratulation from the reality of specific learning disability identification. Learning Disability Quarterly, 31, 135–150. Klingner, J. K., Artiles, A. J., Barletta, L. M. 2006. English Language Learners who struggle with reading: Language acquisition or learning disabilities? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39, 108–128. Klingner, J. K., and Edwards, P. 2006. Cultural considerations with response to intervention models. Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 108–117. Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 566-69, 94 S.Ct. 786, 788–90, 39 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). Linan-Thompson, S., Cirino, P., and Vaughn, S. 2007. Determining English language learners’ response to intervention: Questions and some answers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 30, 185–195. Linn, D., and Hemmer, L. 2011. English language learner disproportionality in special education: Implications for the scholar-practitioner. Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 1(1), 70–80. Lomawaima, K. T., and McCarty, T. L. 2006. “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in democracy from a century of Native American education. New York: Teachers College Press. López-Reyna, N. A. 1996. The importance of meaningful contexts in bilingual special education: Moving to whole language. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 11, 120–131. Mehan, H. 1991. The schools’ work of sorting students. In D. Zimmerman and D. Boden (Eds.), Talk and social structure (pp. 71–90). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press National Center on Response to Intervention. n.d. RTI Center. Retrieved from www.rti4success.org/ RTIGlossary#RTI National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA), U.S. Department of Education. 2011. What languages do English learners speak? NCELA Factsheet. Retrieved from www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/ uploads/NCELAFactsheets/EL_Languages_2011.pdf Ochs, E., and Capps, L. 2001. Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), U.S. Department of Education. 2011. The growing number of English learner students: 1998/99–2008/09. Retrieved from www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/9/ growingLEP_0809.pdf Ong-Dean, C. 2009. High roads and low roads to disability. In C. Ong-Dean (Ed.), Distinguishing disability: Parents, privilege, and special education (pp. 63–93). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Orfield, M., and Luce, T. 2012. America’s racially diverse suburbs: Opportunities and challenges. Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity. University of Minnesota Law School. Riessman, C. K. 2008. Narrative methods for the human sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ruiz, N. T. 1995. The social construction of ability and disability: I. Profile types of Latino children identified as language learning disabled. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 28, 476–490. Ruiz, R. 1984. Orientations in language planning. NABE: The Journal for the National Association for Bilingual Education, 8(2), 15–34. Samson, J. F., and Lesaux, N. K. 2009. Language-minority learners in special education. Journal of Learning Disabilities , 42(2), 148–162. Shifrer, D., Muller, C., and Callahan, R. 2011. Disproportionality and learning disabilities: Parsing apart race, socioeconomic status, and language. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(3), 246–257. 156

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12 Theory and Advocacy for Indigenous Language Revitalization in the United States Mary Hermes and Megan Bang

The current moment is one of crisis and opportunity. Educators, linguists and Indigenous people have a rare opportunity to share perspectives and coordinate efforts to revitalize the Indigenous languages of the United States. The very sites used to destroy these languages (schools) are now the sites for reclaiming language (immersion schools). The disciplines used to colonize us as the “other” (e.g., anthropology and linguistics) now have a role in helping bring back languages through documentation. This chapter focuses on the work of coming together as we urge intellectuals, citizens of tribal nations, and the United States nation to seize the deep and lasting changes that this Indigenous movement has to offer. In this chapter, we discuss some of the historical factors that have led to the endangered state of what was at one time over 300 different languages (Reyhner 1995) in what is currently the geographic area of the United States. Clearly this dramatic loss was an intentional part of the bigger policy to exterminate Indigenous culture and peoples. This was not a natural de-evolution or language shift. Only in the past two decades has this policy to exterminate Indigenous languages shifted course. Since this shift, and in spite of policies against Indigenous languages, our languages survive. Drawing on these efforts, we identify two issues core to revitalization: 1) the assumption of inherent value in these languages, and 2) the complex social political nexus implicated in redirecting language shift. Next, our key findings are centered around the success of Indigenous revitalization in the immersion schools worldwide, giving rise to efforts here in the States to use immersion-like methods as a catalyst for revitalization. In the conclusion, we write about a few areas of research that are of strategic value to this movement. First and foremost, there is a need to develop a pedagogy that is situationally based and effective for restoring oral Indigenous language. Second, the collaboration of scholars and Indigenous groups is vital for revitalization. And last, the ideology of “language death” needs to be challenged. We end this chapter by returning to the broader implications for education, and offer a vision of change and hope. What could be gained by taking Indigenous languages seriously?

Historical Perspectives Indigenous languages have figured centrally into the unfolding of the Americas and continue to be a critical site of resistance, loss, and strength that illuminates much about the role of language in the course of human history. The role and relationships of Indigenous languages to the unfolding of 158

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the Americas has had dramatically different eras, ranging from multilingualism, in which early missionaries actively sought to translate Christian agendas into Indigenous languages, believing that this was the most effective way to assimilate Indigenous people, to a long and still active period in which English-only policies emerged. There is an important change in understandings of language and meaning implicit in this shift. In early colonial America, likely reflecting the multilingualism of Europe, colonists were more concerned with content and meanings being spoken. However, as English became the national language, the need for meaning to be spoken in a particular tongue grew. The rising awareness of the relationship between language and power, first as a reflection of victories in battles over territory, and later as the new colonists’ hopes for a national unity, meant that early orientations towards language took on increasingly aggressive efforts towards eradicating Indigenous languages. The most aggressive efforts of language assimilation are largely understood by many community members to be rooted in the history of the Native American boarding schools and what became known as the “boarding school era.” Boarding schools systematically segregated children from their families, communities, and, in the process, their languages and deployed physical abuse (among many other forms of abuse committed in boarding schools) on children who dared speak it. In response to the devastation these policies caused and the ways in which language has figured into the domination and colonization of Indigenous peoples, the language revitalization movement can be understood as much as a political movement as it is an academic, social, or cultural endeavor.

Historical Perspectives of Indigenous Revitalization United States In 1998, Michael Krauss published a paper estimating that over half of the world’s 7000 languages were likely to disappear in the next 100 years (Krauss 1998). A clarion call to applied linguists, the efforts for documentation of these “dying languages” quickly gave rise to this sub-field within several disciplines: applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics. At the same time, communities, tribal nations, and Indigenous activists around the world were realizing the post-traumatic effects of colonialism that meant their languages were not being transmitted at home and their speakers were dwindling. Approaching the imminent death of first speakers of their language, many tribal nations, or groups within these nations, also began to vigorously organize to revitalize language use within their communities (Hinton 2011) But this is not completely accurate either. Native people have fought for our rights to our own languages since colonization and language eradication efforts began. Individuals have kept their languages and cultures alive, often in ceremonies or other domains that were protected. The history of establishing tribal schools, bilingual schools, and culture-based schools in response to the government-controlled schools is not often seen as part of the history of language revitalization in the United States, but clearly it is. Seen as one continuous movement that encompasses resistance, sovereignty, survival, and revitalization, the language revitalization movement is the latest iteration of the ceaseless spirit of Native people to remain and thrive. The Navajo, Māori, and Hawaiian nations provide an example of this spirit. In 1966, the Rough Rock Demonstration School on the Navajo Nation was one of the first post-colonial bilingual education programs in which an Indigenous language (Navajo) was the language of instruction (McCarty 2002). This “island” of Indigenous language education was not alone for long. On the other side of the world, Māori people were reasserting their linguistic and cultural identity, developing bilingual and immersion schools along with language nests for the very young. In 1982 the Hawaiians, following the Māori example, established language nests. Built from the ground up, these early efforts have grown to encompass birth-to-doctoral level programs in and through the Hawaiian language (Wilson and Kamanā 2011). As evidence that these revitalization efforts are taking hold, the U.S. Census reported that Hawaiian language use 159

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in the home grew from 14,315 in 1990 to 27,160 in 2000, which is a 90% increase. In addition, student peers within the immersion schools are using Hawaiian among themselves as a social language (Wilson and Kamanā 2011). Cherokee, Mohawk, Ojibwe, Yupik, and Blackfeet nations also have established immersion schools throughout North America (McAlpine, Ericks-Brophy, and Crago 1996; Hermes 2007; Peter 2007). In California, where some language populations are thought to be too small for immersion programs, an alternative means of language and cultural transmission has developed in the form of Master-Apprentice programs in which aging Indigenous language speakers work with learners, performing tasks and communicating together in the target language (Hinton 2011). In 1992, the Native American Languages Act, and subsequently the Ester Martinez Act, turned around two centuries of U.S. government policies designed to annihilate native languages. Over the last 20 years, with some government support, language revitalization in the United States has been growing. In contrast to these numerous examples of language vitality, the prevailing theory and narrative surrounding revitalization has been one of certain death (Hermes 2012). The certain vanquishing of American Indians originates in doctrines of Manifest Destiny and the national construction of an “other” who was doomed to die out (Frost 2005). The United States is a settler colonial nation and scholars have increasingly argued that settler colonial nations different from colonial in some important ways. In trying to understand dynamics of settler colonialism and colonialism, Veracini (2011) notes that colonial and post-colonial studies typically focus on the ways colonialism employs a grammar of race and inferiority; settler colonialism employs this grammar of race and inferiority but towards a logic of elimination. He writes, “the settler colonial situation is premised on a foundational act where a settler body politic establishes its sovereignty by drawing different circles of inclusion and exclusion” (Veracini 2011, 2). The circles of inclusion and exclusion establish a triangulation of relationships that form the core of dialectic relationships in which the settler constructs himself as normative. Veracini (2011) argues that this triangular relationship is structural and therein marks the critical difference between settler colonialism—which is structural—and colonialism—which he says is an event. The settler-Indigenous dialectical structure is defined by the desire to erase or assimilate Indigenous people alongside a continued symbolic Indigenous presence (Wolfe 2006). Wolfe (2006) suggests the process of erasure and sustained symbolic presence codifies a binary logic of “virtuous settler” and “dysfunctional native” that underpins the structure of settler identity. This settler identity dynamic creates for the settler the perceived need to recuperate indigeneity in order to express its difference. Much of the history of Indigenous language and language effort can be mapped to this understanding of settler-Indigenous dialectic. The rise of English-only policies reflects the transition of settler presence in the Americas from one of colonialism to settler colonialism; that is, the settlers had come to stay. The desire for permanency prompted the perceived need for eradication in many forms. While the eradication often took the form of physical death early on, the rise of the “kill the Indian, save the man” era meant policies and efforts that made more pointed and specific eradication efforts—a key effort was that of language—in which settler identities, or language, in this case, were constructed as normative. While generations of eradication efforts were disturbingly successful, the call for language revitalization and the forms it took maintained a settler-Indigenous dialectic structure defined by settler colonialism. In part, the call took up fully the “virtuous settler” and “dysfunctional native” dynamic expressed by Wolfe (2006), as well as other discourses fraught with colonially imposed narratives of Indigenous loss of authenticity. These dynamics, in the form of loss narratives, sent our communities into crisis and fueled the documentation approach to language preservation. Although key in many instances to revitalization, documentation of endangered languages has generally been the territory of anthropologists and linguists. While these efforts are crucial and not intentionally aimed at reproducing a colonial 160

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troupe, documentation isolated from community efforts has no theory of change that is of benefit to revitalization and will simply memorialize our languages, keeping us locked in the settler colonial paradigms. It is up to communities to retool documentation efforts towards productive regeneration in communities. The move to revitalization and seeing our languages as living can open up creative possibilities for communities, as we have described, rather than generating only preservation efforts. Skutnabb-Kangas (2008) argues that the problem with the idea of language death as a natural phenomenon glosses over the entire social political history of empire building that has given rise to a “no contest” choice to retain and use Indigenous languages. While we embrace thinking about our languages as living, both of these approaches (life or death) leave us in a binary territory that contains us in a polarized colonial narrative. For this reason, a focus of this chapter is to think about what theories of change exist in revitalization, and how we can contribute to a counter-narrative of language revitalization. Perhaps for the field of educational linguistics, the Indigenous language revitalization movement is more than a study of communities that are struggling to keep their languages. It is a shared piece of United States history that is not in the past, but is continuing now, and is especially visible in schools and school policy. As the place-based movement suggests, the local place names and geographical features of the land call out with Indigenous words that speak to an understanding and identity with place. Unlike race and class, languages do not discriminate, but rather pull people together through a particular place, and this piece of identity is what our schools are in need of.

Core Issues and Key Findings Why Are Indigenous Languages So Valuable? Driving the field of Indigenous language revitalization is an assumption: Maintaining as many of our planet’s Indigenous languages as possible is a good thing for all of humanity. Although contested by some linguists (McWorter 2009) and questioned by others, it is generally assumed by experts in many language fields, and by Indigenous people, that our Indigenous languages are extremely valuable. But valuable how, and to whom? In competition with world hunger and poverty, or even the achievement gap in the United States, do Indigenous mother tongues become a priority, or is it a luxury to learn an Indigenous “second” language? Indigenous people across the United States are developing programs, actions, language institutes, conferences, and proficient second language speakers. Scholarly interest in the areas of Indigenous languages, endangered languages, documentation of endangered language and language revitalization cross between fields of applied linguistics, education, and Native American studies. In short, while skeptics say “Why bother?,” substantial effort from many fields is converging on revitalization, and scholars and activists are devoting their life’s work to the movement. The resounding “Yes!” from Indigenous peoples can be found in any of the volumes published from 19 years of the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium (for example, Reyhner and Lockhart, 2009). While it is not assumed that all Indigenous languages will be revitalized, evidence from the Māori, Hawaiian, and Mohawk peoples suggest that grassroots community efforts can revitalize an Indigenous language, and in the process have many positive effects on community health and well-being. Despite this intuitive and Indigenous knowing, Western research lags behind in understanding and describing exactly how Indigenous languages contribute to the planet and our humanity as a whole. Increasingly, as psychologists and linguists continue to uncover the relationship between language and thought, work in bio-cultural diversity is connecting linguistic diversity to ecological diversity (Maffi 2005). While assimilation efforts persist, standardized curricula and uniformity of thought being the political and social doctrine of our times, increasingly the idea grows that 161

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with diversity of thought comes a multiplicity of solutions (National Academy of Science, 2005; Rhoten and Parker 2004). Crocheting coral reefs to model hyperbolic geometry, Margaret Wertheim (2009) illustrates how multiple and divergent perspectives often lead to breakthroughs in thinking. The diversity of thought that comes from exploring a problem in both an Indigenous language and a European language, for example, is a potential we will lose unless our Indigenous languages are valued. Work to position Indigenous languages as an inherent right of Indigenous people has begun (UN General Assembly 2007; Skutnab-Kangas 2008; Maffi 2005). Work in bio-cultural diversity is also raising the general awareness and status by making the connection between linguistic diversity and biological diversity. The idea that Indigenous languages, like cultural heritage, should be a protected right is growing. However, if Indigenous people feel they must learn a larger world language, and further that they need to talk to their children in that language instead of their Indigenous mother tongue, policies that protect Indigenous languages are not very effective. What kinds of policies and advocacy would allow Indigenous language to become a language of currency and status and then a true choice for people? The “choice” is really located in the complex question of language and power. The decision to speak a language for families is often linked to economic survival as well as cultural and family values. Although schools, nations, and policies can declare languages official and provide funding to support them, the day-to-day work of language acquisition still largely happens early on in the home. Families able to choose their mother tongue, and speak it to their children as they are learning to speak, are at the core of this issue. According to Fishman (1990) the most challenging part about language revitalization has to do with how embedded language is in everything, and in the end, language revitalization is about revitalizing communities and building relationships. For Indigenous communities, recovering from near genocide and colonization, language revitalization is part and parcel of building relationships and community health. Amidst this discussion of whether and how Indigenous languages have value, there is a deeper shift at work. Indigenous languages and thinking represent an interruption of the dominant discourse on schooling and monolingualism. Speaking and schooling in and through an Indigenous language within the borders of the United States means challenging the immigrant narrative that glosses over Indigenous histories (Frost 2005). Living in peace with our differences having been assimilated (e.g., languages) is a part of this “successful” immigrant narrative. Native languages represent a deep difference, not one that can be addressed in a one-day theme (e.g., Native American Day). We are not one nation because we all gave up or were forced to give up our identities; we are actually still many nations within one nation because of these unique and epistemic differences, which continue to exist. Speaking and using our multiplicities of languages represents a difference that cannot be broken down into simple understandings or stereotypes. It represents many generations of sustainable evolution in one place, a place that is threatened by the unsustainable practices and languages of the colonial hegemony. Although schooling in an Indigenous language is not a perfect solution (the schooling is largely a Western institution), it has become a starting place for many communities for restoration of language, and the ideologies, practices and life ways that come with these languages.

Key Findings While much of the published work on revitalization tends to be descriptive in nature, research that asks deeper or more specific questions or research that asks in systematic ways, across sites, is just beginning. Immersion schools, emerging as the model and hope for revitalization in some contexts (Hawai‘i, Mohawk, Navajo, Cherokee, Māori, Blackfeet, Yupik Nations), have started to 162

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conduct research to look at positive effects on identity, resilience, and overall benefits to community. Some work in language policy and ideology is also starting to define the field. These two areas are discussed in this section as “key findings.” However, it should be well noted that these are areas evolving as research as part of a practical ongoing movement for sovereignty by communities generally excluded from academic research, not as research solely informed by an academic or publications perspective. In this sense, Indigenous research in the United States has a different agenda than, for example, second language learning in the schools or immersion education. At the 2012 immersion research conference, summary findings from the Indigenous research panel suggested that re-venacularization of Indigenous languages is the goal (Wilson 2012). This means the day-to-day oral, informal use of Indigenous languages throughout informal domains is necessary, but not the current focus of, Indigenous immersion schools. While immersion education as a “school” is not designed exclusively to achieve this goal, the immersion schools are currently seen as the most effective means to creating speakers and indirectly priming communities for this larger goal. Indigenous immersion programs are situated within the larger goal of language revitalization in communities and Indigenous nations (Hermes 2012; McCarty 2003; Smith 1999; Timutimu, Ormsby-Teki, and Ellis 2009; Wilson and Kamanā 2001); thus, they are inherently embedded in a nexus of power, politics, and cultural survival. Revitalization is deeply identity-driven. Some suggest post-colonial political dynamics, internalized oppression, and identity politics present the biggest obstacles and emotional challenges to successful immersion programs (Bishop, Berryman, and Richardson 2002; Hermes 2007; Johnston 2002; May, 2013; Wilson and Kamanā 2011). The goal of revitalization is intergenerational transmission (Fishman 1996; Hinton 2011), thereby deeply influencing program design (Wilson 2012). The broader goal can also be thought of as community building (Fishman 1996).

Immersion Program Models There is no evidence to suggest one immersion model is superior to another (Aguilera and LeCompte 2007). Rough Rock (Navajo) started as a bilingual program and now consists of three immersion schools (McCarty 2008). Master-apprentice programs are in practice for smaller language communities or informal learning environments (Hinton 2011; McCarty 2008). Information below refers to recent (within the past 10 years) start-ups, based on Hawaiian/Māori pre-school and school models. This includes local immersion schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin (Hickey 2011) but many United States based Indigenous immersion programs have been modeled on the Hawaiian and Māori examples. There are several common characteristics across Indigenous immersion schools. First, programs start in early childhood and are often total one-way immersion. Second, these one-way immersion programs grow from the bottom up, adding a grade or two at a time, as resources allow. Third, programs are often started by families who are not educators or first speakers of the language. Fourth, English is introduced in later grades (3–5) with wide variation depending on the policies that demand testing in English only. Many immersion schools, for example, are subject to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policies, so early standardized testing in English is mandatory. Schools are not in a position to continue if they are defunded or raise red flags in terms of achievement, so often they must comply with this testing.

Immersion Research Specific findings from Indigenous immersion research contexts show that language exerts a strong effect on identity formation, regardless of the ethnic or racial identity (Timutimu, Ormsby-Teki, and Ellis 2009; Wilson and Kamanā 2011). For example, in Hawai‘i it was found that children in 163

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immersion schools had very strong “Hawaiian” identities regardless of government definitions of Hawaiian identity (Wilson and Kamanā 2011). Incorporating the unique goal of revitalization into Indigenous immersion programs may complicate assessment practices. Not only do researchers wish to measure academic achievement, but they also seek a clear picture of how students’ (and their communities’) cultural identities evolve through language learning. Some studies have reported that Indigenous immersion students declare feelings of pride in their Native identities (Harrison and Papa 2005) and describe a “ripple effect” of student learning that inspires community enthusiasm (Luning and Yamauchi 2010; McCarty 2003). For example, the Waadokodaading Ojibwe Immersion school in Wisconsin and the Niiganii School in Minnesota have been rallying points for second language learners. In response, higher degree programs, especially for this kind of specialized training, have started in various universities in both Wisconsin and Minnesota (Masters and doctorate degree programs with a language revitalization focus and Ojibwe immersion teacher education, for example).

Research Approaches to Revitalization Perhaps the common thread in research on Indigenous language revitalization is that the research itself is often dictated by the practical problem of revitalizing the language. Some research surveys the community and the state of language. Using Fishman’s (1991) scale, domains where language is still being used can be identified. Once languages are confined to a few domains and no longer being transmitted intergenerationally in the homes, we can say they are, or will soon be, endangered. Beyond knowing what state a language is in, strategic decisions can be made about documenting and revitalizing. “Who is making these decisions?” (McCarty 2003). Community members, speakers of the language, linguists, teachers, or a combination of these individuals are. This is where revitalization work is markedly different than other research; it involves not only community consent, but also the motivation, organization, and will to take steps toward revitalization. Building relationships between these parties—who in the past have had different agendas—is just one more facet of the community building work involved in revitalization. Kinds of research methods coming out of Indigenous communities draw on this community base and community desires. Drawing on community building and cultural revitalization, participatory methods (Bang et al. 2013; Smith 1999; Tuck 2008) have long been the backbone of deeper changes in American Indian education. How can these methods, and language work done in these ways, now inform the language revitalization movement? Through textual analysis, critical theory, and retrospective analysis of participatory design process, Hermes, Bang, and Marin (2012) pull lessons about Indigenous language learning as community building from a case study of an instructional materials project. This model of research speaks back to ideas of second language learning in context, documentary linguistics, and ideas circulating within language endangerment.

New Debates The key problem and challenge for this academic and grassroots movement is still the question of how to bring a language back into widespread use after it is has become endangered, or not been in use at all. As identified above, this problem quickly becomes not just about isolated language teaching and learning, but re-learning and re-instituting a language that does not offer the economic power of English. Situated in Indigenous nations that are within the “belly of the beast,” Indigenous language revitalization is a highly charged political movement that essentially proposes to change language use as a part of a broader political movement to re-assert the sovereignty 164

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of Indigenous nations. Many Indigenous people and nations collectively assert that these political rights are deeply reiterated in the spiritual nature of the languages and cultures that define the identity of the peoples. Just as languages are connected to many spheres—culture, politics, identity, power—the revitalization challenge is multifaceted. Current debates reflect this complexity, as the problem of restoring languages to communities evolves. In this section we will name some areas that need to be better understood. First, pedagogy. How do we actually learn and use language in these specific contexts, and how can this be promoted? That is, can language acquisition be shaped as informal education work to restore endangered language? Does language learning from the formal (school) transfer back to the community? Second, what is the relationship between documentation and revitalization efforts? This touches on the idea that academic knowledge has a history of exploiting Indigenous knowledge, and yet now these communities are beginning to have overlapping membership, stronger allies, and more reasons to collaborate. Last, what are the ideas of change, and the theories of culture that could work to revitalize Indigenous languages? How do current popular stereotypes of Native American people as “dying out” inhibit the general understanding of the value of Indigenous languages?

1) Radical Pedagogy: Acquiring Language Outside of Schools While educational linguists have been working to shift the paradigm in teaching languages in schools to be about communication in the target language, the Indigenous language movement pushes this quest with even more urgency. That is, the goal of language learning in Indigenous communities is fueled by a political, spiritual, and identity quest—and while this does not necessarily affect the process of learning to speak a language, these goals and beliefs do orient the learning context (learner, teacher, environment) much differently from that of someone attempting to learn a world language in a classroom. Given the state of many of these languages within the United States, the goal of teaching and learning is all about communication (usually speaking) in the Indigenous language. Finding the most efficient means of doing this—often with limited written resources, and often without a speech community to practice in—is the task at hand. The challenges of learning and teaching an Indigenous, endangered language force learners to become self-directed, seeking out situations in which to use or check their speaking skills, finding ways to create time to be with Elders who may be speakers or may only remember some of their language, and above all to be persistent in the face of the idea that they are only the first to re-create this community, not the last ones who know how to speak in Mohawk or Dakota. Hinton (2009) gives useful learning and teaching advice for adults working with a speaker in the master-apprentice methods, much like a one-on-one immersion. Students need to be the teacher and the learner.

2) Revitalization and Documentation Theory: Working Between Different Discourses Recent publications (Penfield and Tucker 2011; Hermes, Nichols, Roach, Sullivan, and Cowell 2011) point to the benefits for individuals engaged in documentation work to also collaborate with the communities they are working with explicitly to promote revitalization. Likewise, for those focused on just the languages, it has become more and more important to collaborate closely with tribes and revitalization efforts. Some individuals who are both community members and academics embody both. For example, in my own work, I (Mary Hermes) work with an immersion school on a reservation; I have documented and created conversation archives; I have developed 165

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training, language learning methods, and curriculum for Ojibwe as a subject within schools; and last, I continue to work to become a more fluent speaker myself. The efforts between these different worlds are seamless, as they are all pieces of revitalization. There may be strategic decisions to just try to document as much as possible before the last speakers of a language or dialect pass away, but usually these efforts are in consort with those who are trying to learn the language. It may seem easier for an outsider (academic) to side-step Indigenous community politics or to focus on individuals, not taking the time to build relationships with the broader community. However, this effort is needed in order to understand the context of their language need; it may not be a dictionary. There are numerous examples of collaboration that contradict the colonial model of extracting information, and ethical reasons for doing so (Dance, Gutierrez, and Hermes 2010).

3) Language Policy, Ideology, and Theory Language policy, whether formal or informal, we argue, exists within all speech communities (and within each domain inside that community), consisting of three distinct but interrelated components: the regular language practices of the community . . . the language beliefs of ideology of the community . . . and any language management activities, namely attempts by any individual or institution with or claiming authority to modify the language practices and language beliefs of other members of the community. (Spolsky 2008) The beliefs of U.S.-based Indigenous communities are not isolated from the beliefs, practices and policies of the larger colonizing nation (the United States) in which we now reside. In this sense, we are returning to the ideologies surrounding Indigenous revitalization as an important part of language policy. The practices, beliefs, and management of Indigenous revitalization that Spolsky outlines above as constituting “policy” are the practices and ideologies of both Indigenous citizens and U.S. citizens more generally. As described earlier, English is positioned as the unifying national language and Indigenous languages as the “other” in the American identity (Frost 2005). The meta-narrative of “language death” which circulates widely to describe Indigenous revitalization intersects with stereotypical notions of the “dying Indian.” Reinscribing what contemporary thriving Americans are not, the idea of our Indigenous languages as dying limits our own internal authoritarian voices and notions of language renewal. Work in American Indian studies (Meek 2011; Leonard 2011) and cultural studies and curriculum (Hermes 2012) has begun to critique this narrative, but so far, it does not theorize the idea of change and movement-building in this context. More theoretical and practical work needs to be done to take apart the prevalent norm of Native Americans as “Other”—as part of something so less-than, exotic, and nearly gone that no one values these languages or sees that these are a part of a shared heritage within the same geographical boundaries. As long as the Blinding Whiteness prevails, U.S. public school children will be denied the opportunity to know this place in ways beyond the settler narrative.

Implications for Education The goals and politics surrounding Indigenous revitalization set it apart from other kinds of immersion or dual language programs. Indigenous immersion educators often have limited resources for developing curricula and materials; sometimes when starting a literate tradition, they must make pivotal decisions as to how closely the programming will reflect the nature of the Native community (Reyhner 2010). Rather than interpreting a standard Western curriculum, 166

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many schools opt for “indigenized” systems (Deloria and Wildcat 2001) that involve a clear understanding and incorporation of Native values within the curriculum. The clear goal gets murky, however, as we are “nations within nations,” and Indigenous school standards are accountable to state and national standards as well. The Indigenous language immersion movement raises again the possibility and need for a new relationship to education and learning for Indigenous communities. The implications for education emergent from Indigenous language immersion and revitalization efforts range from the practical and immediate needs for materials production and adequate teacher preparation to issues of language, knowledge production, and diversity of human thought, more broadly. In this chapter we have argued that language revitalization is inextricably linked to Indigenous cultures and communities. Further, normative notions of education (i.e., schools) have been the dominant sites in which the language eradication efforts have been deployed. The language revitalization movement has recognized the ways in which language and community health, wellness and culture, are linked and is just beginning to shape understandings of how language and Indigenous knowledge at large are intertwined—thus, speaking our languages is central to the continuation of Indigenous knowledge making. Restoration of Indigenous knowledge making requires the critical analysis and disruption of cultural norms in the U.S. settler colonial society—norms that define things like standards in school, traditional documentation practices, ideas about how and where learning happens, and ideas of second language learning. Let’s consider, for example, Indigenous language immersion, which is embraced as a fourth type of immersion schooling within the immersion movement in education. There are critical differences between second language learning and Indigenous immersion schools that have been defined. Hinton (2011) defines five major differences between Indigenous immersion and other kinds of language immersion. First, the primary goal for foreign language immersion is to gain cross-cultural competence and language of a different culture; for Indigenous peoples, the goal is nothing short of sovereignty and restoration of national languages. Second, learners of foreign languages often are learning a second language to communicate with others; however, for Native Americans, recovering and building a sense of identity and community is the goal. Third, whereas there is a hope that Indigenous students learning language will re-vernacularize and pass the language on in their own homes (when they are able), the expectation of foreign language students is often centered on employment or enrichment. Last, a learner of a majority language has that country to visit to immerse herself; for endangered Indigenous languages, not only is there usually no place to be immersed, but often, there is a lack of materials and little availability for learning opportunities (Hinton 2011). U.S. educational policy and the standardization movement in public schools have direct impacts on both the possibility for new materials production and the availability of learning opportunities. Unfortunately, the need for curricular materials that are reflective of Indigenous knowledges runs counter to standards-based or common core policies because they are based in Western-European traditions. This relationship perpetuates the dynamics of manifest destiny by presuming these forms of knowledge are more important for our youth to learn. The need to balance the urgency and despair that loss narratives conjure in our communities with the depth of the implications for the endeavors of language immersion cannot be underestimated. However, those communities that work outside or around these restrictions have the opportunity to do nothing less than reimagine whole new ways of raising our children into our communities and develop new insights that may have broad applications in the field of education. As teaching, communication, and knowledge are intertwined, the more deeply we understand the relationships between our languages and knowledge production, the more dramatically what it means to teach will shift. 167

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For example, the teaching of languages for academic purposes, but not for oral proficiency, has long been a problem in second language teaching and learning. This problem is amplified in Indigenous immersion, as the goal is clearly to achieve much broader use of language than just the academic or written domain (Wilson and Kamanā 2011). Further, Indigenous languages, which tend to have oral histories and methods of teaching, are confronted with the exclusionary literacy practices that play a discursive role in all public school teaching. Are Indigenous languages without a written system somehow less valid than Western languages that are written? Linguistic anthropologists have long recognized this Eurocentric standard (see Duranti 2009; Ahearn 2011), and yet in our educational practices written literacy is equated with intelligence. These dynamics are firmly entrenched in historically shaped narratives of worth and domination in settler colonialism. As the broad recognition of and disruption of normative educational practices struggles to bring into being a stance in which the intellectual and discursive recourses of all children enhance and deepen learning, new forms of teaching and learning and the tools to engage in such an endeavor are being created. The same is true in language immersion. The deep shifts and creative forms of engagement with Indigenous languages begin to disrupt settler colonial cycles and create and recreate truly self-determined Indigenous pedagogies. Educational linguistics spotlights the intersection between power and language as these forces course through education. As the mainstream academic discourse begins to recognize the Indigenous language revitalization movement, we begin to re-imagine the intellectual and cultural resources embedded in our shared Indigenous languages, issuing a second clarion call. This call is not to save Indigenous languages, but rather to engage Indigenous languages. The Indigenous languages of North America, and the United States more specifically, represent a diversity of human life unlike any other place in the world. Yet, they are seen to have little intellectual, cultural, moral, and especially economic value in a country dominated by English and general prejudice against the use of non-English languages. The widespread monolingual beliefs and practices of our current educational system are embedded with a colonial mentality that has completely normalized the language of the dominant colonial settler group. This “blinding Whiteness” (Morrison 1992) obscures the inherent value of Indigenous languages to all of us. The unique American national identity that could be forged by this recognition represents a sustainable identity, not one that is based on exclusion of, or the eradication of, the first people.

Further Reading Classics Fishman, J. A. 1991. Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages (Vol. 76). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters Limited. Hinton, L., and Hale, K. L. 2001. The Green book of language revitalization in practice. London: Emerald Group Publishing. Hinton, L., Vera, M., and Steele, N. 2002. How to keep your language alive: A commonsense approach to one-on-one language learning. Berkeley, CA: Heyday. 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.

Recent Articles and Books McCarty, T. L. 2013. Language planning and policy in Native America: History, theory, praxis. London: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2008). Linguistic genocide in education—or worldwide diversity and human rights? Delhi: Orient Blackswan. 168

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Wilson, W. H., and Kamanā, K. 2011. Insights from Indigenous immersion in Hawai‘i. In D. J. Tedick, D. Christian, and T.W. Fortune (Eds.), Immersion education: Practices, policies, possibilities (pp. 36–57). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

References Aguilera, D., and LeCompte, M. D. 2007. Resiliency in Native Languages: The tale of three Indigenous communities’ experiences with language immersion. Journal of American Indian Education, 46(3), 11–36. Ahearn, L. 2011. Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell. Bang, M., Marin, A., Faber, L., Suzokovich III, E. S. 2013. Repatriating indigenous technologies in an urban Indian community. Urban Education, 48(5) 705–733. Bishop R., Berryman, M., and Richardson, C. 2002. Te Toi Huarewa: Effective teaching and learning in total immersion Māori. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 26(1), 44–61. Dance, J., Gutierrez, R., and Hermes, M. 2010. More like jazz than classical: Reciprocal interactions among educational researchers and respondents. Harvard Educational Review 80(3), 327–351. Deloria, Jr., V., and Wildcat, D. R. 2001. Power and place: Indian education in America. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Resources. Duranti, A. (Ed.) 2009. Linguistic anthropology: A reader (Vol. 1). Wiley-Blackwell. Fishman, J. 1990. What is Reversing Language Shift (RLS) and how can it succeed? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 11(1)(2), 5–36. Fishman, J. 1996. What do you lose when you lose your language? In G. Cantoni (Ed.) Stabilizing Indigenous Languages (pp. 71–81). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University. Frost, L. 2005. Never one nation: Freaks, savages, and whiteness in US popular culture, 1850–1877. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Harrison, B., and Papa, R. 2005. The development of an Indigenous knowledge program in a New Zealand Māori-language immersion school. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 52–72. Hermes, M. 2007. Moving toward the language: Reflections on teaching in an Indigenous immersion school. Journal of American Indian Education, 46(3), 54–71. Hermes, M. 2012. Indigenous language revitalization and documentation in the United States: Collaboration despite colonialism. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6(3), 131–142. Hermes, M., Bang, M., and Marin, A. 2012. Designing indigenous language revitalization. Harvard Educational Review, 82(3), 381–402. Hermes, M., Nichols, J., Roach, K., Sullivan, M., and Cowell, A. 2011. Re-imagining Ojibwe domains: Documentation as revitalization. Retrieved from http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/5254 Hickey, M. 2011. Grotto Foundation Native Language Revitalization Initiative: Program Evaluation 2001–2008. St. Paul, MN: Grotto Foundation. Hinton, L. 2009, March. Language revitalization at home. Plenary talk presented at the First International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation, Manoa, HI. Hinton, L. 2011. Language revitalization and language pedagogy: New teaching and learning strategies. Language and Education, 25(4), 307–318. Johnston, B. 2002. The rise and fall of a Dakota immersion pre-school. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(3), 195–213. 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. Leonard, W. 2011 Challenging “extinction” through modern Miami language practices. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 135–160. Luning, R. J., and Yamauchi, L. A. 2010. The influences of Indigenous heritage language education on students and families in a Hawaiian language immersion program. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 46–75. Maffi, L. 2005. Linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 599–617. May, S. 2013. Indigenous immersion education: International developments. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 1(1), 34–69. McAlpine, L., Eriks-Brophy, A., and Crago, M. 1996. Teaching beliefs in Mohawk classrooms: Issues of language and culture. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 27(3), 390–413. McCarty, T. L. 2002. A place to be Navajo: Rough Rock and the struggle for self-determination in Indigenous schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 169

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McCarty, T. L. 2003. Revitalizing Indigenous languages in homogenising times. Comparative Education, 39(2), 147–163. McCarty, T. L. 2008. Bilingual education by and for American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. In J. Cummins and N. Hornberger (Eds.), Bilingual education. The Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., Vol. 5, pp. 239–251). New York: Springer. McWhorter, J. 2009. The cosmopolitan tongue. World Affairs, 172(2), 61–68. Meek, B. A. 2011. Failing American Indian languages. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 43–60. Morrison, T. 1992. Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The National Academey of Science. 2005. Facilitating interdisciplinary research. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Penfield, S. D., and Tucker, B. V. 2011. From documenting to revitalizing an endangered language: Where do applied linguists fit? Language and Education, 25(4), 291–305. Peter, L. 2007. Our beloved Cherokee: Preschool language immersion. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 38(4), 323–342. Rhoten, D., and Parker, A. 2004. Risks and rewards of an interdisciplinary research path. Science, 306, 2046. Reyhner, J. A. 1995. Maintaining and renewing Native languages. Bilingual Research Journal, 19(2), 279–304. Reyhner, J. A. 2010. Indigenous language immersion schools for strong Indigenous identities. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 137–151. Reyhner, J. and Lockard, L. 2009. Indigenous language revitalization: Encouragement, guidance and lessons learned. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2008. Linguistic genocide in education—or worldwide diversity and human rights? Delhi: Orient Blackswan. Smith, L. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous people. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Spolsky, B. 2008. Prospects for the survival of the Navajo language: A reconsideration. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 33(2), 139–162. Timutimu, N., Ormsby-Teki, T., and Ellis, R. 2009. Reo o Kainga (language of the home): A Ngai Te Rangi Language regeneration project. In J. Reyhner and L. Lockard (Eds.), Indigenous language revitalization, (pp. 109–120). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University. Tuck, E., 2008. Suspending damage: An open letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428. UN General Assembly. 2007, October 2. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Resolution adopted by the General Assembly (A/RES/61/295). Retrieved from www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/ 471355a82.html Veracini, L. 2011. On settlerness. Borderlands, 10(1), 1–17. Weinberg, A., Sylven, L. K., Wilson, W. H., and Xiong, W. 2012. Immersion at the tertiary levels: Models, challenges and prospects. Symposium presented at the Immersion 2012 conference. Minneapolis, MN. Wertheim, M. 2009. The beautiful math of coral. Retrieved from www.ted.com/talks/margaret_wertheim_ crochets_the_coral_reef.html Wilson, W. H., and Kamanā, K. 2001. Mai loko mai o ka ‘i‘ini: ‘Proceeding from a dream.’ The ‘Aha Punana Leo connection in Hawaiian language revitalization. In L. Hinton and K. Hale (Eds.), The Green book of language revitalization in practice (pp. 147–178). Cambridge, MA: Academic Press. Wilson, W. H., and Kamanā, K. 2011. Insights from Indigenous immersion in Hawai‘i. In D. J. Tedick, D. Christian, and T. W. Fortune (Eds.), Immersion education: Practices, policies, possibilities (pp. 36–57). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Wolfe, P. 2006. Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8, 387–409.

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13 Visual Literacy and Foreign Language Learning Carola Hecke

This chapter deals with visual literacy in foreign language classrooms. Because an all-encompassing definition of visual literacy does not yet exist, this essay first gives a working definition of the concept of visual literacy and explains its importance for foreign language learning. Next, it gives a historical account of the use of images in foreign language teaching from the 17th century to the present and explains the didactic functions of images. Arguing for a pedagogy for visual literacy training in foreign language classes, this chapter finally discusses ways to improve students’ visual literacy by also addressing obstacles to the implementation of visual literacy in foreign language courses.

A Definition of Visual Literacy With the rise of visual media such as television in the second half of the 20th century, scientific interest in human seeing processes grew and led to the first conference on visual literacy in the United States in the late 1960s (cf. Avgerinou and Ericson 1997, 287). In its aftermath, John Debes (1969) attempted an academic definition, stating that visual literacy was a set of vision-related competences that allowed the human being to understand visual communication: “Through the appreciative use of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication” (27). However, Debes and his colleagues did not coin the term visual literacy, as it had already existed in the 19th century. James Elkins’s (2008) research shows that it appeared in newspapers and magazines and was merely used to describe a person’s ability to identify famous artwork, like a painting by Raphael (1). Today, this idea of visual literacy seems rather oversimplified, as visuality does not only refer to art but any artistic and inartistic visual communication, and literacy in its basic meaning comprises receptive and productive competences. This conceptual shift is a natural consequence of the fact that visual literacy is related to visual communication and routines of communication change as cultural habits change. With shifts in the modes of existence, visuality and the competences related to it change, too; cultures and visuality “are essentially constructed, and hence are mobile and situational in nature” (Dallow 2008, 96). Not only due to its mobility, but also because of the complexity of visual communication, one all-encompassing definition of visual literacy does not exist. Visuality relates to a vast number of 171

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heterogeneous visual phenomena, some of which include verbal elements, so that skills that might be necessary for one type of visual communication are not essential for another. Also, as a culture-specific competence, it is influenced by factors such as gender, ethnicity, and class, and therefore cannot be seen as an independent set of skills (Dallow 2008, 96). For these reasons, the following attempt of a working definition must be seen as a preliminary record of interrelated competences. Essentially, visual literacy is the ability to understand visual communication (cf. Dallow 2008, 92). This includes the ability to analyze a visual sign or picture and its context, becoming aware of the picture’s “logic, emotion and attitudes” (Barry 1997, 6; cf. Curtiss 1987, 3; Debes 1969, 27; Doelker 2002, 146ff.). Context is a relevant matter, as visual communication occurs in a social world and is social practice, as Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2006 [1996]) explain: Seeing is an interactive, social process between at least two instances, a person and another or an object, and the interpretation of any sign is based on cultural values (6ff). Seeing is a cultural routine, and at the same time it also affects culture. Kress and van Leeuwen argue that images do not necessarily represent reality but can be ideologically marked (47). In such a case, as we interpret a sign, the meaning perceived can influence our (cultural) habits. Thus, we can say that visual practice is a cultural practice that shapes culture(s) and the world (cf. Billmayer 2008, 77). Another core aspect that has already been mentioned is the productive or interactive side of visual literacy: Visually literate people cannot only receive and comprehend visual communication, but they can also react and express themselves in terms of images. According to scholars, a visually literate person can talk about images: “The teaching implications of visual literacy include the need to . . . enhance verbal and written literacy skills and vocabulary to be able to talk and write about images” (Bamford 2003, 5). More importantly, the person can create visual signs him- or herself, following certain conventions of depiction (Pettersson and Abb 1988, 302). These conventions are culture-specific (cf. Bamford 2003, 4; Stokes 2002, 12–13). Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2006 [1996]) affirm that pictures do not have a universal grammar. They state that “[v]isual language is not—despite assumptions to the contrary—transparent and universally understood; it is culturally specific” (4). Some symbols, however, are used similarly across cultures (cf. Stokes 2002, 12–13): For instance, in many ancient cultures a voluptuous female body was a symbol of fertility; weapons stood and stand for war; nowadays, the heart is understood across cultures as a symbol of love. In addition to all these aspects, visual literacy encompasses the awareness and ability to question and evaluate visual messages (cf. Bamford 2003, 1; Doelker 2002 [1997], 151). Ann Marie Barry (1997) relates this ability to a critical attitude regarding visual interaction, “a quality of mind developed to the point of critical perceptual awareness in visual communication” (6). David Considine (1995) subsumes that visual literacy “moves from merely recognizing and comprehending information to the higher-order critical thinking skills implicit in questioning, analyzing and evaluating that information” (without page). In accordance with this, the aforementioned recognition of a famous painting by Raphael cannot be considered proof of visual literacy at all anymore. The question arises how visual literacy develops. Despite common assumptions, mere contact with visual media does not automatically make a person (more) visually literate. Human beings are born with the genetic disposition to sight but not to cultural vision, as Peter Schneck (2005) reminds us: [H]uman vision is not simply a given biological disposition determined solely by genetics and evolution. On the contrary, vision as a meaningful activity in the context of cultural and

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social interaction must be regarded as a product of learning and habit. Vision is a cultural construction. (3) So, unlike vision, visual literacy is a learned competence. Another aspect related to learning is knowledge. Visual literacy is a skill based on declarative or procedural knowledge. For example, for the success of visual communication, people have to know methods of interpretation (cf. Wileman 1993, 114), the meaning of culture-specific conventions of visual communication such as gestures (cf. Schwan 2005, 130); structure and effects (cf. Avgerinou and Ericson 1997, 286); and/or production techniques of visual signs, such as drawing, using a computer program, or filming (cf. Bering 2002, 91–92; Ennemoser and Kuhl 2008, 18). In addition, visually literate people must be able to apply their knowledge in order to perform certain activities, such as talking about art in a foreign language. In other words, knowledge and successful performance are interrelated. One might argue that visual literacy could be named differently, for example visual competence, especially since the term visual literacy itself poses a contradiction: visual refers to seeing and literacy originally to reading and writing (cf. Elkins 2008, 1). Yet Mitchell (2008) reminds us that visual competence could be understood rather as a basic skill, “the condition for the more advanced and specialized skills” (14). Instead he suggests literary visualcy (Mitchell 2008). Other alternative terms discussed are visual practices, visual skills, visual languages (Elkins 2008, 1–2) and image competence (Simons 2008, 87–89). Recognizing the problematic nature of the term in this essay, I will use the term visual literacy, following all the authors quoted above.

Visual Literacy and Educational Linguistics Educational Linguistics is the interface between Linguistics and Education. Of great interest for this field is the impact of visual literacy on foreign language learning and teaching. In the following, I will outline the discussion on visual literacy in this field, focusing on German Teaching Methodology, teaching English and teaching English as a Foreign Language, as this is the field I come from. Modern foreign language teaching methodologists argue for a visual literacy training of foreign language students because, firstly, intercultural communication involves visual communication and visual communication often is intercultural (Weidenmann 1989, 144–145). Gestures, for instance, accompany and connote sentences spoken or heard in another language and give them a deeper or different meaning. If successful intercultural communication is the main objective of foreign language learning, visual communication has to be trained in foreign language classes, too. Secondly, scholars state that visual literacy is a precondition of foreign language performance if a class is image-based because language production depends on the students’ ability to understand the pictures (Schwerdtfeger 1989, 24). Image-based means that visual tools are used in language instruction. These may include posters, films, online videos, art, or photos that are shown in textbooks. Whenever students are to talk about images—for example, about their impressions of a film—they must at least understand the stylistic means and know basic, medium-specific terminology to verbalize their thoughts clearly (cf. Morgan 2012). Without these tools, they cannot express themselves, their lack of knowledge rendering them involuntarily speechless. In that case, the teacher will never know whether the student refused to put thought into the task, was unable to string any words together at all, or simply lacked a few necessary terms to voice a very complex thought. In addition, if a student lacks familiarity with visual conventions,

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he or she is likely to misunderstand a picture and his or her verbal comment will be less beneficial to class discussion. Thus, visual literacy influences language performance. Pictures play an important role in foreign language teaching. They have been a tool in foreign language teaching for a very long time—verifiably since 1658, when Johann Amos Comenius published his illustrated Latin textbook Orbis sensualium pictus, the first illustrated, printed book for foreign language teaching in Europe. Agreeing with Comenius’ ideas—as published in his theoretical writing—in the following centuries, more scholars advocated the use of images in foreign language teaching. In those days, the pictures were to help students understand the meanings of new words and learn about foreign cultures (cf. Hecke 2012b, 34ff.). While the use of pictures had remained optional in the first half of the 20th century, with the introduction of the audio-visual method in the 1950, images became a core element of language teaching. The images showed the context of exemplary dialogues and were essential for the listening and speaking phases of this method. Thus, language performance was strongly influenced by picture comprehension, and, consequently, around this time a broader discussion on students’ visual abilities began. Edgar Dale (1969) argued for a visual training: “Students should be taught how to use a photograph [. . .].” Dale demanded from his teacher-readers to “[h]elp the student learn to ‘read’ pictures” (445). Like Dale, the German Hanno Schilder (1977) claimed that a “picture lesson” should always include a training of “picture reading,” which he explained as the training of the eye and the instruction of viewing techniques (259): “Die Bearbeitung einer ‘Picture Lesson’ im Unterricht muß verbunden werden mit einem ‘Picture Reading’, worunter eine Schulung des Auges zu verstehen ist, bzw. eine Technik des Betrachtens von Bildern zur Erfassung der wesentlichen und sprachlich relevanten Einzelheiten” (Work in a ‘picture lesson’ has to be linked to a ‘picture reading,’ which means a training of the eye or a method of viewing pictures to capture all the important details that are also relevant for language performance). A few years later, Jack Lonergan (1984) declared “active viewing” a goal of foreign language classes on film (11). He exemplified that viewing tasks should instruct and encourage active watching (cf. Lonergan 1984, 16). The tasks he mentioned were aimed at directing the students’ attention to the important aspects of the images (Lonergan 1984, 18–19). In 1989, Inge-Christine Schwerdtfeger went into more detail. She explained in her book on teaching film that student performance in class depended fundamentally on the students’ comprehension of the visual material, if used (24). She pointed out that seeing skills influenced the students’ language performance strongly and teachers inevitably took them into account evaluating student language performance. Therefore, viewing skills had to be trained: “Ausgehend von den in diesem Kapitel bisher dargestellten Forschungsergebnissen bzw. -zusammenhängen muß Seh-Verstehen als eine Fertigkeit gefordert werden, aus der sich Sprachproduktion für den Fremdsprachenunterricht ableitet” (Based on the research results and their interrelation presented in this chapter, visual comprehension has to be required as a skill from which language production results in the foreign language class) (Schwerdtfeger 1989, 24). Schwerdtfeger argues that visual literacy has to be there, prior to language production; to her, the skill of visual comprehension is a prerequisite to language production. Schwerdtfeger did not speak explicitly of visual literacy yet, and she also ignored its productive side. Bernd Weidenmann (1989)—a visual psychologist—introduced the whole concept to German Foreign Language Teaching Methodology in the same year. He published an essay on teaching German as a second language in which he argued that visual literacy had to be fostered as an important intercultural communicative competence because communication was not only verbal, but instead either had a visual component or was purely visual: Visual literacy als pädagogisches Programm will Kompetenz vermitteln zur Interpretation wie zur Produktion von Bildern. Damit wird die Parallele zum Sprachunterricht evident: wie 174

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das sprachliche soll auch das bildliche Symbolsystem in kommunikativen Situationen mitteilend und verstehend kompetent genutzt werden können. Wenn Sprachunterricht Kommunikationskompetenz vermittelt, darf dann Kompetenz in visueller Kommunikation ausgeblendet werden? (1989, 144–145) Weidenmann called the concept of visual literacy by its name. Nowadays, English and American scholars (e.g., Frey and Fisher 2008; Moline 2011; Stafford 2011) write the majority of publications on teaching visual literacy in (foreign) language classes, setting an example to put more emphasis on visual literacy training in educational contexts. Steve Moline (2011) calls visual literacy “a life skill” (13) and points out that not only the reading of texts but also that of graphs, tables, and diagrams must be taught because reading illustrated material is part of our daily life (Moline 2011, 13); we live in an “image-centered visual culture” (Dallow 2008, 92). Notwithstanding the meaningful findings of German scholars in the 1980s, publications on training visual literacy by German authors are so scarce that one might get the impression that although visual literacy is undoubtedly an important objective of the foreign language class in practical teaching, it has not become a major goal of the German foreign language classroom. The negligence regarding the formation of visual literacy is surprising because research has proven the positive impact of pictures on foreign language performance. Yet the precondition for learning progression through pictures is that students can understand the visual tools that are meant to help them, as Russell N. Carney and Joel R. Levin (2002) remind us. They say that pictures intended to aid students do not do so if the students cannot process them: Realize that even professionally designed pictures and illustrations in textbooks are not necessarily perfect, nor easy for students to comprehend or remember (e.g., Benson 1995; see also Guri 1985). Thus, even though a particular textbook illustration may be designed to be cognitively useful, it may turn out to be functionally useless unless the learner perceives the illustrated content or process in the intended manner. (22) If students are able to comprehend these pictures, they can benefit greatly: For example, Karlheinz Hellwig (1990) has proven that pictures, in his case reproductions of artwork, encourage language production (357–359). Gabriele Blell and Karlheinz Hellwig (1996) explain that any artwork in the foreign language classroom leads to processes of individual perception and language procession that results in an increase in language skills and, finally, the production of new texts (8). Regarding the acquisition of new vocabulary, research has shown that new words are understood and learned more easily with the help of pictures as they narrow down the potential meanings and help memorize them (cf. Hecke 2012b, 175). Therefore, it is easier for foreign language students to understand and memorize texts in the foreign language if the texts contain representational illustrations of the events, organizational visualizations, or interpretational tables or graphs with important data, as Carney and Levin (2002) have shown in their research survey on the topic (10–17). My own experiences indicate that studying graphic novels allows students of foreign languages deal with complex matters on the story level in the foreign language at an early stage, instead of being limited, language-wise, to simple topics, which is frustrating to them. The images often help them grasp the meaning of the text as long as image and text deal with similar matters (cf. Hecke 2013, 123–126). In addition, pictures can be used for grammar practice: Talking about images can require a certain grammar phenomenon that students train while discussing the images. Joachim Balser (2008) suggests practicing the Spanish past tenses by talking about a 175

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picture story on Columbus’s life, using the pretérito imperfecto for the surrounding actions, habits, and appearance of objects or persons and the pretérito indefinido for the actions (31). Also, grammatical structures can be explained with simple drawings (arrows, circles around words or syllables, etc.) to illustrate morphological or syntactic phenomena (cf. Scherling and Schuckall 1992, 106–107). The positive effects of pictures should not be ignored, but used to help and integrate learners. For example, the international PISA survey (Programme for International Student Assessment) has shown that a high percentage of 15-year-old German students fail to solve reading problems for linear texts. Constanze Niederhaus (2011) claims that reading non-linear, picture-involving texts is an even more complex task than reading conventional text-only passages and reminds us that picture and text combinations are becoming more and more important in our daily life. Consequently, she argues that students need integrated verbal and visual literacy training (2). Referring to the results of German students, she goes on, saying that students of second-generation immigrant background would especially benefit from this training because PISA has shown that their performance is substantially worse than that of students whose parents were born in Germany (Niederhaus 2011, 2).

Research on Pictures: A More Inclusive Learning Environment In the course of the visual turn of the 1980s and 1990s, scholars of Educational Linguistics from all over the world began to conduct studies on the use of imagery for language learning, reading, and so on, or showed a stronger interest in image studies conducted by related departments. Research regarding the interrelation of verbal and visual language showed, for example, that the mental lexicon as the boundary of speech sets the boundaries to visual perception, too (Cycowicz et al. 1997, 171; Johnson and Pascual-Leone 1989, 1; Kowalski and Zimiles 2006). Scholars say that explicit verbal knowledge guides one’s perception so that one only sees what one knows (cf. Cycowicz et al. 1997, 171; Johnson and Pascual-Leone 1989, 1; Kowalski and Zimiles 2006; Mittlmeier 2006, 61). This is of interest for cultural learning in foreign language classes and strengthens the claim for a conjunct visual and verbal training. An even stronger argument for visual training poses the interdependency among visual literacy, the ability to talk and to ask question about a picture, and the didactic effects of pictures serving as teaching tools for foreign language instruction. Visual literacy is the basis of any positive effects of pictures in foreign language classes. As shown above, research proves that visual media can serve important didactic functions. They can be motivating, elicit speech, clarify the functions of grammar, train the use of grammar, explain the meaning of words or texts, structure information, support intercultural learning, and strengthen students’ recollection of new information (Hecke 2012b, 34ff.). In addition, studies prove that the use of comprehensible images can close the gap between students with very little and very much previous knowledge. If students see informative pictures before they are introduced to a new subject matter, the pictures can increase their pre-existent knowledge or the structures of thought that are needed to comprehend the new material. These pictures have “an equalizing effect, bridging the advantage due to prior knowledge” (Dean and Enemoh 1983, 26) and can therefore help create a more inclusive learning environment. Paula Kluth (2008) observes that learners who are labeled “with special needs” benefit especially from visual material. Based on her research, she says that deaf and hearing impaired students, as well as students with autism or with learning disabilities, understand and remember the content of a class better if the teacher uses graphic representations, “including handouts, movies, diagrams, charts, and graphic organizers, illustrated books, learning-related objects 176

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(e.g., globe, manipulatives), PowerPoint presentations or overhead transparencies, pictures, and checklists” (170). Kluth explains that for these students the visual is the most important channel of perception and that words are less influential, being only their “second language” (Kluth 2008, 170). The supportive effect of images is especially relevant for reading performance and depends on the students’ visual literacy: Reading Psychology has shown that images can improve text comprehension—given that readers understand the visualizations. Illustrations are more useful the more complex and difficult the text is, implying that low-achieving readers benefit most from pictures (cf. Carney and Levin 2002, 21; Filippatou and Pumfrey 1996, 272–273). Students do not only benefit from visual training in terms of their reading performance; visual literacy training can also help them become more critical media users—which is of great importance, given the increasing media presence in their lives. Research shows that there is a demand for this formation as visual perception of many teenagers is indeed “imprecise and fragmentary” (“unpräzis und lückenhaft” [Huber 2003, 100]): Many teenagers treat highly complex and ideologically marked photos as if they were random images, and do not question their impressions or messages (cf. Glas n.d., 10). Of course, this is problematic, and critical seeing should be encouraged. For this purpose, students must practice critical approaches repeatedly. Only regular repetition will accustom them to scrutinize pictures and their effects— and to do so even beyond the foreign language classroom (cf. Salomon 1987). A brief training will keep up their critical attitude only for some time, as Salomon’s study on teenagers’ TV habits focusing on their critical TV consumption revealed: A previously encouraged critical attitude lasted two weeks, and then the teenagers returned to watching TV without questioning anything (Salomon 1987, 88–89). One way of developing visual literacy is the production-oriented approach. This means that students produce visual media such as films, photos, and comics themselves in the foreign language class, experiencing visual means and their effects at first hand so that they become aware of ways to convey a certain impression and influence the audience. Lothar Mikos (2003) argues that visual connoissance transforms people into more critical viewers and heightens their appreciation for special effects without ruining the audience’s fun (50). In addition, picture production can support learners from marginalized student populations as well as students with disabilities: Their personal stories and needs can become topics in the films, comics, posters, and so on, raising public awareness for their situation and making people understand their needs. For instance, in the German town of Pirna (Saxony) a group of students with and without migration background made a short film on how immigrants can find their way through Pirna’s bureaucratic maze (CJD n.d.). Another example is a project at my school for which 55 international students from Bosnia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden recently met for a week and made a short film, doing everything themselves—from writing dialogues to arranging costumes and set design to filming and cutting. Most of the time they used English as a link language so that in addition to their visual literacy, they trained their foreign language skills. In addition, in the course of making the movie they learned about autism; the difficulty of a person suffering from Asperger’s syndrome to show and understand emotions was a topic in the film. The character’s reflections were not entirely fictional, as the character was based on a person who was present. At the end of the project, it seemed as if the participants saw this person with different, more understanding, eyes, such that I would say that the film project affected personal relations and attitudes. I believe that such a productive visual literacy training helps students understand and accept difference and can promote integration and inclusion if difference, marginalization, and the personal experiences of persons concerned are made topics in the visual media. 177

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The Implications of Visual Literacy’s Impact on Educational Linguistics Images can only fulfill meaningful didactic functions in foreign language courses if students comprehend them. If a student misunderstands a text illustration, it will not help her or him grasp the text’s gist; if he or she does not know the gestures belonging to a foreign culture, he or she will not be able to integrate these visual signs into his intercultural communication. To tap the full didactic potential of visual media, teachers have to train their students read visual signs in class. They must assist their students in developing visual literacy because the skills necessary for successful visual communication—especially across cultures—cannot be taken for granted. In order to aid students’ comprehension of visual art, as well as other visualizations, teachers can draw upon methods from Visual Studies or Visual Culture (German Bildwissenschaft). Visual Culture professor Monika Seidl (2007a) proposes several techniques, among them Erwin Panofsky’s traditional Iconology, Symptomatic Reading (derived from Louis Althusser and Pierre Macharey’s critical reading approach), and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s fairly new Grammar of Visual Design (Seidl 2007a, 8). Grammar of Visual Design leads the viewer to the investigation of the kind and quality of relations between the different participants of an image (i.e. the interaction of objects and figures, including the viewer) (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006 [1996]). Symptomatic Reading guides the viewer to investigate potential contradictions and falsification and fosters a critical attitude. Iconology leads the viewer to an interpretation and allows the use of pictures as historical documents. According to Seidl, when instructed to use these methods, students are not only able to comprehend and interpret images, but they also learn to question their impressions and the messages a picture sends out. My personal experience from teaching high school and college students is that Iconology in its basic structure is a helpful tool that facilitates students’ understanding of artistic and nonartistic pictures. Iconology is a technique developed by Erwin Panofsky in the 1930s for the interpretation of artistic paintings (1932). It consists of four steps that—although the method was devised for the interpretation of two-dimensional art—can be used for any image, two- or three-dimensional (cf. Eberlein 1996, 191). The first step is an analysis to identify what is shown and to determine how it looks. The objects and their appearance are to be described. Secondly, the identified objects are related to each other and interpreted without referring to any historical context, yet. That happens in step three: The students research the image’s content, its motives, the story related in the picture, the vitae of the artist and his patron, plus the conditions under which the image came into existence and was received. Taking the relevant information into consideration, they can contextualize and interpret the image. In the fourth step, the students use the interpretation to gain insight into the image’s context, exploiting the image as a historical source itself. In my English and Spanish classes, I use this method to give students orientation when they study historic photos, political caricatures, or even graphs. The first two steps prevent them from brushing over any important details and guide their seeing. Next, research and contextualization keep them from uttering non sequitur interpretations so that they can learn something from a picture, exploring it as historical document. Some training is needed, but then students are used to the procedure, analyzing pictures and their contexts before interpretation. However, the usefulness of Iconology in the classroom cannot conceal that it is a controversial method: Although Iconology was meant to lead to an objective reading of a picture, the final interpretation is subjective, nevertheless, as it depends strongly a) on the individuals’ subjective choice of sources for the reconstruction of the context and b) on their relation of the reconstructed background to the picture (cf. Schulz 2009, 61). Not surprisingly, there is an ongoing discussion and, while on the one hand Iconology is widely and seriously applied by different 178

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branches of Visual Studies (Art History, Political Sciences, Sociology, etc.), on the other hand, it is dismissed by scholars who are looking for alternative or additional methods, such as the semiotic-structuralist Grammar of Visual Design. Camilla Badstübner-Kizik (2002) has argued against the use of Iconology for the aforementioned reasons (18, 20, 25). In contrast, Anna Pou (2012, 11) and I (Hecke 2012a) have demonstrated how Iconology can help students access art or applied art, nevertheless, because it gives them a basic structure to hang on to and prevents them from merely projecting vague, already existing ideas into a picture. I believe that a subjective interpretation that takes the image’s context into consideration is better than a purely subjective or nonsensical interpretation (or no interpretation at all). In addition, Iconology is still taught in many Art classes in German high schools, so students may even be already familiar with it. The most important thing is to show students a way to access images, as opposed to letting them struggle with complex imagery on their own, which inevitably leads to frustration among the less skilled. Teaching even a controversially discussed technique is better than shying away from it at all because the expectable interpretations might not be one hundred percent objective. Students need strategies to help them deal with visual communication, and the methods discussed can serve this purpose. This is important because pictures are essential teaching tools of the foreign language classroom, a lot of lessons focus on them, and the didactic effects of visual media are highly beneficial for foreign language learning, but only if the learners can access and make sense of the pictures. For instance, an illustration supports reading comprehension and the understanding of unfamiliar words if the students do not mistake the persons’ gestures and actions; drawing arrows and circles around words and syllables aids grammatical awareness if students understand the markings. In all, pictures help foreign language development. Therefore, Iconology, as well as the newer techniques from Visual Studies such as Grammar of Visual Design, must be introduced to foreign language classes, so that their applicability can be put to a test. However, as empirical research on visual matters is still very rare in the area of Teaching Methodologies, and scholars have to rely on the results from other disciplines, this will probably not become a reality in the near future.

Research Approaches Research approaches to visual literacy are manifold because images, literacy, and visual literacy are discussed across a large number of disciplines. Many of the topics are of great interest for Educational Linguistics. Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and other fields conduct empirical studies to investigate, for example, the cognitive and emotional effects of images during learning processes, including learning from text and language learning. Doing so, researchers compare, for example, the performance of two groups completing the same task with illustrated and unillustrated material. For example, in a widely known experiment, John D. Bransford and Marcia K. Johnson (1972) asked their subjects to read a brief text about an unusual setting and to describe the situation. Not surprisingly, the readers who had gotten an illustration of the text performed more successfully than the test group that read an unillustrated text (718). Russell N. Carney and Joel R. Levin (2002) give a broad overview of the studies conducted until 2001. Mary Ann Evans and her colleagues (2006) showed that young children’s exploration of the illustrations of picture books aids their language acquisition. In Humanities, research is usually hermeneutic, and the discussion on visual literacy often has a philosophical quality, focusing on select aspects such as terminology (e.g., Mitchell 2008; Simons 2008), necessary skills or strategies (e.g., Dallow 2008), and the impact of visual literacy (e.g., Burmark 2008). In American Literary Studies, for example, visual literacy is discussed as a precondition for understanding text genres complemented by images, such as comics or graphic 179

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novels (cf. Frey and Fisher 2008). From the characteristics of the media, scholars infer the skills needed by the users to be visually literate. In my field, Teaching Methodologies of English as a Foreign Language, empirical research on the impact of visual literacy in the foreign language classroom is at its start. So far, the discourse has been based on the visual literacy discourse in Visual Studies and on the results of their studies—if it is based on more than personal observations at all (see the section of this article on new debates). The discourse on visual literacy focuses on fostering visual literacy a) in specific contexts or with regard to certain lesson content, such as American Super Bowl Commercials or Images of Africa (Gessner 2007; Feuerle 2007), b) with the help of special methods (e.g., Schwerdtfeger 1989; Seidl 2007a) or c) with various media (e.g., Hecke 2012a; Carter 2008). However, visual literacy is still considered a minor detail by too many. Consequently, the curricula do not list it among the basic skills but instead pair it up with listening, merely discussing the receptive side of this double-skill. Nevertheless, methodologists who are familiar with the concept unanimously agree on its relevance, see visual literacy as a vital objective of foreign language learning (e.g., Hallet 2008, 220ff.), and suggest how visual literacy could be fostered in foreign language classes (e.g., Seidl 2007b). For this purpose, exemplary lesson plans are published regularly. Yet, a major detail is left open—namely, a definition or working definition of visual literacy for the language instruction curricula. This is the missing link between the resolution to train visual literacy and the implementation of visual literacy in foreign language courses (Hecke 2012b, 13).

New Debates on Visual Literacy in Educational Linguistics The biggest challenge is the disregard for visual literacy. Despite its impact and the omnipresence of visual media, visual literacy remains optional content in high school and university curricula, and (foreign) language and other courses keep focusing on the written word, considering visual signs as secondary. James Elkins (2008) declared that “college-level curricula throughout the world continue to be mainly text-based, with intermittent excursions into visual art and culture” (3). This means that the discourse on visual literacy that has been led by renowned scholars such as W. J. T. Mitchell for two decades and has led to the insight that visual skills are vital for participation in social interaction has left barely any traces on the frameworks of education (Elkins 2008, 3). The exclusion of visual training from college curricula leads to another dilemma: When it comes to training visual literacy in the foreign language classroom nowadays, teachers are asked to square the circle if they themselves have not had any training in this field and, therefore, might not be any more visually literate than their students. In fact, regarding new media, many teachers might be less skilled than the teenagers they are supposed to teach. How are they to help their students develop skills that they themselves lack? The missing definition of visual literacy poses another obstacle to the implementation of visual literacy: For successful instruction, teachers must know their objectives. Only if a goal is clear can you pursue it in your instruction and monitor student performance, which is essential for the evaluation in competence-oriented courses. However, in the case of visual literacy, the goal is vague, and we have to ask ourselves how foreign language teachers without any experience in the field of Visual Studies or compulsory visual training at college are supposed to specify it. To solve this problem, foreign language scholars and the Ministries of Education, which in the case of Germany determine school curricula, naming the competences and subcompetences that are to be developed by each subject, must define the meaning of visual literacy for language instruction. This will imply a didactic reduction, deciding which aspects of visual literacy are necessary in intercultural communication and for the context of the foreign language class. Also, there has to be 180

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a scale, allowing teachers to measure student performance, to monitor to which degree students have attained the different goals and to differentiate. My doctoral thesis presents one model for discussion (Hecke 2012b, 172ff.). An official definition of visual literacy for foreign language instruction is necessary because publications on the use of pictures in the foreign language classroom are of little help regarding this matter, as many authors still ignore visual literacy. To them, pictures are self-explanatory tools that serve merely explanatory or motivational purposes. In all, the awareness of visual literacy’s impact on language performance has to be heightened. Among other things, future foreign language teachers need visual training to be able to guide their students’ picture studies and development of visual literacy. When they are well prepared, teachers can use visual media more confidently and will be encouraged to practice visual communication with their students. If future foreign language scholars received image training, too, we could also hope for fewer didactic publications that ignore the necessity of training visual literacy or suggest exercises that in fact even foil its development. My research for Germany has shown that surprisingly few teaching methodologists consult Visual Studies or Image Sciences (German: Bildwissenschaft) for their hermeneutic work on pictures in the foreign classroom obviously considering Visual Studies optional even beyond university (2012b, 25–27). To raise awareness, Visual Studies must become a subdiscipline of Educational Linguistics and courses in Visual Studies must be compulsory for foreign language students. In addition, teaching methodology must develop or assemble methods of visual literacy instruction (cf. Hecke 2012b, 215ff., 235ff.). It is of little use to have each teacher devise techniques from scratch. Instead, there should be a pre-existing pool of useful methods to choose from and to adapt to each student’s needs. The methods should not only be in accordance with the principles of modern language instruction, such as competence-, action- and processorientation, but also agree with practices from Visual Studies. If they differed—as it is nowadays often the case—students would be confused in Art, Media, or Art History classes. These methods should also leave room for the old instrumental approach of foreign language teaching that recommended pictures for the mere sake of facilitating foreign language learning. The lessons devised should do both—exploit the didactic functions of images (e.g., use artwork as interesting source on aspects of life of a foreign culture) and help students become visually more competent.

Further Reading Elkins, J. (Ed.) 2008. Visual Literacy. New York: Routledge. Frey, N., and D. Fisher (Eds.) 2008. Teaching Visual Literacy Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Hecke, C. 2012b. Visuelle Kompetenz im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Die Bildwissenschaft als Schlüssel für einen kompetenzorientierten Bildeinsatz. PhD dissertation. Retrieved from http://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/ handle/11858/00–1735–0000–000D-EF96-D Seidl, M. (Ed.) 2007b. Visual Literacy: Bilder verstehen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 41(87). Weidenmann, B. 1989. Das Bild im Sprachunterricht: Lehrhilfe oder Lerngegenstand? Anregungen am Beispiel ‘Wirtschaftskommunikation’. Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache 1989(15): 132–149.

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Balser, J. 2008. La vida de Cristóbal Colón: Eine amu¨sante Bildergeschichte als Grundlage zum Entdecken und Üben der Vergangenheitszeiten. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Spanisch 6(20): 27–34. Bamford, A. 2003. The Visual Literacy White Paper. Stockley Park: Adobe. Retrieved from wwwimages.adobe. com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/education/pdfs/visual-literacy-wp.pdf Barry, A. M. 1997. Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image, and Manipulation in Visual Communication. Albany: State of New York University Press. Bering, K. 2002. Bezugsfelder der Vermittlung visueller Kompetenz. In Bild, Wissen, Medien:Visuelle Kompetenz im Medienzeitalter, edited by H. D. Huber, B. Lockemann, and M. Scheibel, 89–101. Munich: Kopaed. Billmayer, F. 2008. Viele Bilder, überall: Bildkompetenz in der Mediengesellschaft. In Lehren und Lernen mit Bildern: Ein Handbuch zur Bilddidaktik, edited by G. Lieber, 72–80. Hohengehren-Baltmannsweiler: Schneider. Blell, G., and K. Hellwig 1996. Zur Einführung: Bildende Kunst und Musik im Fremdsprachenunterricht. In Bildende Kunst und Musik im Fremdsprachenunterricht, edited by G. Blell and K. Hellwig, 7–13. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang. Bransford, J. D., and M. K. Johnson. 1972. Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11(6): 717–726. Burmark, L. 2008. Visual Literacy: What You Get Is What You See. In Teaching Visual Literacy Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills, edited by N. Frey and D. Fisher, 5–25. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Carney, R. N., and J. R. Levin. 2002. Pictorial Illustrations Still Improves Students’ Learning from Text. Educational Psychology Review 14(1): 5–26. Carter, J. B. 2008. Comics, the Canon, and the Classroom. In Teaching Visual Literacy Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills, edited by N. Frey and D. Fisher, 47–60. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. CJD Jugendmigrationsdienst Pirna. n.d. Filmprojekt “Yes we can!” Retrieved from http://jmd-pirna.de/ unsere-projekte/beendete-projekte/filmprojekt-yes-we-can Comenius, J. A. 1658. Orbis sensualium pictus. Nurnberg. Considine, D. M. 1995. An Introduction to Media Literacy: The What, Why and How To’s. Telemedium: The Journal of Media Literacy 41(2). Retrieved from www.zinelibrary.info/files/medialiteracy.pdf Curtiss, D. C. 1987. Introduction to Visual Literacy: A Guide to the Visual Arts and Communication. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Cycowicz,Y. M., Friedman, D., Rothstein, M., and J. G. Snodgrass. 1997. Picture naming by young children: Norms for name agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 65(2): 171–237. Dale, E. 1969 [1946]. Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching (3rd edition). New York: Dryden. Dallow, P. 2008. The Visual Complex: Mapping Some Interdisciplinary Dimensions of Visual Literacy. In Visual Literacy, edited by J. Elkins, 91–103. New York: Routledge. Dean, R., and P. A. C. Enemoh. 1983. Pictorial Organization in Prose Learning. Contemporary Educational Psychology 1983(8): 20–27. Debes, J. L. 1969. The Loom of Visual Literacy. Audiovisual Instruction 14(8): 25–27. Doelker, C. 2002 [1997]. Ein Bild ist mehr als ein Bild: Visuelle Kompetenz in der Multimedia-Gesellschaft (3rd edition). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Eberlein, J. K. 1996. Inhalt und Gehalt: Die ikonographisch-ikonologische Methode. In Kunstgeschichte: Eine Einführung (5th edition), edited by H. Belting, H. Dilly, W. Kemp, W. Sauerländer, and M. Warnke, 169–191. Berlin: Reimer. Elkins, J. 2008. Introduction: The Concept of Visual Literacy, and Its Limitations. In Visual Literacy, edited by J. Elkins, 1–9. New York: Routledge. Ennemoser, M., and J. Kuhl. 2008. Die Bedeutung von Bildern aus entwicklungspsychologischer Sicht. In Lehren und Lernen mit Bildern: Ein Handbuch zur Bilddidaktik, edited by G. Lieber, 11–22. Hohengehren-Baltmannsweiler: Schneider. Evans, M. A., Saint-Aubin, J., Roy-Charland, A., and L. Allen. 2006. Reading Pictures: Preschoolers’ Eye Fixations on Illustrations During Shared Book Readings. Retrieved from http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/ evans_m._a.pdf Feurle, G. 2007. There is the surface. Now think . . . : Fotos aus Afrika in den Blick nehmen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 41(87): 26–31. Filippatou, D., and P. D. Pumfrey. 1996. Pictures, titles, reading accuracy and reading comprehension: A research review. Educational Research, 38(3), 259–292. 182

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Frey, N., and D. Fisher (Eds.) 2008. Teaching Visual Literacy Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Gessner, I. 2007. Britney Spears’ Lieblingsbrause: Super Bowl Commercials dekodieren, Amerikabilder vergleichen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 41(87), 32–37. Glas, A. n d. Schnittstelle Wort/Bild: Lernförderung durch Fächervernetzung. Oder: der überfällige Blick über den Tellerrand. Retrieved from www.kunstunterricht.de/materi al/texte/glas.pdf Hallet, W. 2008. Die Visualisierung des Fremdsprachenlernens: Funktionen von Bildern und visual literacy im Fremdsprachenunterricht. In Lehren und Lernen mit Bildern: Ein Handbuch zur Bilddidaktik, edited by G. Lieber, 212–223. Hohengehren: Schneider. Hecke, C. 2012a. Eine Methodik der sinnvollen Bildarbeit. In Medien im Neokommunikativen Fremdsprachenunterricht: Einsatzformen, Inhalte, Lernkompetenzen, edited by M. Reinfried and L. Volkmann, 79–97. Frankfurt: Lang. Hecke, C. 2012b. Visuelle Kompetenz im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Die Bildwissenschaft als Schlüssel für einen kompetenzorientierten Bildeinsatz. PhD dissertation. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11858/ 00-1735-0000-000D-EF96-D Hecke, C. 2013. Developing Intercultural Competence by Studying Graphic Narratives. In Children’s Literature in Second Language Education, edited by J. Bland and C. Luetge, 119–128. London: Bloomsbury. Hellwig, K. 1990. Anschauen und Sprechen—freie und gelenkte Sprachwirkungen durch küstlerische Bilder beim Lernen des Englischen. Die Neueren Sprachen 89(4): 334–361. Huber, R. 2003. Der Mensch ist ein Augentier. In R. Huber (ed.), Im Haus der Sprache wohnen: Wahrnehmung und Theater im Fremdsprachenunterricht, (pp. 77–196). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Johnson, J., and J. Pascual-Leone. 1989. Developmental levels of processing in metaphor interpretation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 48(1): 1–31. Kluth, P. 2008. It Was Always the Pictures . . . : Creating Visual Literacy Supports for Students With Disabilities. In Teaching Visual Literacy Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills, edited by N. Frey and D. Fisher, 169–188. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Kowalski, K., and H. Zimiles. 2006. The relation between children’s conceptual functioning with color and color term acquisition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 94(4): 301–321. Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 2006 [1996]. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd edition). Abingdon-New York: Routledge. Lonergan, J. 1984. Video in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mikos, L. 2003. Film- und Fernsehanalyse. Konstanz: UVK. Mitchell, W. J. T. 2008. Visual Literacy or Literary Visualcy? Four Fundamental Concepts of Image Science. In Visual Literacy, edited by J. Elkins, 11–29. New York: Routledge. Mittlmeier, J. 2006. Visuelle Intelligenz—als Schulfach? Kunst und Unterricht 2006 (302/303): 60–63. Moline, S. 2011. I See What You Mean:Visual Literacy K–8. Portland: Stenhouse. Morgan, B. 2012. Second Language Literacies: Trying Out the ‘Tools’ of the Trade. Retrieved from http://education. jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/literacy/articles/second-language-literacies/index.html Niederhaus, C. 2011. Zur Förderung des Verstehens logischer Bilder in mehrsprachigen Lernergruppen. proDaZ: Deutsch als Zweitsprache in allen Fächern. Retrieved from www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/ prodaz/verstehen_logischer_bilder.pdf Panofsky, E. 1932. Zum Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken der bildenden Kunst. Logos 1932(21): 103–119. Pettersson, R., and E. F. Abb. 1988. Verbal/visual literacies: Their languaging relationships. Reading Psychology: An International Quarterly 9(4): 295–314. Pou, A. 2012. El método transversal: Enseñar lengua y cultura con arte. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Spanisch 40(36): 8–13. Salomon, G. 1987. Psychologie und Medienerziehung. In L. Issing (ed), Medienpädagogik im Informationszeitalter, (pp. 79–89). Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag. Scherling, T., and H. F. Schuckall. 1992. Mit Bildern lernen: Handbuch fu¨r den Fremdsprachenunterricht. Berlin: Langenscheidt. Schilder, H. 1977. Medien im neusprachlichen Unterricht seit 1880: Eine Grundlegung der Anschauungsmethode und der auditiven Methode unter entwicklungsgeschichtlichem Aspekt. Kronberg/Ts.: Scriptor. Schneck, P. 2005. Double Vision: (Not) A Definition of Visual Culture. In Visual Culture in the American Classroom: Proceedings of the U.S. Embassy Teacher Academy 2003, edited by U. J. Hebel and M. Kohl, 1–23. Vienna: RPO. 183

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14 When Language Is and Not the Issue The Case of “AAVE” Literacy Research, Teaching, and Labov’s Prescription for Social (in)Equality Elaine Richardson

A fairly recent article by William Labov (2010), “Unendangered Dialect, Endangered People: The Case of African American Vernacular English,” offers a telling case in the field of sociolinguistics, with regard to how we should think about the distinct language use associated with African Americans. As a language scientist and one of the foremost fathers of variationist sociolinguistics, Labov has led the way in developing theory and providing legitimacy to what he refers to as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a language variety that was once thought to be sloppy speech, errors, and a sign of mental retardation. Labov’s (1972a) work has argued the case of “Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence,” wherein he has showed that Black speakers display intricate and complex narration, reasoning, and argumentative skills. He demonstrated the systematicity of Black vernacular speech, in terms of its grammaticality, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Labov’s (1972b) research was detailed in his seminal text Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. An underlying premise of this work, perhaps since its inception, is that one day Black and White vernaculars would converge—with Black vernaculars assimilating to their White neighbors. This perspective is perhaps the logical end to a liberal egalitarian view of the world. In his quest to contribute to this vision, Labov’s current work lays this argument bare and raises serious concerns about the workings of sociolinguistics for social (in)equality and the implications of Labov’s work for the future of Black language and literacy research and pedagogy for social justice and linguistic diversity. Labov sought to persuade and inform European American and middle class educators to view the language and culture of inner city Black people as different and legitimate and teachers’ understanding of such as beneficial to education. In 1972, he writes: A . . . position held by linguists and many anthropologists locates the problem not in the children, but in the relations between them and the school system. This position holds that inner-city children do not necessarily have inferior mothers, language, or experience, but that the language, family style, and ways of living of inner-city children are significantly 185

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different from the standard culture of the classroom, and that this difference is not always properly understood by teachers and psychologists. Linguists believe that we must begin to adapt our school system to the language and learning styles of the majority in the inner-city schools. They argue that everyone has the right to learn the standard languages and culture in reading and writing (and speaking, if they are so inclined); [emphasis mine] but this is the end result, not the beginning of the educational process. They do not believe that the standard language is the only medium in which teaching and learning can take place, or that the first step in education is to convert all first-graders to replicas of white middle-class suburban children. (Labov 1972a) Here, Labov argues that Black mothers, Black language, and Black experience should not of necessity be viewed as problems. It is the schools that should adapt to the language and learning styles of inner-city children. He is careful to point out that “students have the right to learn the standard languages and culture in reading and writing.” And though he might find the acquisition of spoken standardized language advantageous, he leaves that to personal inclination. We might say then that Labov’s position is for mild linguistic assimilation, or bidialectalism, to use the prominent terminology in mainstream linguistic discussions of Black speech during that time. Black students should learn standardized reading and writing, even if by non-mainstream methods, but they also have a right to maintain their spoken home language. This position encourages educational institutions to rethink their policies, philosophies, and curricula. In 1974, following Labov and the field of sociolinguistics, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) followed with a language policy statement, “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” (SRTOL), based on state-of-the-art sociolinguistic principles and concepts, to provide educators with knowledge to assist them in accepting language diversity and creating pedagogy that supported it, while teaching students standardized reading and writing. The statement reads: We affirm the students’ right to their own patterns and varieties of language—the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert its dominance over another. Such a claim leads to false advice for speakers and writers, and immoral advice for humans. A nation proud of its diverse heritage and its cultural and racial variety will preserve its heritage of dialects. We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language. (College Conference on Composition and Communication 1974, 1) This statement is contextualized by an introduction and overview of twelve concepts [A-L]: the nature of language as an oral, symbolic system by which human beings interact and communicate; the history of English and how it continually changes vocabulary in syntax, and in pronunciation; the nature of dialects; language acquisition; phonology; morphology; syntax; grammar and usage; semantics; lexicography; experience; and the role of change. Following the concepts is a final section, “Language Varieties, Linguistics Profiling, Housing, Civil Rights and Employability,” and, finally, a bibliography with state of the art research in sociolinguistics to undergird pronouncements and claims. The CCCC reaffirmed the SRTOL in 2003, at which time the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) adopted the policy. Among other language and literacy policies, CCCC and NCTE also have a National Language Policy.1 186

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Throughout the next decade, Labov (1987) charts major American cities’ sound changes and notes the divergent nature of language used by inner city (segregated, impoverished) Black people who have minimal contact with European Americans and middle class Black Americans who interact with European Americans considerably. Labov asserts: There is no doubt that the divergence that we have witnessed on the linguistic front is symptomatic of a split between the black and white portions of our society. It may also be a further cause of divergence in widening the distance between the English of the classroom and the vernacular that the child brings to the classroom. . . . I see the primary cause of educational failure is not language differences, but institutional racism. (Labov 1987, 10) Labov holds a somewhat equivocal position here. Black students’ educational failure is caused by both institutional racism and widening distance between a Black child’s divergent language and a curricular approach based on standardized, dominant, monolingual, monocultural orientation. Though he emphasizes that language differences are not the culprit, he does indirectly indicate them as problematic. He decries the dismal state of the American racial divide and lack of policies to alleviate racial isolation or segregation. By 1995, Labov writes that “the problem of continuing reading failure . . . is one that would be predicted by the continued isolation and drift of AAVE in a context of increasing residential segregation”(19). Here we can see that Labov is explicitly stating that AAVE’s divergence is a cause of reading failure. He also indicts inadequate teaching of reading and the social conditions in which impoverished Black people are expected to excel: “It is not simply that efforts to improve reading have been inadequate, but rather that the material conditions that created the problem have worsened. . . . A reversal of reading failure is only possible if the curriculum is revised to provide help primarily for those who need it” (19). Labov identified several AAVE features (e.g., consonant cluster reduction on word endings, final consonant absence, differential pronunciation patterns, and others) that would interfere with the acquisition of written and spoken school English and with decoding skills. Since AAVE was further/est away from standardized English upon which the curriculum is based, AAVE causes reading difficulty, and is thus an accomplice to educational failure. He also cites teacher attitudes against AAVE speakers as a contributing factor, but all of these, Labov argues, are symbolic of the larger sociocultural conflict and residential segregation that are the major causes of linguistic divergence. To deal with the situation, Labov suggests that linguistic principles be embedded within recognition of Black children and Black culture on their own terms, while simultaneously promoting standardized language as a path to economic opportunity, without which Black people are condemned to impoverished lives in the inner city. And now we come to Labov’s (2010) current position: Recent research implies that, if residential integration increases significantly, AAVE as a whole may be in danger of losing its distinctiveness as a linguistic resource. While many of us would regret a decrease in the eloquent syntactic and semantic options of AAVE and its possible withering away, we must also consider that the loss of a dialect is a lesser evil than the endangerment AAVE speakers currently confront. (15) The argument he sets forth reflects longtime contradictions and conceptualizations of the culture of poor Black Americans and its role in the perpetuation of poverty. This argument also exemplifies the limits of sociolinguistics in its quest to uphold equality, diversity, and social justice (points which will be elaborated below). Labov’s argument is slightly different from Moynihan’s 187

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as these issues are rehearsed by Steinberg (2011) in a recent Boston Review article “Poor Reason: Culture Still Doesn’t Explain Poverty.” Although he [Moynihan] acknowledged that past racism and unemployment undermined black families, he held that the pathology in ‘the [African] American family’ had not only assumed a life of its own, but was also the primary determinant of the litany of problems that beset lower-class blacks. (Steinberg 2011, para. 7) An extended examination of Labov’s (2010) argument will make my point clearer. On the one hand, he holds that AAVE is not a pathology, that it is eloquent in its syntax and semantics, that AAVE is the “great resource, an elegant form of expression that [Black people] use when they reflect most thoughtfully on the oppression and misery of daily life” (24). On the other hand, he places AAVE, in its 20th century developments/divergences from mainstream White speech, within segregation and institutionalized racism. In Labov’s (2010, 24) words, “AAVE has developed its present form in the framework of the most extreme racial segregation that the world has ever known.” AAVE is represented as interconnected with inadequate instruction, which is connected with reading failure, both of which are linked to poor schools, poverty, unemployment, high crime rate—all forms of social pathology. There are several major reasons that this argument is problematic. AAVE is reduced to its entanglement with oppression and pathology. Labov uses words like resource and elegant, but he seems to be seeing its use as restricted to those times when African Americans “reflect most thoughtfully on the oppression and misery of daily life”—a very narrow and pessimistic view of AAVE. . . . Labov equates regressive and discriminatory practices with the existence, persistence and spread of AAVE. The end to segregation brings—in Labov’s view of the world—linguistic assimilation, loss of AAVE, improved reading scores and generally a happier, more congenial U.S. (Lippi-Green 2012, 196) As Morgan (1994, 135) has pointed out, this brand of mainstream sociolinguistics has helped to perpetuate the dominant society’s construction of AAVE as a symbol of poverty and oppression and does not do enough to highlight African Americans’ own views of their social reality and what and who exactly constitutes African American speech community membership. Morgan (following Spears) notes that many middle class African Americans have acquired standardized American English despite lack of integration; they socialize mainly among mixed classes of African Americans. This points up the fact that social mobility does not necessarily lead to a loss of African American cultural identity, though since Labov and many mainstream sociolinguists have located AAVE in poverty, lack, and pathology, they minimize the history and cultural function of Black Language within the African American speech community and its function in relation to standardized American Englishes (Morgan 1994, 128). Moreover, as Rickford (2010) has shown, some African Americans have been surrounded by European Americans and their vernacular speech patterns and did not pick them up. We need to distinguish between integration and assimilation. Many African Americans want integration in the sense of access to middle-class jobs and housing and schools and other institutions. But others are also seeking housing in Black neighborhoods (like Baldwin Hills, 188

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Los Angeles) within large urban centers like Los Angeles; Washington, DC; and Atlanta, determined to retain some of their distinctive cultural traditions. Perhaps, in a Jesse Jackson conception of race mixing in a salad bowl rather than a melting pot, there will be room for distinctive linguistic traditions as well. (Rickford 2010, 32) Labov’s prescription, focusing as it does on AAVE, assimilation and integration of Black people into European American culture, and autonomous reading (a point to which I shall return) as means to economic and cultural empowerment, ignores the African American struggle for liberation and self-determination. From a language planning perspective, the language of Black America (Smitherman 1977) has long represented a tension in the field. As argued by Debose (2007), what we call it and how we define it matters deeply. Mainstream linguists, or orthodox linguists such as Labov, classify AAVE as a dialect of English rather than a separate language. The criteria they use for language include speakers’ attitudes, mutual intelligibility, and presence or absence of an army and navy (Black people lack the status and power to name their speech a language and make it stick). Orthodox linguists describe and codify structural features and grammatical patterns and use word lists. They emphasize AAVE’s similarity to English (or its divergence from it) and recognize it as a subform of English, a non-autonomous dialect. “Ebonics” scholars, on the other hand, focus on the sociohistorical context/experiences of the people in their search/quest to define their own history and identity. “Ebonics” or “African American Language” reflects this desire to avoid undesirable symbolic designation as subordinate to English. Ebonics scholars focus on Black people’s distinctive ways of speaking and social context, settings, modes of speaking, topics, messages, particular speech acts, autonomous grammar, and Africanisms in structure and style. Smitherman’s (2006) definition of the language of Black America does not reduce it to poverty and pathology: Black or African American Language (BL/AAL) is a style of speaking English words with Black flava—with Africanized semantic, grammatical, pronunciation, and rhetorical patterns. AAL comes out of the experience of U.S. slave descendants. This shared experience has resulted in common speaking styles, systematic patterns of grammar, and common language practices in the community and gives you a sense of personal identity. AAL served to bind the enslaved together, melding diverse African ethnic groups into one community. Ancient elements of African speech were transformed into a new language forged in the crucible of enslavement, U.S. style apartheid, and the Black struggle to survive and thrive in the face of dominating and oppressive whiteness. (3) Labovian orthodox linguists seek (limited) recognition for AAVE while Ebonics scholars seek fullest recognition of the language of Black America. Ebonics scholars do not espouse the superiority of standardized English but support it as a means of survival (Debose 2007). Full recognition of African American Language (AAL) faces many political obstacles. Though he does not intend for it to be so, Labov’s current centering of AAVE in poverty and pathology is one such obstacle, since AAVE is set in opposition to learning and progress. Black people and AAVE are oppressed by the very social pathologies that press Labov into a sentimental lamentation for the loss of AAVE as something that must give way to dominant English. Though Labov acknowledges and decries racist structural problems oppressing vulnerable Black people, these receive scant attention. The major policies, practices, and entities responsible 189

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for the oppression of African Americans are obscured by nominalizations, implied subjects, and agentless passives, in the framework that he sets out: The first and overarching condition is the degree of poverty . . . with its interlocking relationships with other forms of social pathology. Unemployment is of course the primary cause of poverty. Unemployment rates for young Black men who have not graduated high school have recently been reported at 72 percent, as opposed to 19 percent for the corresponding population of Latino youth. . . . Unemployment, underemployment, and poverty jointly reduce or eliminate the economic base for the Black family. Inability to participate in the formal, legal economy leads directly to participation in the informal, illegal economy with a rapid increase in crime rates. . . . The incarceration rate of young Black males has tripled in two decades, rising from two percent per year in 1981 to almost six percent in 2002. . . . Coupled with increasing reinforcement of child support laws, young Black males are removed from the formal economy during and after their prison terms. The economic base of the largely female-headed Black family is then further eroded. Poverty in the inner city also affects the quality of schooling. . . . Underfunding of schools plainly contributes to inadequate instruction and—to reading failure. The cycle closes as reading failure leads to further unemployment. . . . Reading failure reinforces the cycle of poverty, unemployment, and crime. (Labov 2010, 20–22) What is not discussed above is the very real way in which “power relations are maintained through ideological representations in language” (Pennycook 2001, 38), Thus, the historical and current actions that created these conditions are obscured. And again, even the way that the language and the people’s oppression have been conceptualized and studied in mainstream sociolinguistics disempowers Black people. The sociolinguistic order parallels the socially stratified, market-based, and racist practices of society. Fairclough explains: The relationship between social classes starts in economic production, but extends to all parts of a society. The power of the capitalist class depends also on its ability to control the state: contrary to the view of the state as standing neutrally “above” classes, I shall assume that the state is the key element in maintaining the dominance of the capitalist class, and controlling the working class. This political power is typically exercised not just by capitalists, but by an alliance of capitalists and others who see their interests as tied to capital—many professional workers, for instance. We can refer to this alliance as the dominant bloc. (1989, 33) As such, the sociolinguistic order is not natural and follows the social order, based on societal prejudices that are accepted as normal and inculcated into societal fabric. The fact is reality is socially constructed. Concepts such as language and dialect are the product of politics, education, socialization, advertising, and public relations (Debose 2007, 36). In his discussion of racism and cultural forces and traits that disempower and impoverish the Black community, Wilson’s (2009) work focuses on the intersection of race and poverty and cites structural factors as they affect Black males in particular. Structural forces omitted from Labov’s representation of the problem that contribute to the unemployment of Black males is decreased demand for low skilled American labor as Americans now compete with workers in countries such as China, India, and Bangladesh, who can be paid less than a living wage. Wilson also cites decreased opportunity for manufacturing jobs—especially auto manufacturing jobs. This has

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stemmed a source of better-paid employment that began for Black Americans around World War II. Another contributing factor is decreased union representation. Labov cites the high percentage of “Black men who have not graduated high school” and corresponding high unemployment rate and how these factors, coupled with poverty, eliminate the economic base of the Black family. One should note Labov’s representation of the situation with Black males as the active subjects and agents of the action here who are the cause of their own school failure and unemployment. Although there are a constellation of factors that contribute to the failure of schools to graduate Black males and educate them for life, movements such as Afrocentric curriculum, which has as its focus the struggle for African American liberation, the promotion of a counterhegemonic system of meaning embedded in African American culture, and the promotion of African unity and empowerment throughout the diaspora (Debose 2007) remains a distant dream for all but a miniscule percentage of Black youth. The active involvement of a web of laws, regulations, and informal rules reinforced by social stigma is very much a part of the poverty matrix. The War on Drugs, with unfair sentencing practices for small amounts of crack cocaine, and the Prison Industrial Complex, as well as ex-felons’ inability to re-enter the community and find gainful employment, have wreaked havoc on the Black community (Alexander 2010, The New Jim Crow). Understanding the Prison Industrial Complex as discussed by Angela Davis (1998) is crucial, and her analysis is worth repeating here: To deliver up bodies destined for profitable punishment, the political economy of prisons relies on racialized assumptions of criminality—such as images of Black welfare mothers reproducing criminal children—and on racist practices in arrest, conviction, and sentencing patterns. Colored bodies constitute the main human raw material in this vast experiment to disappear the major social problems of our time. Once the aura of magic is stripped away from the imprisonment solution, what is revealed is racism, class bias, and the parasitic seduction of capitalist profit. (1998, The Color of Imprisonment) Though he may not intend for it to be so, Labov’s argument implicates AAVE as part of the social pathology of racial and economic segregation. This is substantiated in Labov’s emphasis on AAVE’s divergence from other vernaculars. Labov hopes for AAVE’s linguistic convergence with European American mainstream and middle class speech as a means to change oppressive conditions. His sentiments make good common sense. He wants poor Black AAVE speaking students to have equal access to a quality education and a chance at societal parity by integrating language and literacy education and, hopefully, society. Nonetheless, Winters-Evans and Esposito’s (2010, 17) critique of integrationist ideology sheds light on the problem with Labov’s prescription. The integrationist perspective downplays the significance of race, propagates a stance of neutrality, objectivity, and White middle class normativity, with White middle class values as the ideal ways of thinking or behaving. Thus, AAVE’s divergence is abnormal. Labov’s major claim is that Black people are endangered because they are isolated and entrapped in a context rife with conflict, struggle, and survival. Even if too hastily, Labov rightfully cites these factors, yet focuses his argument on AAVE—that it has developed and flourished and diverged in appalling conditions of segregation and poverty, and it interferes with reading and school success. Labov’s argument, roughly, is that reading and effective education will alleviate the conditions spawned from poverty, ghettos, crime, incarceration, economically torn families, and so on. Literacy in dominant discourses is advantageous, but the problem is not that Black people are illiterate AAVE speakers. The problem is that poor Black people are trapped in a cycle of structural racism, and it will take more than changing our syntax, phonology, and vocabulary to fix

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that. The problem is reflective of modern capitalist nations. In this way, Labov’s argument is closely aligned with the literacy myth: a belief . . . that the acquisition of literacy is a necessary precursor to and invariably results in economic development, democratic practice, cognitive enhancement, and upward social mobility. (Graff and Duffy 2008, 41) Labov and his associates have developed programs such as Portals, which is implemented in the California schools, and The Reading Road, implemented by the Penn Reading Initiative. These programs include attention to pertinent syntactical, phonological, and lexical aspects of AAVE, as well as incorporating the real-life conflicts and injustice children experience into the materials to thwart the trend of alienation and irrelevance Black children have faced with traditional reading materials. Labov (2010) states: Whether our efforts will be effective enough to cut into the pattern shown [in his framework of residential segregation] is a question still to be resolved over time. (22) Even if everyone spoke alike, a serious redistribution of wealth would need to occur, without which segregated upper middle class Whites, the elite, and the corporations which they control will continue to be well resourced and insulated in segregated communities. Another important point is that Labov’s conception of reading aligns with an autonomous model of literacy. As New Literacy Studies theorists have shown, literacy is not simply a set of isolated skills that can be taught; acquisition of language and literacy is socialization into particular discourses and worldviews (Scribner and Cole 1981; Heath 1983; Street 1993; Gee 1999). Literacy is informed by an array of socially constituted practices, understandings, and ways of being in the world, and literacy varies with sociocultural needs and is bound up in relations of power (Macedo 1994). If Labov’s pedagogy does little to confront these realities, it upholds structured inequality. Pennycook’s (2001) work on critical applied linguistics would locate Labov’s prescription somewhere between liberal ostrichist and emancipatory modernist approaches to sociolinguistics: [It is ] dominated by a bland egalitarianism that does not help us in framing questions of inequality, language, and power. Often based in liberal pluralist politics and structuralist approaches to academic work, the approach advocates the isolation of politics from academic work. Thus, the structuralism of linguistics and sociolinguistics that permits the view that all dialects are equal is also the view that has not allowed for an adequate understanding of how languages are complexly related to social and cultural factors, ignoring therefore, the profound questions of social difference, inequality, and conflict. . . . [T]his position accepts and even celebrates the inevitability of the global spread of English [the death of AAVE, in this case] while rather lamely calling for support for other languages. . . . (165) This version of sociolinguistics relates language to class or gender in concrete and critical terms, while in the context of the global spread of [dominant] English, it raises concerns to do with linguistic imperialism and language rights; the tendency in emancipatory modernist frameworks is to locate language in inequitable but static and deterministic social conditions. . . . The modernist emancipatory approach tends to deal with difference, therefore, 192

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only in terms of an inclusionary aspect of its vision of critical democracy rather than as an engagement with a broader notion of possibility. (167) To imply and argue that Black speakers’ language must be intervened upon as a means to social “equality” (integration, economic/political empowerment) is to argue that racism, cultural imperialism, political and economic disenfranchisement, social differences, and attitudes will never be overcome by dominant middle class White persons, their adherents, and the institutions they control. This may well be the case. If so, the ideal of democracy is a sham. Multicultural education and diversity are dead end roads and we might as well stop fighting against social injustice. Labov’s linkage of Black language and Black illiteracy with Black impoverishment and Black segregation, taken together with his assertion that some forms of cultural diversity . . . need no help to survive leads to the inference that poor Black people are responsible for and sustain the cycle of oppression in which they have been entrapped. The argument also suggests that taking Black language out of the equation will play a significant role in reversing the effects of segregation. We know that conquered, colonized, and (descendants of) enslaved people of color, such as Black Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Alaskan Natives, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, who were forced into the United States (non-immigrants) are generally failed by the educational system (Ogbu and Simons 1998), and their languages are disempowered, as are their cultures and histories. To reverse these traditions, we must push education to open new possibilities. . . . [If] schools (and people) are not passive mirrors of an economy, but instead are active agents in reproducing and contesting dominant social relations, then understanding what they do and acting upon them becomes of no small moment. For if schools are part of a “contested terrain,” if they are part of a much larger set of political, economic, and cultural conflicts the outcomes of which are not naturally preordained to favor capital, then the hard and continuous day-to-day struggles at the level of curriculum and teaching practice in schools is part of these larger conflicts as well. The key is linking those day-to-day struggles within the schools to other actions for a more progressive society in that wider arena (Apple and Weis 2013, 84) African American language is a repository of Black culture, history, and identity. Respecting and embracing the fullness of this position does not mean that Black students should not learn how to speak, read, and write more prestigious, standardized forms. This position underscores the point that promoting the dissolution/eradication of African American Language (AAL) is a form of miseducation that will perpetuate the cycle of dominance, racism, and internalized racism against and among Black people and the devaluation of Black humanity, history, and culture. It also promotes monolingual ideology and linguistic and sociocultural imperialism. This position simultaneously pushes for economic integration and educational reparations for Black people and Black language. New Literacy scholars are advocating approaches that incorporate youth language and literacy practices to address social issues. Literacy education for social justice forces us to confront the politics of knowledge and power as part of reading, writing, listening, and speaking holistically about ourselves in society. In this school of thought, the lived experiences of the people are fodder for critical literacy education and social change.

Note 1 NLP was established by CCCC in 1988 and adopted by NCTE in 1998.

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References Alexander, M. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press. Apple, M., and Weis, L. 2013. Seeing Education Relationally: The Stratification of Culture as Lived. In M. Apple (Ed.), Knowledge, Power, and Education: The Selected Works of Michael W. Apple, (pp. 69–91). Independence, KY. College Conference on Composition and Communication. 1974. Students’ Right to Their Own Language, Special Issue of CCC, 25(3 Fall), 1–32. Davis, A. 1998, September 10. Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved from Colorlines: http://colorlines.com/archives/1998/09/masked_racism_reflections_on_the_prison_ industrial_complex.html Debose, C. 2007. The Ebonics Phenomenon, Language Planning, and the Hegemony of Standard English. In H. S. Alim and J. Baugh (Eds.), Talkin Black Talk: Language, Education and Social Change. New York: Columbia University Teachers College Press. 30–42. Fairclough, N. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman. Gee, J. 1999. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. New York: Routledge. Graff, H., and Duffy, J. 2008. Literacy Myths. In B. V. Street (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., Vol. 2). 41–52. Heath, S. B. 1983. Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Labov, W. 1972a, June. Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95sep/ets/labo.htm Labov, W. 1972b. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W. 1987. Are Black and White Vernaculars Diverging? Papers from the NWAVE XIV Panel Discussion with Ralph W. Fasold, William Labov, Fay Boyd Vaughn-Cooke, Guy Bailey, Walt Wolfram, Arthur K. Spears and John Rickford. American Speech, 62(1), 3–80. Labov, W. 1995. Can Reading Failure Be Reversed? A Linguistic Approach to the Question, In V. Gadsden and D. Wagner (Eds.), Literacy Among African-American Youth: Issues in Learning, Teaching, and Schooling. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 39–68. Retrieved from ftp://ling.upenn.edu/facpapers/bill_labov/RFR.html Labov, W. 2010. Unendangered Dialect, Endangered People: The Case of African American Vernacular English, Transforming Anthropology, 18(1), 15–27. Lippi-Green, R. 2012. English With an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States (2nd ed.). New York/London: Routledge. Macedo, D. 1994. Literacies of Power: What Americans are Not Allowed to Know. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Morgan, M. 1994. The African American Speech Community: Reality and Sociolinguistics. In M. Morgan (Ed.), Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations. Los Angeles: CAAS Publications, 121–148. Ogbu, J., and Simons, H. 1998. Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-Ecological Theory of School Performance with Some Implications for Education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 29, 155–189. Pennycook, A. 2001. Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah, NJ/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Rickford, J. 2010. Geographical Diversity, Residential Segregation, and the Vitality of African American Vernacular and Its Speakers, Transforming Anthropology, 18(1), 28–34. Scribner, S., and Cole, M. 1981. Unpackaging Literacy. In M. Farr Whiteman (Ed.), Writing: The Nature, Development, and Teaching of Written Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 71–87. Smitherman, G. 1977. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Houghton Mifflin/Reprinted by Wayne State University Press, 1986. Smitherman, G. 2006. Word From the Mother: Language and African Americans. New York/London: Routledge. Steinberg, S. 2011, January 13. Poor Reason: Culture Still Doesn’t Explain Poverty. Boston Review. Retrieved from www.bostonreview.net/steinberg.php Street, B. V. (Ed.) 1993. Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, W. J. 2009. More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York/London: W. W. Norton and Company. Winters-Evans, V., and Esposito, J. 2010. Other People’s Daughters: Critical Race Feminism and Black Girls’ Education. Educational Foundations, 24(1–2), 11–24. 194

Part 4

Critical Pedagogy and Language Education

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15 Reframing Freire Situating the Principles of Humanizing Pedagogy Within an Ecological Model for the Preparation of Teachers María del Carmen Salazar

The current state of education in the United States can be symbolically represented by the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus. A king and mere mortal, this deceitful man was condemned by Zeus to roll a rock up to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down again for all of eternity. Referenced by Homer in The Odyssey, the legend of Sisyphus is captured in the following passage: Bracing himself and thrusting with hands and feet he pushed the boulder uphill on to the top. But every time, as he was about to send it toppling over the crest, its sheer weight turned it back, and once again towards the plain the pitiless rock rolled down. So once more he had to wrestle with the thing and push it up, while the sweat poured from his limbs and the dust rose high above his head. (Homer as cited in Rieu 1946, 187) This metaphor for the U.S. educational system depicts the “Sisyphean challenge” (Yearwood 2012, 23) faced by teachers in the public school system to close the unyielding achievement gap, or opportunity gap, for students of color. The challenge can appear insurmountable, given existing statistics on academic disparities between students of color and White students. One of the most persistent gaps is in mathematics, as indicated by national assessments (Kulm 2007). For example, while the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in mathematics for students of color have increased recently, the scores have only recently gained parity with levels that White students attained over 20 years ago (Kulm 2007). Additionally, the gap in national fourth- and eighth-grade reading and writing scores between students of color and Whites did not change significantly from 1992 to 2000 (Hemphill and Vanneman 2011). As our nation grapples with persistent academic disparities, policymakers pursue one-size-fitsall approaches to closing the gap through value-added measures such as standardized testing. This approach negates the complexity of the systems that interact to deny equal educational opportunities for students of color. As a result, the humanity of these students and their teachers is stultified

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by sterile, static, and hegemonic practices; thus, dehumanization has become the status quo in education (Balderrama 2001; Villegas 2007). Teacher educators play a vital role in reproducing or interrupting the dehumanization of students of color through shaping the dispositions of pre-service teachers toward students of color and their communities (Balderrama 2001; Villegas 2007). Often unintentionally, teacher educators reproduce inequities and reify dehumanizing approaches by failing to provide pre-service teachers with specific dispositions and competencies to meet the needs of students of color (Villegas 2007). Moreover, when teacher educators do acknowledge the needs of students of color, they often emphasize “quick fix” (Anast Seguin and Ambrosio 2002) approaches without acknowledging the complexity of the systems that interact to support or constrain the humanization of students of color (Cochran-Smith 2004; Tedick and Walker, 1994; Villegas 2007). In contrast, teacher educators can be a conduit for interrupting dehumanization in education. As such, teacher educators can prepare pre-service teachers by: (a) nurturing the dispositions, knowledge, and skills necessary to humanize education (Franquiz and Salazar 2004), (b) unveiling the complexity of systems that interact to deny the humanness of students of color (Aloni 2002), and (c) promoting teaching as a catalyst for systemic change (Nieto 2003; Lytle and CochranSmith 1994). With the aforementioned approaches, teacher educators can equip candidates with the resources needed to foist the proverbial ‘rock’ over the crest. In this chapter, I articulate the values that guide my practice as a teacher educator, and I evaluate the consistency between my practice and my beliefs. I examine the following question: How do I live my values more fully in my practice? Paulo Freire’s educational philosophy on humanization serves as the compass that guides my values and practices. I reframe Freire’s conception of humanization in education by situating the principles of humanizing pedagogy within an ecological model to promote the development of ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions for the preparation of teachers. As a result, I generate a curriculum map that delineates existing and potential learning experiences for pre-service teachers that promote the development of such dispositions. The results of the curriculum mapping process lead me to reflect on one particular learning experience that reveals a catalyst for the development of ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions. I conclude the chapter with a call for a colectivo (collective) of teacher educators and teachers committed to humanizing education.

Naming the Questions LaBoskey (2009) asserts that teaching is inherently a principled practice, defined as “an active, decision-making praxis . . . informed by a set of well-grounded dynamic principles that can guide and interpret interventions and outcomes in relationship with goals of equity and social justice” (73). In teaching pre-service teachers, my practice is based on the following principle: Before pre-service teachers are immersed in the technical practice of teaching, they need to be immersed in learning experiences that compel them to: (a) interrogate the complexity of the systems that constrain the humanity of students of color, (b) perceive the humanity of students of color as a valuable resource for their learning, and (c) envisage teaching as a catalyst for systemic change. Ultimately, one’s principled practice is shaped by what they value (LaBoskey 2009). In this study, I pose the question: How do I live my values more fully in my practice? My question aligns with my desire to articulate the values that guide my practice, and evaluate the consistency between my practices and my beliefs. The educational philosophy of Paulo Freire serves as the compass that guides my values and practices. 198

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Naming the Theory Humanizing Pedagogy My practice is informed by Freirean philosophy on humanization. Humanization is the process of becoming more fully human as social, historical, thinking, communicating, transformative, creative persons who participate in and with the world (Freire, 1972, 1984). Freire asserts that to become more fully human, women and men must become conscious of their presence in the world as a way to individually and collectively re-envisage their social world (Dale and Hyslop-Margison 2010; Freire and Betto 1985; Schapiro 2001). Moreover, Freire adds that humanization is the ontological vocation of human beings and, as such, is the practice of freedom in which the oppressed are liberated through consciousness of their subjugated positions and a desire for self-determination (Freire 1970). Freire (1970) proposes that the process of humanization fosters the transformation and authentic liberation of the oppressed; thus, “to transform the world is to humanize it” (Freire 1985, 70). Freire’s construct of humanizing pedagogy extends his theory of humanization into the practical realm of instruction. Freire (1970) describes humanizing pedagogy as a revolutionary approach to instruction that “ceases to be an instrument by which teachers can manipulate students, but rather expresses the consciousness of the students themselves” (51). Teachers who enact humanizing pedagogy engage in a quest for “mutual humanization” (56) with their students, a process fostered through problem-posing education in which students are co-investigators in dialogue with their teachers. This dialogic approach to education should be pursued with the goal of developing “conscientizacao” (26) or critical consciousness, which is “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (17). There are limitless possibilities for Freire’s pedagogical philosophy, and Freire urges his followers to reinvent his ideas in the context of their local struggles. Freire presents humanizing pedagogy as a philosophical approach that fosters critical, dialogical, and liberatory practices (Glass 2001; Huerta and Brittain 2010; Huerta 2011; Jennings and Smith 2002; Roberts 2000). Humanizing pedagogues have expanded Freire’s teachings over the past four decades to illuminate the application of humanizing pedagogy in educational settings. In a recent article in the Review of Research in Education, I synthesize four decades of educational research on humanizing pedagogy through the identification of its five principles (Salazar 2013): (a) the full development of the person is essential for humanization; (b) to deny someone else’s humanization is also to deny one’s own; (c) the journey for humanization is both an individual and collective endeavor toward critical consciousness; (d) critical reflection and action can transform structures that impede our own and others’ humanness, thus facilitating liberation for all; and (e) educators are responsible for promoting a more fully human world through their pedagogical principles and practices. Pedagogy, or the art and skill of teaching, is fundamental to the practice of teaching (Korthagen 2008). While Freire conceptualized a humanizing pedagogy as a philosophical approach, the focus on pedagogy is often on discrete knowledge and skills that are causal, linear, and lead to “correct” practice (Luke 2006). Educators searching for pedagogical recipes criticize Freire’s lack of specific technical methods, describing his concepts as vague, imprecise, generic, and oversimplified (Dale and Hyslop-Margison 2010; Schugurensky 2011). Bartolomé (1994) describes a humanizing pedagogy as being inclusive of both philosophical orientations and instructional methods that humanize education. Bartolomé stresses that educators should not reject the use of teaching methods and strategies, but rather, they should disavow uncritical approaches to teaching and learning in favor of reflection and action. This focus allows 199

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educators to “recreate and reinvent teaching methods and materials by always taking into consideration the sociocultural realities that can either limit or expand the possibilities to humanize education” (177). Bartolomé’s focus on the instruction that builds on the realities of students’ lives breathes practical life into Freire’s philosophies. Ecological theory compliments humanizing pedagogy through a focus on students’ lives as complex interactions between individuals and systems.

Ecological Theory Ecological theory brings together complex and dynamic perspectives, peoples, practices, and environments (Luke 2006; Shimahara, Holowinsky, and Tomlinson-Clarke 2001). Ecological theory examines five key elements: (a) interactions; (b) interrelationships; (c) adaptation; (d) succession; and (e) transformation. First, ecological theory examines interactions between individuals and their contexts as defined by social systems, including cultural and sociopolitical systems (Levine, Perkins, and Perkins 2005). Second, the theory examines the interrelationships between social systems, thus stressing the interdependence among the levels of the system and making the assertion that a change in one ecological setting can influence other settings and their relationships (Suarez-Balcazar, Fabricio, Garcia-Ramirez, and Taylor-Ritzler, 2013). Third, ecological theory explores the adaptation of a person to their complex environment; such adaptation is often fraught with challenges and power struggles (Levine, Perkins, and Perkins 2005). Trickett, Kelly, and Todd (1972) describe adaptation in the following passage: Adaptation is the ongoing interaction between individuals and the ecological environments in which they live, work, study, and play. This interaction is an ongoing, dynamic interplay between the individual and the environment. As the environment places demands on the individual, the individual adapts, and as the individual places demands on the environment, the environment adapts to changes. (7) Fourth, ecological theory describes issues of succession. This concept acknowledges the fact that change is an ever-present reality for the environment and for the individuals within it. Additionally, the complexity in interacting systems may increase over time until stabilization occurs (Suarez-Balcazar et al. 2013). It is in the interactional space of constant change where individuals and multidimensional systems interact that the fifth key element, transformation, can occur. Transformation can be understood as the “capacity to initiate social transformation” (Olsson, Folke, and Hahn 2004, 2). Shimahara, Holowinsky, and Tomlinson-Clarke (2001) delineate ecological systems that impact student learning, including microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, and chronosystems. First, Shimahara, Holowinsky, and Tomlinson-Clarke (2001) assert that the microsystem focus on the individual, self-understanding, and interpersonal interaction. The self is defined in multiple contexts, including understanding ourselves as racial and cultural beings and contrasting how we define ourselves with how society defines us (Tomlinson-Clarke and Wang 1999). Additionally, the influence of “significant others” is relevant in the microsystem, including those who have the most immediate influence on the learner and are most likely to impact their behaviors, such as parents, siblings, extended family, teachers, and peers (Alfaro, Umaña-Taylor, and Bámaca 2006; Wang, Haertel, and Walberg 1994). Second, the mesosystem focus is “a system of microsystems that includes peer group, classroom, school, or family, is particularly important in the young person’s experiential framework” (Marks 200

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2000, 157). The mesosystem is inclusive of institutions that reside within communities in which individuals are directly influenced. Sarason (1976) asserts that communities are influenced by complex multicultural ecological settings that are influenced by a variety of sociocultural factors. Third, the exosystem focus is on social, cultural, and political institutional structures that influence policies where the mesosystem resides. The exosystem includes aspects such as educational policies that govern school reform. According to Cochran-Smith (2004), pre-service teacher preparation programs do not provide teachers with the analytical skills they need to interrogate exosystem influences on teacher performance and school reform. Cochran-Smith asserts that pre-service teachers need to be able to negotiate their conceptions of best practice within the constraints generated by the exosystem. Fourth, the chronosystem focus accounts for the temporal element of the ecological model that reflects how historical shifts have gradually contributed to the marginalization and emancipation of students of color and their communities (Shimahara, Holowinsky, and Tomlinson-Clark 2001). The elements described above are closely aligned with Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory (1992), a model that is used to understand how systems interact and impact individuals and communities.

The Link Between Ecological Theory and Humanizing Pedagogy An ecological approach can be used to understand how students’ lives are impacted by systems that reproduce or interrupt educational inequities (Suarez-Balcazar et al. 2013). In adopting an ecological perspective, educators can “develop the capacity to evaluate and transform the context and oneself in accordance with the community’s fabric . . . thus transforming social systems” (Suarez-Balcazar et al. 2013, 21). Thus, an ecological approach complements humanizing pedagogy through the examination of the interconnected systems that reinforce asymmetries of power and humanize or dehumanize students of color. Saleebey (2001) eloquently captures the intersection between ecological theory and humanization in the following: Ecological theory pushes us to understand the significance of the social and physical spaces where individual and environment meet (the interfaces) and recognize that in those spaces the work of supporting human development and the nurturing of esteem and competence is done; in those spaces the dirty work of oppression can also be done, along with the stifling of human possibility and the deepening of vulnerability. (215) It is in the social and physical spaces where the individual and the environment meet that the theoretical frameworks of humanizing pedagogy and ecological theory can thrive. In the next section, I examine the following question: How do I live my values more fully in my practice? To answer this question, I analyze the learning experiences embedded in the summer orientation of the University of Denver’s Teacher Education Program (TEP), which consists of two courses, Teaching and Learning Environments and Second Language Acquisition. These courses are intended to instill ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions in pre-service teachers as a foundation for the enactment of technical instructional practices. Ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions are defined as attitudes, beliefs, and values needed to interrogate complex systems that impact the learning of students of color and advance their dignity, humanity, and learning. The result of the analysis yields a curriculum map that delineates the existing and potential learning experiences for pre-service teachers that are rooted in an ecological model and are 201

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aligned to principles of humanizing pedagogy. Additionally, I delve deeper into my questions and present one particular learning experience that can serve as a catalyst for the development of ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions.

Naming the Results Generating a Curriculum Map In examining my practice toward the development of ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions, I reframe Freire’s conceptualization of humanization in education by situating the principles of humanizing pedagogy within ecological systems in a curriculum map. I use the elements of an ecological system (Shimahara, Holowinsky, and Tomlinson-Clarke 2001); five principles of humanizing pedagogy (Salazar 2013); and elements of backward design (Wiggins and McTighe 2005), including enduring understandings, essential questions, and learning experiences. In creating this chart and starting with the end in mind—nurturing ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions—I was able to document the current learning experiences that aligned with ecological theory and humanizing pedagogy. Moreover, I was able to brainstorm potential learning experiences to continue to move our pre-service teachers toward ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions. The existing and proposed experiences are identified in Table 15.1. Engaging in the creation of this curriculum map was a powerful experience for me. It allowed me to articulate my beliefs and align current learning experiences to my values. Furthermore, it allowed me to identify curricular strengths, gaps, and opportunities to generate new ideas for learning experiences. Last, it allowed me to fully articulate my values and goals for immersing pre-service teachers in learning experiences that develop ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions.

Exploring a Catalyst for Change While articulating my philosophy of practice and aligning my practice and beliefs, I came to realize another important element: I believe pre-service teachers need a disruptive experience that can serve as a catalyst for the development of ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions. Moreover, they need to draw on their own lived experiences in order to develop a deep and sustained commitment to understanding the complexity of students’ lives and engaging in humanizing education. This assertion aligns with Clandinin and Connelly’s (1995) conceptualization of teacher knowledge as a “body of convictions, meanings, conscious or unconscious, that have arisen from experience” (7). I have used one particular pedagogical tool in the TEP program for six consecutive years, a simulation designed to submerge pre-service teachers into the experience of an English language learner (ELL). I refer to this as a submersion experience because students are compelled to “sinkor-swim” in response to my instructional strategies. In this experience, I teach a 60-minute lesson in Spanish on a topic most of the pre-service teachers do not have background knowledge of: Cesar Chavez. This icon of the U.S. civil rights movement is often invisible in American history, and typically unknown to my predominantly middle class White students. I put the students in a high stakes environment by indicating that they will need to pass a Spanish proficiency test at the end of the lesson, and that the results of this test will determine their opportunities for placements and jobs. Throughout the lesson, I strategically use instructional strategies that support my students in their efforts to excel, or “swim,” yet I also purposefully allow them to fail, or “sink.” For example, to make it easier for students to learn, I use sheltered instruction strategies such as 202

Table 15.1 Curriculum Alignment to Ecological Theory and Humanizing Pedagogy Theory

Enduring Understandings

Essential Questions

Learning Experiences

EES1: The microsystem (individual-family context) impacts student learning.

Students will understand how their own identity is influenced by contextual factors, including beliefs, values, family traditions, ethnic background, SES, gender, preferences, values, beliefs, etc.

Who am I? What aspects of my identity are most salient?

Identity quilt: Create “I” quilt to visually represent own identities.

HPP1: The full development of the person is essential for humanization.

Who are my students? How can I meet the holistic needs of my students?

*Written reflection: Compare and contrast own identities and students’ identities.

Students will understand the needs of the whole child (typical patterns in child and adolescent development, including language, racial identity, socioemotional, cognitive, etc.) EES2: The mesosystem (community context) impacts student learning. HP2: To deny someone else’s humanization is also to deny one’s own. HPP3: The journey for humanization is an individual and collective endeavor toward critical consciousness.

Students will understand the experiences of differential treatment, prejudice, and discrimination faced by marginalized communities. Students will understand family, community, and school influences on student learning. Students will understand the importance of asset perspectives and valuing and respecting diversity beyond a surface culture approach.

*Identity hands: Engage K–12 students in placement sites in creating identity hands to visually represent identities.

*Child Study: Analyze the experiences of a student (ELL, special needs, or gifted) inside and outside of school. What is the experience of marginalized communities inside and outside of school? How do family, community, and school influences impact student learning? How can I demonstrate asset perspectives and respect for diversity?

Submersion experience: Reflect on a dehumanizing experience of being submersed in a foreign language with limited supports. Community cultural wealth quilt: Create a quilt representing the cultural wealth of the community surrounding the school. Dialogic interactions: Engage in critical reflection on readings, media, and guest speakers through probing questions that address issues of equity in classroom discussion, blogs, and group discussion boards. (Continued)

Table 15.1 (Continued) Theory

Enduring Understandings

Essential Questions

Learning Experiences

EES3: The exosystem (societal-policy context) impacts student learning.

Students will understand systemic inequities that impact the learning of marginalized communities.

How are communities of color marginalized through institutionalized practices and educational policies?

Dialogic interactions: Engage in critical reflection on readings, media, and guest speakers through probing questions that address issues of equity in classroom discussion, blogs, and group discussion boards.

HPP4: Critical reflection and action can transform structures that impede our own and others’ humanness, thus facilitating liberation for all.

EES4: The chronosystem (historical context) impacts student learning. HPP5: Educators are responsible for promoting a more fully human world through their pedagogical principles and practices.

Students will understand how culturally and linguistically diverse communities and their allies have engaged in democratic participation to resist marginalization.

Students will understand the importance of a sense of urgency in interrupting oppression and promoting equity.

How have communities of color and their allies resisted marginalization?

Privilege walk: Critically reflect on own background of privilege and the resulting inequities. Why should I be invested in closing the gap for marginalized communities? What can I do to make a difference?

Description of Context: Use primary and secondary sources to document the historical and current experience of marginalized communities in the school. *Philosophy of Education: Articulate a philosophy of education that addresses the essential questions: What is the purpose of education? Why teach? Why should I be invested in closing the gap for marginalized communities? What can I do to make a difference?

Note: Asterisk (*) indicates potential learning experience that is not currently used in the program.

Reframing Freire

total physical response, gestures, and visuals. However, I also use strategies that make it difficult for students to learn, such as complex and rapid speech, high-pressure focus on testing, and lack of visual supports. This experience facilitates a mesosystem approach to teacher education, in that students experience the marginalization that communities of ELLs experience; moreover, this experience is based on the principle of humanizing pedagogy that to deny someone else’s humanization is also to deny one’s own. I specifically submerge students in a disruptive experience so that they begin to understand the differential treatment, prejudice, and discrimination faced by marginalized communities because of their language abilities. Stibbards and Puk (2011) describe an ecological approach that can be used to frame this learning experience through three foci: complexity, emergent outcomes, and transformation. First, the authors describe the complexity inherent in ecological models as ambiguous parameters. Second, the authors describe that emergent outcomes arise from complexity; these are not the result of linear relationships; rather, outcomes emerge from complex and dynamic interactions that provoke new insights as a result of chaotic interactions that ensue in a learning experience. The results of this experience cannot be predicted or controlled by the facilitator, but instead allow each individual to make meaning for themselves. Third, according to Stibbards and Puk, participants experience transformation by examining their own beliefs and identifying possible ways they might integrate the meaning they take from the experience into their teaching practice. By connecting the material to pre-service teachers’ lives, the possibility for change becomes a reality. At the completion of the submersion experience, pre-service teachers were asked to complete a graphic organizer that included the following reflection questions: How did this submersion experience make you feel? How did you communicate your feelings to your instructor and/or peers? How can this experience help you understand the challenges ELLs face in the classroom? What specific strategies can you use to make language and content comprehensible for ELLs? The graphic organizers have indicated that students grappled with the experience of ELLs by naming the complexity of their own feelings. Of the 155 students who responded, 149 students used negative terms to describe their feelings, as displayed in recurring terms in Table 15.2. Of these responses, the most common negative terms used were: frustrated, left out, nervous, anxious, inferior, inadequate, overwhelmed, disengaged, and powerless. Of the 155 respondents, only six provided positive terms to describe their feelings during the submersion experience, these were: enlightened, valuable, excited, excelled, perseverant, and privileged. Students also identified emergent outcomes from the submersion experience related to improving their practice for ELLs by providing more time and a slower pace; creating a safe learning environment; being more patient; giving ELLs more opportunities to participate; increasing visual supports; using gestures and total physical response strategies; increasing repetition; using cooperative Table 15.2 Negative Terms Used to Describe Feelings Resulting From Submersion Experience uncomfortable

annoyed

divided

powerless

inferior

inadequate

hopeless

disengaged upset

nervous

anxious

frustrated

embattled

fearful

conflicted

bored

out-of-control exhausted

disadvantaged

unconfident sinking

stressed

overwhelmed discouraged

stumbling

closed off

confused

puzzled

left out

frustrated

lost

filled with contempt

checked out

isolated

mute

insecure

timid

distracted

silent

frantic

avoidant

angry

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learning; incorporating students’ native language; frontloading vocabulary; using frequent checks for understanding; differentiating assessments; and integrating culturally relevant content. Last, as a result of the disruptive experience, pre-service teachers indicated that they would transform their practice to meet the needs of ELLs. The highest number of respondents indicated the following transformation: (a) realization that ELLs are being left behind; (b) commitment to protecting these students from the negative feelings that they experienced during the submersion experience; (c) increased compassion and empathy for the challenges faced by ELLs; and (d) greater appreciation for the strengths these learners bring to the teaching and learning experience. Only one student out of 155 articulated a negative emergent outcome as a result of the experience; the student stated that s/he does not feel responsible for supporting non-English speakers and these students should learn to speak English as quickly as possible. In sum, the simulated submersion experience immerses pre-service teachers into a disruptive learning experience where the candidates personalize the experience of ELLs; this can serve as a catalyst for interrogating the systemic marginalization of students of color based on language, in addition to a commitment to humanize the experience of these students. Thus, this chapter informs the field of educational linguistics through an innovative approach to language use and language learning in the context of teacher preparation.

Naming the Conclusion The focus on preparing pre-service teachers to understand the language use and language learning needs of their students informs the field of educational linguistics and provides a resource for educators who are committed to meeting the needs of English language learners. As a result of this work, I found that ecologically-minded humanizing dispositions can be nurtured through learning experiences that compel pre-service teachers to grapple with the elements of ecological theory and the principles of humanizing pedagogy. Through this experience, I have been empowered to articulate my values, improve my practice, expand my students’ learning, and interrupt oppression and dehumanization. Furthermore, this work has re-energized me as an educator; I have an increased commitment to stir up an “ecological ripple effect” (Watson and Steele 2006, 16) through a colectivo (collective) of ecologically-minded humanizing pedagogues, inclusive of teachers and teacher educators, that strive for internal and external transformation. Together, we can foist the rock from the “sisyphean challenge” (Yearwood 2012, 23) over the cliff once and for all; that is the challenge of humanizing education in an era of standardization in order to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners.

References Alfaro, E. C., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., and Bámaca, M. Y. 2006. The influence of academic support on Latino adolescents’ academic motivation. Family Relations, 55(3), 279–291. Aloni, N. 2002. Enhancing humanity: The philosophical foundations of humanistic education. NY: Springer. Anast Seguin, C., and Ambrosio, A. L. 2002. Multicultural vignettes for teacher preparation. Journal of Multicultural Perspectives, 4(4), 10–16. Balcazar, F. E., Suarez-Balcazar, Y., Adams, S. B., Keys, C. B., García-Ramírez, M., and Paloma, V. 2012. A case study of liberation among Latino immigrant families who have children with disabilities. American Journal of Community Psychology, 49(1–2), 283–293. Balderrama, M. V. 2001. The (mis)preparation of teachers in the Proposition 227 era: Humanizing teacher roles and their practice. The Urban Review, 33(3), 255–267. Bartolomé, L. I. 1994. Beyond the methods fetish: Toward a humanizing pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 64(2), 173–195.

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16 Heritage Language Education Minority Language Speakers, Second Language Instruction, and Monolingual Schooling Jennifer Leeman and Kendall A. King

Most discussions of heritage language education begin with a consideration of the term “heritage language,” which arose in Canada to refer to languages other than English or French (Duff and Li 2009). This definition of heritage languages as any “languages other than the national language(s)” has been adopted and applied to a wide array of international contexts, leading to extensive discussion and debate. On one hand, scholars have sought to fine-tune our understanding of the meaning of “heritage languages”—for instance, by distinguishing among colonial, Indigenous, or immigrant languages (Fishman 2001). On the other hand, scholars have critiqued the term itself, noting that “ancestral languages,” “community languages,” or “minority languages” are widely used outside of the U.S. context (Brutt-Griffler and Makoni 2005; De Bot and Gorter 2005; Wiley 2005), and hence proposed the use of a more inclusive term, such as “heritage and community languages” (Wiley 2005). For many researchers, policy makers, activists, and educators, “heritage language education” refers to any and all education provided in languages other than the official or national languages. The educational programs that fall within this category vary widely with respect to aim, structure, and pedagogy, and include schooling offered completely in the (minority language) mother tongue of pupils; maintenance and transitional bilingual education; complementary schools that offer heritage language instruction on weekends; and immersion or revitalization programs designed for students who do not speak their heritage language. Labeling them all as “heritage language education” obscures the significant differences among these various types of programs and models. Further, as Brutt-Griffler and Makoni (2005) suggest, the use of a single term downplays substantial variation across languages and language communities by failing to recognize the particular local sociolinguistic, ideological, and policy contexts. In addition to this broad definition of heritage language education, however, there is also a more narrow and specific meaning. In the United States, the term “heritage language education” has been used since the 1990s to refer to “foreign” language instruction for students who have prior home or community-based exposure to this language (Valdés 2005). Simplifying somewhat, the broad definition includes all instructional programs in which the heritage language primarily is the medium of instruction; in contrast, within the narrow definition the heritage language tends to be

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the object of instruction. Of course, educational programs that use the heritage language as the medium of instruction might also have a second language or language arts component. In this chapter, we focus on heritage language education narrowly defined. The field of heritage language education is one of the fastest growing areas of second language acquisition and educational linguistics research and pedagogy. Instructional programs ranging from single classes to multi-course tracks for heritage students exist in pockets across the United States, sometimes with distinct heritage language courses for students with varying degrees of productive and receptive abilities. Active lines of scholarship address the linguistic and affective characteristics of heritage language learners; heritage language learning processes; discourses surrounding heritage languages and students in classrooms and teaching materials; and heritage students’ educational needs and the pedagogical approaches that can best meet them, among other theoretical and applied topics. In addition to providing a brief overview of the field, we analyze the language ideologies embodied in this educational and research paradigm. We argue that although the roots of heritage language education are intertwined with minority language and civil rights movements, offering special ‘foreign language’ classes for heritage speakers does not challenge the established linguistic hierarchies that frame monolingualism in the majority language as the norm and relegate minority languages (and their speakers) to the margins. Hence, to some extent, the term heritage language education as well as the scholarship and practice surrounding it are complicit in the construction of heritage speakers as an aberration. These ideological forces, we suggest, help to explain why heritage language education, both as a field of scholarship and as instructional programming for learners, remains marginalized, underfunded, and often an after-thought within the United States.

Historical Perspectives The social and political struggles of ethnic and regional minorities and Indigenous communities around the world have brought attention to minority language issues, including language discrimination, access to public services, governmental representation, and educational policy. Since the 1960s, heritage language activists have intensified calls for mother tongue education and bilingual education to allow for more equitable educational opportunities for minority language students, as well as to promote minority language maintenance. As a result of such activism, together with a substantial body of research documenting the individual and societal benefits of mother tongue education, recent decades have seen growing international recognition of the importance of education in students’ home languages (see García and Woodley, this volume, for a discussion of bilingual education). However, despite widespread scholarly agreement regarding the academic, cognitive, and social benefits of mother tongue education, and of multilingual education more broadly, program creation and implementation are constrained by context-specific language ideologies and educational policies (Hornberger 2005). In the United States, for instance, the strength of the one language–one nation ideology and the concomitant suspicion of multilingualism, together with a vocal anti-immigrant movement, have led to federal and state educational policies that increasingly favor English-only education for minority language speakers (Wright 2007; Gándara and Rios-Aguilar 2012). In such contexts, instruction in languages other than English is largely restricted to “foreign language instruction,” which, when available, is often limited to the secondary and post-secondary settings. Even these meager offerings have seen limited support, despite political lip service to the importance of linguistic competence for 21st-century competitiveness.

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The restriction and elimination of mother tongue and bilingual education in the U.S. has coincided with exponential growth in heritage language instruction and research. This apparent paradox can be understood through consideration of the ideological differences between these two pedagogical models—both of which are designed for students who speak nonEnglish languages at home. Bilingual education is most common at the elementary school level and employs a non-English language to teach academic content during a significant portion of the school day. Bilingual education, and bilingualism more broadly, have received a great deal of negative attention in public discourse, and are often portrayed as impeding the assimilation and scholastic achievement of minority language children, fostering divisiveness, and serving the interests of minority leaders more than those of minority language children (Crawford 1998). In contrast, heritage language education programs are most commonly found in secondary and post-secondary foreign language settings. Because they are limited to foreign language classes, which typically meet for a few hours each week, heritage language programs do not involve a reduction in English-language instructional time, nor do they involve the teaching of core content in a non-English language. Even community-based heritage language schools, which often operate more like mother tongue educational programs, providing cultural as well as linguistic content, typically hold classes in the evening or on weekends, outside of normal school hours, and thus complement rather than replace the students’ regular education in English. Thus, unlike bilingual education, which is seen as threatening the hegemony of English, heritage language education leaves the English-only educational paradigm largely intact (Leeman 2010). This confluence of forces, on one hand, has resulted in restricted options for bilingual schooling, and on the other, has contributed to the rise of heritage language education as a field in the United States. Another factor contributing to the prominence of the United States as a site of heritage language education is that the mostly widely spoken minority language in the country is also the most commonly taught foreign language. Almost 13% of the population over five years of age speaks Spanish at home, more than twice the percentage of all other non-English languages combined (American Community Survey 2011). With respect to foreign language instruction, post-secondary enrollments in Spanish as a second language surpassed those of all other languages in the 1970s (Draper and Hicks 2002), having already done so at the high school level before mid-century (Snyder, Tan, and Hoffman 2005). Not surprisingly, specialized instruction for heritage speakers first emerged in Spanish. Similar to struggles for Spanish mother tongue and bilingual education in primary education, calls for Spanish as a heritage language instruction at the post-secondary level were linked to the Chicano and Puerto Rican rights movements, as students enrolled in college courses to enhance their knowledge of what was seen as the language of Latina/o identity and political consciousness (Leeman and Martínez 2007). Scholars and educators recognized that students who had grown up in Spanish-speaking homes had different linguistic and pedagogical needs than their monolingual English-speaking classmates for whom foreign language instruction was tailored, and developed materials and teaching practices specifically for what were frequently called “bilingual,” “native speaker,” or “Spanish-speaking students” (Valdés 2005). Interest in heritage language education grew in the 1980s and 1990s, with the term “heritage student” adopted within the foreign language teaching profession following the 1996 publication of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages’ Standards for Foreign Language Learning (Valdés 2005). The growth of heritage language education as a field is clearly related to demographic shifts, migration, and globalization, as students enrolled in foreign language classes are increasingly likely to have home or community experience with multiple languages. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2011, almost 22% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 spoke

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a language other than English at home, with roughly 72% of these children speaking Spanish (American Community Survey 2011). Moreover, recent years have seen an expansion of second language offerings at the postsecondary level, and courses in ‘less commonly taught languages’ often include heritage speakers of those languages, thus broadening the interest in heritage language education beyond Spanish. For instance, approximately 90% of students in college-level Korean language courses are heritage speakers (Lee and Shin 2008). The years following 9/11 saw a heightened awareness of military, intelligence, and national security agencies’ needs for individuals proficient in ‘critical’ languages such as Arabic and Hindi, among others. Researchers have suggested that the most efficient means of meeting these needs is not to rely on second language education but to develop the proficiency of heritage speakers, thus fueling even greater interest in heritage language education generally, and for languages other than Spanish in particular (Van Deusen-Scholl 2003; Wiley 2007). Another important shift in recent decades concerns the framing of heritage languages. Whereas discourses surrounding early heritage language programs tended to emphasize the affective and cultural importance of heritage language maintenance for students, the dominant discourses in the 21st century tend to stress job market advantages for individuals as well as the security and commercial interests of the nation-state (Leeman and Martínez 2007). This trend was already evident in both foreign and heritage language instruction at the end of the last century, but it became more pronounced post-9/11, as military, intelligence, and national agencies stressed their need for individuals proficient in ‘critical’ languages. Discourses of international competitiveness and national security are abundant in recent heritage language education initiatives of agencies such as the Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages, the National Foreign Language Center, and the National Heritage Language Resource Center, many of which stress the instrumental value of the nation’s heritage language ‘resources’ (Ricento 2005).

Core Issues and Key Findings Characteristics of Heritage Language Students In addition to disagreement regarding the definitions of “heritage language” and “heritage language education,” scholarly debate also exists around who is a “heritage language learner.” While some researchers include anyone with a familial, ethnic, or identity connection to the heritage language (independent of linguistic ability), others reserve this term for students who have some degree of linguistic competence in the language. Within the field, there is often an assumption that heritage students have at least some receptive or productive proficiency in the language (Bale 2010). Even so, there is tremendous diversity among heritage students in terms of their experiences with the heritage language, as well as in their linguistic abilities. Heritage students include immigrants and members of Indigenous groups, as well as children and descendants of immigrants. Some have had extensive education in the heritage language, either domestically or abroad, while others have had none. Their linguistic backgrounds and familial language practices are also varied. For example, some heritage students hail from monolingual heritage language households, while others come from homes where the majority language dominates. There is also great variability in heritage language educational experiences, availability of heritage language reading materials, and opportunities for heritage language use.

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Not surprisingly, heritage students’ linguistic abilities are also heterogeneous. The earliest and most influential line of work examining the characteristics of the language spoken by heritage language speakers is that of Carmen Silva-Corvalán, who analyzed language change and variation among Spanish-English bilinguals or English-dominant-heritage language speakers of Spanish in Los Angeles (1986; 1994a; 1994b). Silva-Corvalán’s research, and the subsequent work inspired by it, explored the (often combined) impact of “incomplete acquisition” of the heritage language; attrition (individual language loss, typically through disuse); and language contact. Silva-Corvalán’s findings suggested a continuum of bilingual proficiency among Spanish-speakers in Los Angeles, with fully proficient speakers at one end, and those who are restricted to “emblematic” uses of Spanish that serve primarily to perform a Latina/o identity, on the other. In one of the relatively few heritage language education studies to look comparatively across language groups, Carreira and Kagan (2011) surveyed 1,732 learners of 22 different heritage languages from different areas of the United States. Their findings suggested a general profile of heritage language learners as students who have (1) acquired English in early childhood, after acquiring the heritage language; (2) relatively strong aural/oral skills but limited literacy skills; and (3) limited exposure to the heritage outside the home. In surveys and interviews with 20 beginning-level Spanish heritage language learners, Beaudrie and Ducar (2005) found that although most participants had ample opportunities to overhear Spanish, few spoke it with their parents or other relatives. Thus, while recent immigrants might have greater proficiency in the heritage language than the national language, students who are generations removed from immigration often have little or no productive ability in the heritage language (Beaudrie 2009). Another frequently documented characteristic of heritage students is the tendency to suffer from linguistic insecurity or shame regarding their heritage language abilities (Abdi 2011; Basham and Fathman 2008; Beaudrie and Ducar 2005; Curtin 2007). Heritage speakers often face a double stigma in that they speak a minority language and they speak a non-prestige, low-status, contact variety of that language. In addition to this research describing the characteristics of bilinguals and heritage language speakers in their own right (or by implicitly comparing them to monolingual native speakers), other work has investigated similarities and differences between heritage speakers and second language learners, or among different types of heritage learners. For example, Au (2008) reported that heritage speakers showed advantages in phonology, but not in morphosyntax, a finding consistent with the observations of numerous language educators. Further, many heritage speakers have not had formal instruction, and thus are less likely to have acquired metalinguistic knowledge or literacy in the heritage language. One additional difference between heritage students and (advanced) second language students is that the latter might have acquired academic registers in the second language but be less adept at negotiating various social situations in that language, while the former might be comfortable conversing with friends and family but have less control of linguistic registers associated with public or formal settings. While these generalizations resonate with many in the field, Kondo-Brown’s research problematizes the simple dichotomy between heritage student and second language learners. KondoBrown (2005) compared the Japanese grammatical knowledge, listening, and reading skills, and self-assessed use and competencies of four groups of students of Japanese: (a) students with at least one Japanese-speaking parent, (b) students with a Japanese-speaking grandparent, (c) students of Japanese descent without Japanese-speaking parents or grandparents, and (d) students of non-Japanese descent from non-Japanese-speaking families. She found that only those students with at least one Japanese-speaking parent performed significantly differently from the others. Kondo-Brown’s work underscores that low proficiency heritage 214

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learners’ linguistic abilities might not always differ from those of second language learners (see also Lynch 2008).

Heritage Students’ Pedagogical Needs and Best Educational Practices Given these characteristics of heritage students, heritage language education has emphasized the development of literacy skills in the heritage language. In addition, because many heritage students speak less prestigious varieties of the heritage language (e.g., contact varieties with influence from the majority language, or varieties associated with rural areas or socioeconomically disadvantaged groups), many heritage language educators have seen “dialect acquisition” of the prestige variety as a key goal. Valdés (1995) delineates the four goals of Spanish heritage language instruction as: (1) Spanish language maintenance, (2) acquisition of the prestige variety of Spanish, (3) the expansion of the bilingual range, and (4) the transfer of literacy skills. However, many heritage students are less interested in acquiring an international “standard” language variety than in developing their proficiency in local varieties (Ducar 2008; Leeman, Rabin, and RománMendoza 2011). Other heritage students’ motivation is to develop their ethnic identity or strengthen ties to the culture(s) associated with the heritage language (Jensen and Llosa 2007; Lee and Shin 2008; Wong and Xiao 2010). Another goal of some heritage language programs is to foster students’ language awareness and sociolinguistic knowledge. For example, Carreira (2000) calls for heritage language education to help students to understand linguistic variation and the contextual nature of linguistic hierarchies that favor some language varieties or linguistic features at the expense of others. Researchers and educators adopting a critical approach argue that students benefit from understanding the social and political implications of linguistic hierarchies (Correa 2011; Leeman 2005; Martínez 2003; Villa 2002). Discussing the connection of language and identity, Hornberger and Wang (2008, 15) note that “it would also help [students] to understand that multiple memberships are necessary and possible in their negotiation of self-identity and empowerment.” Student empowerment is also stressed in Leeman’s (2005) call for heritage language educators to promote students’ critical agency in deciding when, and whether, to conform to the norms of prestige varieties. Early heritage pedagogies often adopted a deficit orientation regarding students’ linguistic competence and sought to “improve” heritage speakers’ language by eradicating nonstandard linguistic features and replacing them with more prestigious forms (Valdés 1981; 2005). While this negative framing of students’ language varieties and practices is still too common, there is growing consensus that educators should value students’ home experiences and language(s). For instance, based on their research with 15 adult heritage language learners of Alaskan Athabaskan languages, Basham and Fathman (2008) recommend that educators learn about the life experiences of their students, their attitudes, and their abilities, and carefully consider these in designing adult programs. For these learners in particular, “it is important to show latent speakers what they already know and to give them confidence in their ability to reactivate their latent knowledge, speak their heritage language and ultimately pass it on to others” (593). As for instructional practices, Martínez (2003) proposes specific in-class activities designed to help students explore community language practices and linguistic variation. In line with critical pedagogical approaches, Leeman (2005) advocates bringing students’ home language practices into the classroom and argues that the in-class discussion of non-prestige varieties should include linguistic analysis of those varieties, rather than “translation” to prestige varieties or prescriptions of what to avoid. Further, educators are urged to engage students in the critical analysis of language ideologies and their consequences. 215

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In recent years, researchers have also explored ways of expanding the heritage language curriculum beyond traditional heritage language classes. For example, Martínez and Schwartz (2012) instituted the innovative Medical Spanish for Heritage Learners Program, which includes specialized training in medical Spanish as well as service learning in local clinics. A key element of the program is students’ consideration of language ideologies and the linguistic barriers to medical care. Providing students with opportunities to combat linguistic injustice while simultaneously having their linguistic knowledge validated and valued outside of the classroom were also goals of a critical service learning program in which post-secondary students offered a Spanish heritage language program for elementary school children (Leeman, Rabin, and Román-Mendoza 2011).

Research Approaches Research on heritage languages education has increased dramatically in recent decades. Below we outline the general approaches and assumptions of these major lines of work, and discuss some studies that illustrate these strands. We divide this research into three broad categories: psycholinguistic studies of individual heritage speaker/learner capacities; sociolinguistic and cultural analyses of heritage language use and identity; and educational research on materials, policies, and pedagogies for heritage learners.

Psycholinguistic Approaches Psycholinguistically oriented research has analyzed various aspects of heritage language (HL) learners’ productive and receptive language skills, usually through comparison with native (monolingual) speakers, and sometimes with second language (L2) learners of that language. This body of work tends to focus exclusively on linguistic development measured quantitatively—for instance, through grammaticality judgments or standard second language elicitation tasks. One significant line of inquiry has addressed whether HL speakers are “linguistically superior” to L2 learners and, if so, whether this advantage is limited to phonology or extends to morpho-syntactic features of language. For instance, Montrul (2010) compared 24 Spanish L2 learners and 24 Spanish HL learners’ knowledge of clitic pronouns and word order to examine this claim. Results from an oral production task, a written grammaticality judgment task, and a speeded comprehension task indicated that HL learners, overall, seemed to possess more nativelike knowledge of Spanish than their L2 counterparts. In other words, the “advantage” of HL learners, in this case, was not limited to phonology, as past work had suggested (cf. Au 2008). By including heritage language participants, this psycholinguistic research builds on and potentially contributes to the well established body of cognitively oriented second language acquisition research, which had, until recently, focused almost exclusively on the acquisition of second languages by monolinguals. Yet this approach, while offering detailed linguistic analyses of development and differences across learner types, has tended to assume a single monolingual prestige variety of international Spanish to which all learners aspire.

Sociolinguistic Approaches and Cultural Identity A second, more methodologically diverse, body of work has investigated identity construction and development among HL learners, often drawing from qualitative, ethnographic, or interpretive data and analysis. Much of this work seeks to gain deeper understanding of how learners 216

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conceptualize themselves in relation to language and culture and, in some cases, how learners’ identity stances shape individual investment in language learning. Wong and Xiao (2010), for instance, conducted interviews with 64 heritage language students of Mandarin with varied dialect backgrounds in order to explore how their identities were “produced, processed, and practiced in our postmodern world” (153). Through their qualitative, inductive analysis, they found that HL learners identified with an “imagined community” of Chinese speakers, with some heritage language dialect speakers adopting the dominant Mandarin to maintain, or even reinterpret, their own identities. Another interesting strand of sociolinguistic research, such as Dressler’s (2010) case study of German HL learners, has identified “reluctant” HL learners who decline to identify with the heritage language. This research highlights the importance of expertise, affiliation, inheritance, and cultural artifacts in learner identification. Other studies have examined the language ideologies embodied in heritage language teaching materials, classroom interactions, and departmental discourses (e.g., Leeman and Martínez 2007; Showstack 2012; Valdés, Gonzalez, Garcia, and Marquez 2003). While the bulk of this sociolinguistic work is anthropologically oriented, some researchers have utilized quantitative techniques to examine how heritage language speakers identify with their HL. For instance, Chinen and Tucker (2005) distributed questionnaires designed to measure ethnic identity, attitudes towards Japanese school, and self-reported Japanese proficiency to 31 Japanese-American adolescents enrolled in a Saturday Japanese heritage school in Los Angeles. Chinen and Tucker (2005) reported that these positive attitudes towards Japanese identity and language proficiency were closely related. Their data also suggested that the older students had a stronger sense of Japanese identity than the younger students and that students experienced positive gains across all three measures in just six months.

Educational Research A third and highly methodologically diverse body of work has examined heritage language learning and teaching specifically within educational and classroom environments. This research varies widely in research assumptions, methods, and foci. Although some of these studies also fall within the categories of psycholinguistic or sociolinguistic research, we discuss them in this section because they focus specifically on identifying heritage learners’ educational needs and improving pedagogical materials and practices. In a study that sought to profile heritage students’ language experience, goals, and preferences, Jensen and Llosa (2007) surveyed 128 students enrolled in university heritage language classes (Korean, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese). Findings indicated that most students were interested in achieving university-level academic reading proficiency, yet reported spending little time reading in their heritage languages (despite the availability of print materials). Jensen and Llosa suggest this might be due to lack of transfer of literacy skills from English as well as students’ self-perceptions as slow readers. Most participants reported that their motivation was to maintain their cultural identity, and thus wished for more culturally and historically rich texts in the classroom. Other (more psycholinguistically oriented) work has compared heritage language and second language learners with respect to the effect of instruction. Potowski, Jegerski, and Morgan-Short (2009), for instance, attempted to extend the literature on the effect of instruction by investigating the impact of “processing instruction” (VanPatten 2004) and traditional output-based instruction on 127 learners’ acquisition of past subjunctive. While there were no statistically significant differences between the two instructional treatments, overall, second language learners seemed to make greater gains than HL participants. Potowski et al. (2009, 563) suggest that this may be due 217

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to the second language learners’ greater experience and familiarity with classroom instruction, or to the need for a different type of instruction “to oust” a previously acquired non-standard form (vs. acquiring a new form). One of the earliest researchers to critically analyze the assumptions and implicit messages of Spanish heritage language pedagogy was Valdés (1981), who condemned some HL programs’ framing of students’ home varieties as inferior and in need of ‘eradication.’ More recent studies have analyzed the erasure of linguistic variation in representations of Spanish and the reproduction of linguistic hierarchies that privilege prestige language varieties and monolingual practices (Ducar 2009; Leeman 2005; Martinez 2003; Villa 2002). Other valuable lines of educational research have evaluated placement and assessment (e.g., Fairclough 2012) or made recommendations for heritage language teacher training (e.g., Potowski 2002).

New Debates As noted at the outset of this chapter, the term “heritage language” has been variably defined and interpreted in both the academic literature and in educational practice. While this point has been widely recognized (e.g., Wiley 2001; Valdés 2001), it is only more recently that the ideological assumptions embedded in the term have received scholarly attention. Critical to understanding the position of both heritage language education programming and scholarship is the fact that across both the broad and narrow definitions, “heritage language” reifies monolingualism in the national language and concomitantly subordinates multilingual and minority language speakers. Adopting the broad definition of heritage language and designating certain individuals as “heritage students” implies that most students do not have knowledge of any other languages than the dominant ones. In reality, of course, many, if not most, of the children in the world grow up hearing more than one language and, indeed, about half of the world is bi- if not multilingual (Grosjean 1982). Recent demographic data suggest increasing numbers of international migrants (214 million in 2010, and as many as 405 million by 2050) (International Organization for Migration [IOM] 2010), many of whom will lead multilingual lives. The implicit assumptions about “heritage language education” are especially salient when “heritage language” is applied to highly multilingual contexts, such as those within many African nations. Brutt-Griffler and Makoni (2005), in particular, have noted that the term “heritage language” is largely foreign and meaningless in African contexts. They argue that in the countries in which it has been adopted, namely Zimbabwe and South Africa, “heritage language” has taken on political dimensions of xenophobia and is used to exclude or target certain groups of individuals. In the United States, heritage language instruction is highly constrained by federal and state educational policies, as well as monolingual ideologies. In particular, the strong emphasis on English-medium standardized tests dis-incentivizes schools to invest in quality heritage language instruction. The exclusive emphasis on English prevails, despite the lack of evidence that heritage language instruction negatively affects academic achievement or English language learning, as Wright (2007) demonstrated through eight years of research on heritage language programming for Khmer (Cambodian), Spanish, and Native American HL learners. Similarly, Little and McCarty note the growing pressures faced by Indigenous heritage language immersion programs, despite the evidence that heritage-language immersion is “superior to English-only instruction even for students who enter school with limited proficiency in the heritage language” (2006, i). According to García (2005), the focus on heritage language instruction has come about largely as a “fall-back” position, when the potential for bilingualism and biliteracy became restricted in light of federal policy. In her words, “in the U.S., we have gone from the two solitudes of our two languages 218

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in bilingualism, to our sole solitude in English, with whispers in other languages. Our multiple identities have been silenced, with one language identity reduced to that of a heritage” (605). Even settings dedicated to the teaching of minority languages reproduce many of the ideologies that privilege monolingual elite varieties and construct monolingual individuals as the unmarked norm (Leeman 2010; Valdés et al. 2003). One common way that this ideology is enacted is in the construction of second language sections as “normal” and heritage language tracks as “special.” In this light, it is hardly a coincidence that the term is most commonly used in contexts such as the United States, where monolingualism is the imagined norm (demographic realities aside). Considering “heritage” as a special designation only makes sense if all students are assumed to have no knowledge of the language being studied. Even within the “monolingual” U.S., fully one in five students comes from a home in which a language other than English is spoken (Institute for Education Sciences [IES] 2012). And in many U.S. school districts, the majority of students come from multilingual backgrounds (New York Times 2012), suggesting that in many cases, heritage students could be considered the norm and monolinguals the ones in need of ‘special’ tracks. These monolingual ideologies are also evident in heritage language research that tacitly posits monolingual acquisition as the norm and assumes that heritage language speakers that utilize non-prestige or contact forms or practices do so as a result of individual, cross-linguistic interference or a deficient or fossilized linguistic system. As Pascual y Cabo and Rothman (2012) point out in their critique of the notion of “incomplete acquisition,” heritage speakers’ experiences and the input to which they are exposed are simply different from the imagined monolingual norm, rather than inherently deficient. This view is supported by Polinsky’s (2008) case study of two heritage speakers of Russian, in which she found that the heritage speakers’ linguistic development continued, even with limited exposure to Russian. Such research underscores that heritage speakers’ linguistic systems are neither simply cases of fossilized first language acquisition nor determined solely by interference from a speaker’s dominant language.

Implications for Education This restrictive policy context raises substantial questions for future research. The reality is that relatively few heritage language students have access to heritage language instruction of any sort. Wiley (2005) notes the substantial gaps in course offerings, with large heritage language communities totally underserved. For instance, although there are more than one million Vietnamese, more than 1,200,000 Tagalog, and over 900,000 Korean speakers in the United States, we do not know of any heritage language offerings in these languages. The great majority of language offerings in U.S. schools (99%) are in a handful of languages (e.g., Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, Russian, and Mandarin), meaning that for the vast majority of heritage language students, no instruction at all is provided. Even for the largest heritage language group in the U.S., Spanish speakers, fewer than 2.1% are enrolled in courses aimed at heritage language learners in secondary school. One major question for the field, then, is how to continue to advance heritage language education in light of severe policy restrictions and corresponding financial cutbacks. Noting that “ideological spaces for multilingual language and education policies” have been closed in many contexts (e.g., the U.S. following NCLB in 2001), Hornberger (2005) suggests that it is essential for language educators and language users “to fill up ‘implementational’ spaces with multilingual educational practices, whether with intent to occupy ideological spaces opened up by policies or to prod actively toward more favorable ideological spaces in the face of restrictive policies. Ideological spaces created by language and education policies can be seen as carving 219

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out implementational spaces at classroom and community levels, but implementational spaces can also serve as wedges to pry open ideological ones” (606). In addition to too few heritage language programs, there are also too few high quality heritage language programs, and too little research on best practices. Kondo-Brown (2003) asserted more than a decade ago that the field of heritage language education faced three major challenges: lack of evaluation research that judges the effectiveness of special heritage tracks or programs offered at post-secondary institutions; problematic methodologies adopted in research that investigated the differences in linguistic skills of post-secondary heritage language and non-heritage language students and the social-psychological factors associated with the levels of heritage language proficiency among adult HL learners; and the urgent need for developing appropriate assessment tools for adult HL learners. We concur that these remain important directions for future research and advocacy. Yet while work on these issues specific to heritage language educational programming is pressing, concomitantly, we also argue that it is important to continue to challenge the linguistic hierarchy in which heritage language education is located. This work entails pointing out and correcting the monolingual biases in our instructional assumptions (e.g., that instruction be carried out entirely in one language with an idealized monolingual variety as the aim) (Cummins 2005), and also addressing the biases in our collective notions of who language learners are; what second, foreign, and heritage language education is; and how it should be practiced. Core assumptions within the field of educational linguistics (e.g., native speaker, domain, speech community) have been critiqued and fallen into disuse in light of world events (e.g., globalization, transmigration) on one hand, and serious theoretical challenges on the other. The concept of ‘heritage language’ faces similar pressures. The field of educational linguistics increasingly grapples to address, both theoretically and empirically, the fact that many language leaners conduct their lives within highly diverse social and linguistic environments, with scholars striving to understand individual learners as dynamic, transnational, emergent multilinguals who utilize particular language varieties, registers, and styles for context-specific purposes. As heritage language programming is increasingly institutionalized, it is crucial for researchers and educators to recognize the complex multilingual lives, experiences, and ambitions of these learners.

Further Reading Beaudrie, S., and Fairclough, M. (Eds.) 2012. Spanish as a heritage language in the US: State of the science. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Brinton, D., Kagan, O., and Backhaus, S. (Eds.) 2008. Heritage language education: A new field emerging. New York: Routledge. Colombi, M. C., and Alarcón, F. (Eds.) 1997. La enseñanza del español a hispanohablantes: Praxis y teoría. Boston: Houghton Miflin. Heritage Language Journal. Retrievable at http://hlj.ucla.edu Peyton, J. K., Ranard, D. A., and McGinnis, S. (Eds.) 2001. Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

References Abdi, K. 2011. She really only speaks English: Positioning, language ideology, and heritage language learners. Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 67(2), 161–90. American Community Survey. 2011. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Au, T. K. F. 2008. Salvaging heritage languages. In: D. M. Brinton, O. Kagan, and S. Backhaus, eds., Heritage language education: A new field emerging. New York: Routledge, 149–64. 220

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Bale, J. 2010. International comparative perspectives on heritage language education policy research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30(1), 42–65. Basham, C., and Fathman, A. K. 2008. The latent speaker: Attaining adult fluency in an endangered language. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(4), 577–97. Beaudrie, S. 2009. Spanish receptive bilinguals: Understanding the cultural and linguistic profile of learners from three different generations. Spanish in Context, 6(1), 85–104. Beaudrie, S., and Ducar, C. 2005. Beginning level university heritage programs: Creating a space for all heritage language learners. Heritage Language Journal, 3(1), 1–26. Brinton, D., Kagan, O., and Bauckus, S. (Eds.) 2008. Heritage language education: A new field emerging. New York: Routledge. Brutt-Griffler, J., and Makoni, S. 2005. The use of heritage language: An African perspective. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 609–12. Carreira, M. 2000. Validating and promoting Spanish in the United States: Lessons from linguistic science. Bilingual Research Journal, 24(4), 423–42. Carreira, M., and Kagan, O. 2011. The results of the national heritage language survey: Implications for teaching, curriculum design and professional development. Foreign Language Annals, 44(1), 40–64. Chinen, G. K., and Tucker, R. 2005. Heritage language development: Understanding the roles of ethnic identity and Saturday school participation. Heritage Language Journal, 3(1), 27–59. Correa, M. 2011. Advocating for critical pedagogical approaches to teaching Spanish as a heritage language: Some considerations. Foreign Language Annals, 44(2), 308–20. Crawford, J., 1998. Ten common fallacies about bilingual education. Digest for the ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, 51–56. Cummins, J., 2005. A proposal for action: Strategies for recognizing heritage language competence as a learning resource within the mainstream classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 585–92. Curtin, M. 2007. Differential bilingualism: Vergüenza and pride in a Spanish sociolinguistics class. In: N. M. Antrim, ed., Seeking identity: Language in society (pp. 10–31). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. De Bot, K., and Gorter, D. 2005. A European perspective on heritage languages. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 612–16. Draper, J. B., and Hicks, J. H. 2002. Foreign language enrollments in public secondary schools. Alexandria, VA: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Dressler. R., 2010. “There is no space for being German”: Portraits of willing and reluctant heritage language learners of German. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), Fall Issue, 1–21. Ducar, C. M. 2008. Student voices: The missing link in the Spanish heritage language debate. Foreign Language Annals, 41(3), 415–33. Ducar, C. 2009. The sound of silence: Spanish heritage textbooks’ treatment of language variation. In: M. Lacorte and J. Leeman, eds., Español en Estados Unidos y otros contextos de contacto: Sociolingüística, ideología y pedagogía. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 347–367. Duff, P., and Li, D. 2009. Indigenous, minority, and heritage language education in Canada: Policies, contexts, and issues. Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 66(1), 1–8. Fairclough, M. 2012. A working model for assessing Spanish heritage language learners’ proficiency through a placement exam. Heritage Language Journal 9(1), 121–38. Fishman, J. A. 2001. 300-plus years of heritage language education in the United States. In J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard, and S. McGinnis, (eds.), Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource, (pp. 81–98). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems. Gándara, P., and Rios-Aguilar, C. (Eds.) 2012. (Re)Conceptualizing and (re)evaluating language policies for English language learners: The case of Arizona [Special Issue]. Language Policy, 11(1). García, O. 2005. Positioning heritage languages in the U.S. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 601–5. Grosjean, F. 1982. Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hornberger, N. H. 2005. Opening and filling up implementational and ideological spaces in heritage language education. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 605–9. Hornberger, N. H., and Wang, S. C. 2008. Who are our heritage language learners? In: D.M. Brinton, O. Kagan and S. Backhaus, eds., Heritage language education: a new field emerging. New York: Routledge, 3–35. Institute for Education Sciences [IES]. 2012. Fast facts: English language learners. Retrieved from http://nces. ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=96 International Organization for Migration [IOM]. 2010. World migration report 2010—The future of migration: Building capacities for change. Retrieved from http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/index.php?main_page= product_infoandproducts_id=653 221

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Jensen, L., and Llosa, L. 2007. Heritage language reading in the university: A survey of students’ experiences, strategies, and preferences. Heritage Language Journal, 5(1), 98–116. Kondo-Brown, K. 2003. Heritage language instruction for post-secondary students from immigrant backgrounds. Heritage Language Journal, 1, 1–25. Kondo-Brown, K. 2005. Differences in language skills: heritage language learner subgroups and foreign language learners. The Modern Language Journal, 8(9), 563–81. Lee, J. and Shin, S. 2008. Korean heritage language education in the United States: The current state, opportunities, and possibilities. Heritage Language Journal, 6, 1–20. Leeman, J. 2005. Engaging critical pedagogy: Spanish for native speakers. Foreign Language Annals, 38(1), 35–45. Leeman, J, 2010. The sociopolitics of heritage language education. In: S. Rivera-Mills and D. Villa, eds., Spanish of the US Southwest: A language in transition. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 309–17. Leeman, J., and Martínez, G. 2007. From identity to commodity: Ideologies of Spanish in heritage language textbooks. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 4(1), 35–65. Leeman, J., Rabin, L., and Román-Mendoza, E. 2011. Critical pedagogy beyond the classroom walls: Community service-learning and Spanish heritage language education. Heritage Language Journal, 8(3), 1–21. Little, M. E. R., and McCarty, T. L. 2006. Language planning challenges and prospects in Native American communities and schools. Tempe: Education Policy Research Unit, Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University. Lynch, A. 2008. The linguistic similarities of Spanish heritage and second language learners. Foreign Language Annals, 41, 252–81. Martínez, G. 2003. Classroom based dialect awareness in heritage language instruction: A critical applied linguistic approach. Heritage Language Journal 1(1), 1–14. Martínez, G., and Schwartz, A. 2012. Elevating “low” language for high stakes: A case for critical, communitybased learning in a medical Spanish for heritage learners program. Heritage Language Journal, 9(2), 37–49. Montrul, S. 2010. How similar are L2 learners and heritage speakers? Spanish clitics and word order. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 167–207. New York Times. 2011, December 25. Immigration in the classroom. Retrieved from http://projects.nytimes. com/immigration/enrollment Pascual y Cabo, D., and Rothman, J. 2012. The (Il)logical problem of heritage speaker bilingualism and incomplete acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 33(4), 450–455. Polinsky, M. 2008. Heritage language narratives. In D. M. Brinton, O. Kagan, and S. Backhaus, eds., Heritage language education: A new field emerging. New York: Routledge, 149–64. Potowski, K., 2002. Experiences of Spanish heritage speakers in university foreign language courses and implications for teacher training. ADFL Bulletin, 33(3), 35–42. Potowski, K., Jegerski, J., and Morgan-Short, K. 2009. The effects of instruction on linguistic development in Spanish heritage language speakers. Language Learning, 59(3), 537–79. Ricento, T. 2005. Problems with the ‘language-as-resource’ discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the USA. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–68. Showstack, R. E. 2012. Symbolic power in the heritage language classroom: How Spanish heritage speakers sustain and resist hegemonic discourses on language and cultural diversity. Spanish in Context, 9(1), 1–26. Silva-Corvalán, C. 1986. Bilingualism and language change: The extension of estar in Los Angeles Spanish. Language, 62, 587–608. Silva-Corvalán, C. 1994a. Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press. Silva-Corvalán, C. 1994b. The gradual loss of mood distinctions in Los Angeles Spanish. Language Variation and Change, 6, 255–72. Snyder, T. D., Tan, A. G., and Hoffman, C. M. 2005. Digest of education statistics. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Valdés, G. 1981. Pedagogical implications of teaching Spanish to the Spanish-speaking in the United States. In: G. Valdés, A. G. Lozano, and R. García-Moya, eds., Teaching Spanish to the Hispanic bilingual. New York: Teacher’s College, 3–20. Valdés, G. 1995. The teaching of minority languages as “foreign” languages: pedagogical and theoretical challenges. Modern Language Journal, 79(3), 299–328. Valdés, G. 2001. Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities. In: J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard, and S. McGinnis, eds., Heritage languages in America: preserving a national resource. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 37–77. Valdes, G. 2005. Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: Opportunities lost or seized? Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 410–26. 222

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Valdés, G., Gonzalez, S. V., Garcia, D. L., and Marquez, P. 2003. Language ideology: The case of Spanish in departments of foreign languages. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 7(1), 3–26. Van Deusen-Scholl, N. 2003. Toward a definition of heritage language: Sociopolitical and pedagogical considerations. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(3), 211–30. VanPatten, B., ed. 2004. Processing instruction: Theory, research, and commentary. New York: Routledge. Villa, D. 2002. The sanitizing of US Spanish in academia. Foreign Language Annals, 35, 221–30. Wiley, T. 2001. On defining heritage languages and their speakers. In: J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard, and S. McGinnis, eds., Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 29–36. Wiley, T. 2005. The reemergence of heritage and community language policy in the U.S. national spotlight. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 594–601. Wiley, T. 2007. Beyond the foreign language crisis: Toward alternatives to xenophobia and national security as bases for U.S. language policies. The Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 252–55. Wong, K. F., and Xiao,Y. 2010. Diversity and difference: Identity issues of Chinese heritage language learners from dialect backgrounds. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 153–87. Wright, W. E. 2007. Heritage language programs in the era of English-Only and No Child Left Behind. Heritage Language Journal, 5(1), 1–26.

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17 Disentangling Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Education The Indonesian Context Setiono Sugiharto

As the first foreign language taught in schools, English has been extensively taught and learned in Indonesia not only in formal contexts, but also in informal ones. The flurry of interest in the English language education in Indonesia has recently prompted the government (i.e., the Ministry of Education) to issue a policy that endorses the so-called “international pilot project state-run schools” known locally as Rintisan Sekolah Berstandar International (RSBI), the eventual goal of which is to establish international standard schools. The legal basis that strengthens its operation is Article 50, paragraph 3, of Law No. 20/2003 on the System of National Education. This controversial policy was made concomitant with the inexorable increase of privately run schools (primary, secondary, junior, and high schools) bearing various labels, such as international standard and international curriculum. The word international used in these schools has been taken to mean the following: (1) the use of the English language as the sole medium of instruction and interaction in schools, (2) the use of imported curricula and textbooks (mainly from the U.K., the U.S., and Australia), and (3) the assessment and certification system approved and legalized by the schools affiliating in these countries. Interestingly, while the campaign of the English-only policy nationwide through the “internationalization” of the state-run schools has been inveighed and opposed by local educational practitioners and local education pundits via a legal action, the government has been adamant and insisted on endorsing the policy. Clearly, all of these indicate that Indonesia suffers from what Stephen Krashen (2006) dubs “English fever”—an overwhelming desire to learn and acquire English. In this chapter, I will first discuss the genesis of English language education in the Indonesian context. Then, using Phillipson’s (1992, 15) notion of linguistic imperialism (a sub-type of linguicism) as “a particular theory for analyzing relations between dominant and dominated cultures, and specifically the way English language learning has been promoted,” I will argue that the Indonesian government’s efforts to “internationalize” local state-run schools via the use of English as a sole medium of instruction has perpetuated the idea of Western and European hegemonic pedagogy by facilitating its infiltration in the national language education through the policy it has made. Two of the most conspicuously devastating consequences of the fervent promotion of the English learning in the national education will also be discussed: (1) the 224

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creation of social stratification, inequality of access to education, and the marginalization of children from low income families; (2) the depreciation of native language education, which poses a serious threat of the extinction of Indonesia indigenous languages; and (3) resistance against the national language planning. Finally, I will discuss two conflicting camps related to how the national education should be grounded. To this end, I will demonstrate that critically interrogating the presence of English hegemony in education is difficult, as this attempt is severely constrained by deeply rooted and entrenched traditional values and norms (particularly Javanese philosophies) that permeate people’s everyday lives and govern their demeanors. The present study is ethnographic in its approach, as it is situated in the periphery context (i.e., Indonesia) and attempts to offer “the naturalistic-ecological perspective” (Nunan 1992, 53). To unravel the dominance of English hegemonic power in educational system in Indonesia, I collected the data using two broad techniques: • •

Observable techniques: participant observation (i.e., field notes). Non-observable techniques: archival materials, such as documents issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, which include the national curricula of English language teaching and the written policy on the establishment of the international pilot-project state schools, and interviews with local and foreign language experts.

These data were analyzed by exposing ideas that show the dominance of English hegemonic force in the Indonesian context. The interpretation of the results of analysis will be informed by Phillipson’s (1992) three arguments in linguistic imperialist discourse: (1) English-intrinsic argument, (2) English-extrinsic argument, and (3) English-functional argument. The focus of the analysis in this chapter is not only on a macro-societal aspect (i.e., a global issue on the creation of power inequality by the governmental and cultural institutions on issues related to education), but also on the micro-societal aspects (i.e., the inequality of power taking place in school contexts).

Historical Perspectives The importance of English education in Indonesia has long been recognized since the Dutch colonial period (Dardjowidjojo 1997; Jazadi 2004; Mistar 2005). Historical documents recorded that English was taught to the native Indonesians in 1914 (Dardjowidjojo 1997). However, because it was not the language of the colonialists, English was used only as a school subject, rather than as the medium of classroom instruction and communication. In other words, English was intended only for academic purposes, rather than for serving any social function. Since then, the use of English as a school subject has continued and been mandated by the Indonesian Education and Culture Ministry through the adoption of English teaching curricula primarily from western countries, most notably from the United States. Dardjowidjojo (2000) and Sumardi (1993) have recorded that Indonesia has adopted several methods or approaches from U.S. English teaching curricula. Over the years, they have included the Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Audiolingual Method, and Communicative Language Teaching. Apart from these methods, a competency-based language teaching approach was also used, but its employment was relatively short-lived. Though undergoing several alterations in the curriculum, the aim of English teaching in Indonesia remained constant: to equip students with academic preparedness. In addition to the recognition of the importance of English throughout education, the language has been deemed the most important foreign language. This is unlike Indonesia’s neighboring 225

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countries, such as Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia, where English is considered a second language and in which local varieties of English have developed. Thus, Indonesia belongs to the Kachruian “Expanding Circle,” in that it relies heavily on the developed norms of both British and American English (Kachru 1992). In its development, English language education in Indonesia has hitherto undergone a radical shift of orientation. The goal was no longer to assist students to attain academic success, as in passing the examination and reading books and references written in English, but to make them able to perform interactional functions in all domains of life. This orientation shift is motivated primarily by the gained prominence of English as a global language that must be mastered by the Indonesians, prompting the government to initiate the idea of internationalizing local schools through the promotion of English as the medium of classroom instruction and interaction. The problem, however, is that the excessive promotion of English in Indonesia could bring about tremendous consequences inimical to the country’s ideology and sociopolitical context, as such a promotion unwittingly leads to the dominance of English hegemony. Given the absence of published studies that critically interrogate the practice of English language education in the Indonesian context, this chapter can help generate insights that contribute to our understanding of how linguistic imperialism operates in a foreign language context, as well as what implications it may have for educational linguistics.

Core Issues and Key Findings In this section, I will show how the dominance of English has seeped not only into governmental and cultural institutions (macro-societal), which create a power imbalance in issues related to education in general and English language education in particular, but also into schools (micro-societal), thus providing further evidence of linguicism in action (Phillipson 1992) or of linguistic hegemony experienced by the periphery communities in their daily lives (Canagarajah 1999). I then proceed to discuss the effects of this English hegemonic force on the equity of national education, the preservation of local languages, and resistance against the national language policy.

The Promotion of English Through Education in the Indonesian Context: Arguments of Linguistic Imperialist Discourse Phillipson (1992) proposes three important arguments that are used to legitimize English linguistic imperialism in the wider context of a hierarchy of languages. They encompass the Englishintrinsic argument (i.e., the appeal of the nature of the English language), or what English is; the English-extrinsic argument (i.e., the use of both material and immaterial resources derived from the center countries whose language is English), or what English has; and the English-functional argument (i.e., the potential of English in dealing with modern and globalized world), or what English does. Of these three arguments, the second and third arguments are often used to justify and legitimate the promotion and relevance of English in the educational policy-making in Indonesia. Both the English-functional and extrinsic arguments, for example, have been used as the basis for the development of international standard schools, which is evident in the following document: Kurikulum diperkaya dengan standard internasional, mutakhir, canggih sesuai perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi global. (The curriculum is enriched with the international standard and is advanced, sophisticated in line with the global science and technology.) 226

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Memiliki SDM (Sumber Daya Manusia) yang professional dan tangguh dengan manajemen yang dikembangkan secara professional. (To possess professional and strident human resources equipped with professionally developed management.) Didukung oleh sarana prasarana yang lengkap, relevan, mutakhir, canggih dan bertaraf internasional. (Supported with full, relevant, advanced, sophisticated, and internationally standardized infrastructures.) (Kebijakan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional, Direktorat Jenderal Mandikdasmen Kementrian Pendidikan Nasional, http://dikdas. kemdiknas.go.id/docs/Kebijakan-SBI.pdf) For one thing, there is diffidence among the Indonesian educational policy makers to resort exclusively to the national curriculum developed locally, thus prompting them to seek resources from other, more developed, English-speaking countries that they presume can enrich the available curriculum. However, the enrichment of local curricular contents with the internationally standardized ones seems to imply that the locally designed curriculum is less advanced, less sophisticated, and doesn’t accord with the development of global science and technology. For another, there is a sense that the education provided is inferior unless students are trained in schools that are equipped with professional human resources and supported with advanced, sophisticated, and internationally standardized infrastructures. Although the aforementioned statements mention no direct alignments to the need for English, such positive-sounding ascriptions as ‘international standard,’ ‘advanced,’ ‘sophisticated,’ ‘professional,’ and ‘global’ are meant to “credit English with real or potential access to modernization, science, technology, etc., with the capacity to unite people within a country and across nations, or with the furthering of international understanding” (Phillipson 1992, 272). The statements are also meant to glorify the adequacy of resources English has to support and justify the development of international standard schools. The similar arguments of linguistic imperialist discourse apply to the promotion of English literacy as manifested through the design of English teaching curriculum intended for high school students: Pendidikan bahasa Inggris harus dipandang sebaga usaha pengembangan literacy. Ini diperlukan sebab di negara yang berbahasa Inggris pun, para penutur asli harus bekerja keras untuk memperoleh kompetensi berbahasa Inggris tingkat tertentu. Pendidikan ini disebut sebagai literacy education yang diarahkan pada pengembangan kompetensi komunikatif. Ini dimaksudkan mendorong siswa untuk berpartisipasi dalam penciptaan berbagai teks bahasa Inggris. Pendidikan bahasa Inggris di Indonesia perlu mempertimbangkan macam teks yang menjadi target pendidikan literacy penutur asli. (English language education ought to be viewed as an attempt to develop literacy. This is needed because in English-speaking countries, the native speakers must work hard to attain a certain level of English competence. Such an education is called literacy education, which is geared to the development of communicative competence. This is intended to encourage students to participate in the creation of English texts. English language education in Indonesia needs to take into consideration a variety of texts that become the target of native speakers’ literacy education.) Ada tujuh prinsip pembelajaran bahasa yang berbasis literasi (literacy-based approach) yang dirumuskan oleh the New London Group (Kern 2000), yaitu: intrepretasi, konvensi, kolaborasi, pengetahuan budaya, memecahkan masalah, refleksi, dan menggunakan bahasa. Maksudnya, pengalaman pembelajaran yang dirancang hendaknya berdasarkan pertimbangan prinsip-prinsip di atas. (There are seven principles of literacy-based approach language learning formulated by the New London Group (Kern 2000), namely: interpretation, 227

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convention, collaboration, cultural knowledge, problem solving, reflection, and language use. This means that the designed learning experience should be based on the considerations of the above principles.) (Kurikilum 2004 Standard Kompetensi Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Sekolah Menengah Pertama dan Madrasah Tsanawiyah, Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2004, 18) The assumption here is that the adoption of the New London Group’s literacy-based approach not only offers an ‘ideal’ framework for literacy education (what English has), but also works universally in all contexts (what English does), including in Indonesia, and therefore needs to be infused in the teaching of English literacy for high school students. As such, the literacy model is believed to facilitate students’ literacy acquisition in English. Clearly, as the pedagogical norms are taken blithely from the country where English is the main language, it reflects a monolingualist orientation and exemplifies linguistic imperialism in action. The linguistic imperialist arguments are even most conspicuous in the mission statement of the Regional English Language Office (RELO), a cultural-educational organization operating under the auspices of the American Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia: The Regional English Language Office supports English teaching and learning in Indonesia. English competence brings greater opportunities in business, education, and communication, and closer ties with the United States, especially through State Department exchange programs such as Fulbright. (Regional English Language Office [RELO], http://jakarta.usembassy.gov/relo.html,) The Indonesian education practitioners’ and students’ dependence on English is further extended by the presence of such an organization, as it promises them that the ability to use English offers a bright future and grants access to easy business, education, and communication. Most importantly, the RELO can grant Indonesian students and teachers scholarships for pursuing further studies in the United States under the program called Fulbright, the goal of which is to instill in them a commitment to U.S. values and norms (see also Clachar 1998). Upon returning from their studies in the United States, the students are expected to manifest these norms and values through their professions. What is more, the organization provides easy access to material resources in the form of what it calls ‘professional materials’ needed by teachers, students, and researchers in Indonesia. Apart from these material resources, RELO also offers immaterial resources in the form of English-native teacher trainers who purportedly have the best technical know-how of the complexities of English pedagogical practices in the Indonesian contexts (Sugiharto 2009).

Schools as the Site for the Perpetuation of Linguistic Imperialist Discourse As the Indonesian education system is fully centralized, any policy issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture must be realized and implemented. The policy regarding the internationalization of local schools is no exception. In fact, while almost all private-run schools are racing to attract students by labeling themselves with ‘international standard,’ characterized by the use of English as the medium of instruction and by other imported material and immaterial resources, the state has legitimated the repressive function of English (see Phillipson 1992) by promoting the importance of English, primarily through internationalizing state-run schools. 228

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It is through schools that the process of domination and Western ideological reproduction is most tangible. An instance of this is the imposition of English-only policies, both in class and outside of class at school vicinities, between teachers and students and between students and students. Another conspicuous example is the strict imposition of the use of the dominant Western discourse in the teaching of writing in all levels of language proficiency. For example, Sugiharto (2007b; 2012a) observes that the teaching of writing and the textbooks used to teach this skill still cling heavily to and glorify the principles of the Current Traditional Rhetoric, which stresses the importance of rhetorical moves in texts, such as clarification, exemplification, process-analysis, cause-effect, and argumentation. Interestingly, despite the plethora of literature in second language writing that warns against the imperialistic forces of Western academic discourse (Spack 1997; Canagarajah 2002; Casanave 2004; Matsuda and Matsuda 2010), this dominant academic discourse still enjoys proliferation in the teaching of writing in classrooms and shapes the very constellation of the teaching of English composition landscape in Indonesia. All of these pedagogical practices attest to the monolingual orientation that brings linguistic imperialism into play.

Effects on the Equity in National Education When the Indonesian New Order regime reigned under then-President Soeharto (the second president of the Republic of Indonesia), equity in education became the top priority, with the compulsory learning program (known as program belajar) unveiled in Soeharto’s five-year development program. This program, aimed at curbing the illiteracy rates, was proven to be successful, which was evident in the sharp decline in illiteracy rates. During his administration, Soeharto emphasized the importance of equity in national education, which provided an opportunity for all Indonesians to enjoy access to education, particularly those living in remote villages. To realize his compulsory learning program for the Indonesian citizens, Soeharto established thousands of schools under the President Instruction as the legal basis. Sugiharto (2008a) recorded that in the period of 1982–1983 22,600 schools were built; 150,000 more were constructed in 1993–1994. Nevertheless, many of the policies of the national education system have changed dramatically since the demise of the New Order. With the Education and Culture Ministry issuing a policy for the establishment of international pilot project schools in Indonesia, the gap between the opulent and the needy has widened, giving rise to elitism in national education and class and social divisiveness. As this Ministry spends billions of rupiahs (hundreds of dollars) every year subsidizing the development of the RSBI (including its high operational costs), schools with the RSBI label could collect high tuition fees from students. Thus, it stands to reason that the targets of such schools are students from upper class socioeconomic backgrounds, because those students coming from lower classes simply cannot afford to enter these schools. This reality mirrors the fact that quality education in Indonesia has indeed become an exclusive and costly enterprise and can be enjoyed only by the rich. With unaffordable education fees, the poor have been marginalized and are unable to send their children to schools. Consequently, they force their children to work to make ends meet. In a stark contrast, schools in particular (both private- and stateowned) give privileges to students from well-off families, and have become “the regime of the rich” (Sugiharto 2011, 6). In fact, the policy of establishing the RSBI has been severely condemned by many Indonesian education specialists, as it has been deemed against the five principles of the State Ideology (known as Pancasila) and the Indonesian 1945 Constitution, which grants all Indonesian citizens (regardless of races, cultures, religions, ethnicities, and social backgrounds) to have equal access to quality national education. One of the noted, outspoken Indonesian education experts, H. A. R Tilaar, 229

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once filed a judicial review against the establishment of the RSBI to the Indonesian Constitutional court, arguing that “the RSBI is certainly against the mandate of our Constitution, and should be opposed because its establishment has been motivated primarily by Western’s neo-liberalism and isn’t grounded on our cultural norms and values” (Sugiharto 2012c). Another Indonesian education observer and linguist, Bambang Kaswanti Purwo, views the mushrooming of schools with the international label as symptomatic of the government deliberately inviting “neo-imperialism in local education” (personal communication, August 15, 2013). The initiation of setting up the RSBI creates a paradox, however. While the Indonesian government has pledged its allegiance to side with the less fortunate children by creating the “option for the poor” policy to ensure the Indonesian children to have access to education as mandated by the Constitution, the ambition of internationalizing state-owned schools nationwide has paved the way for generating the opposing “option for the rich” policy. The government’s endeavor to bolster the quality of national education through the internationalization of local schools indicates diffidence about reclaiming the wealth of local geniuses, long practiced by great pioneers in Indonesian national education, such as Ki Hadjar Dewantara, Mohammad Hatta, Mochtar Buchori, YB Mangunwijaya, and K. H. Dahlan, among others. While all these national education pioneers stressed the importance of upholding local wisdoms as the bases for the national education system, the system of national education at present is enmeshed in a neo-liberalist and capitalist ideology. This ideology has been observed emerging in the national education system, especially when the RSBI began operating in Indonesia, and when people (especially those from low income families) realized that, despite their constitutional rights to obtain an equal access to quality education, they could not afford to this quality education because of soaring school fees. Thus, education is treated as “an instrument for perpetuating social divisions and social injustices” (Stern 1983, 424).

Effects on the Preservation of Local Languages The fervent promotion of English through education has indubitably impinged upon the preservation of local languages. Known as an archipelagic country with some 746 local languages, Indonesia, which ranks second in terms of the number of local languages (the first being Papua New Guinea), is facing and continues to face a serious threat of local language extinction. Recent documentation by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) reveals that out of the figure above, 637 indigenous languages are in a state of endangerment, with their native speakers at less than 100,000. This number is a significant increase from the previous data, also documented by the SIL in the 90s, which revealed 111 endangered languages. Peter J. Silzer and Helja Heikkenen Clouse (1984) in their Index of Irian Jaya Languages: A Special Bulletin of Irian Jaya recorded that out of these 111 languages, nine languages have become extinct (i.e., Bapu, Dabe, Wares, Taworta, Waritai, among others), 32 languages are terminally endangered or moribund (among others Yoki and Pawi), and 70 languages are seriously endangered (among others Biak, Sentani, and Maibrat). In addition, local languages spoken in eastern Indonesia documented in the Alor and Pantar Project (from 2003–2007)—a project funded by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research, Leiden University, and Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Program—found that such languages as Klon (West Alor), Abui (Central Alor), and Taiwa (West Pantar) are on the verge of extinction. Other Indonesian local languages that are no longer spoken because of the decline in their native speakers (only 500 speakers) include Dayak languages (in West Kalimantan) such as Bukat, Punan, and Konyeh. Finally, languages spoken in Sulawesi (Tondano), South west Nusa (Tanimbar), and Sumatra (Alas and Ogan), as has been reported in 230

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Bahasa Daerah di Indonesia (Local Languages in Indonesia) published by the Indonesian Language Center, are no longer spoken. While there are numerous reasons accounting for the declined use of these indigenous languages among their native speakers (see, for example, Sugiharto 2007a, as well as a personal interview with Uri Tadmor in Sugiharto 2008c), the powerful force behind the potential local language extinction is native speakers’ attitude toward languages they consider modern, sophisticated, and prestigious. A long-time veteran researcher of Indonesian local languages from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, David Gill, observes that “in the eyes of many parents and public in general using local languages is less prestigious than using Indonesian and a much spoken international language such as English (Sugiharto 2012b). Sugiharto (2008b) observed that it was language indoctrination through the use of the Indonesian language, both as the medium of instruction and in interaction among learners in school, that contributes to the demise of local languages. If we don’t restrict our understanding of the notion of linguistic imperialism simply to English, the indoctrination of the Indonesian language through schooling for the sake of upholding unity can be considered a form of linguistic imperialism—that is, the imposition of the dominant language (i.e., Indonesian) on the minority languages (i.e., Indonesian local languages). But now, the Indonesian government’s promotion of the use of the English language through the internationalization of schools and the exponentially rising numbers of privately run local schools that strictly impose the English-only policy pose significant threats not only to local languages, but also to the Indonesian language as the official and national language. Worse, the promotion of English is enthusiastically done via the strict English-only policy in scholarly journal publications. This policy requires that scholarly journals published either by universities or by academic associations be written in English, so that they can be granted sponsorships from the government to reach a wider international readership. This policy clearly discourages those who have less competence in writing in standard academic English, but probably have greater proficiency when writing in their own native languages. By implication, while locally written journals have begun to draw the attention of international readers, the policy denigrates the importance of preserving Indonesian and its vernacular languages, contributing to their endangerment in the long terms. It is important to highlight that although most local schools claiming to use international standards (expatriate teaching staff and the use of imported curriculum and assessments) are promoting bilingual education, in reality, teacher–student interactions and student–student interactions are conducted in the English language. Many schools masquerade their identity as exclusive schools with the use of English by offering bilingual education because they need to respect students with multilingual and multicultural backgrounds. In practice, however, English is more favored than the student’s own native languages, and most parents demand that their children be exposed to English as much as and as early as possible (see also Djiwandono 2005). Schools have no choice but succumb to their customers’ demands, lest they suffer from a plummeting number of students. This fetish about English should come as no surprise, as people in big cities and villages in Indonesia have become increasingly aware that “English is . . . a cultural icon of westernization or success, a goal which entails the promise of a better life” (Schneider 2011, 335). In addition, the technological breakthroughs and the advancement of communication channels such as the Internet, email, Twitter, and Facebook, to mention just a few, have been associated with westernization, which uses English as an important international language. The shifting attitudes of Indonesian speakers and speakers of local languages from their own native languages to English can be accounted for partly by what Rubin (1977, 260) calls “semi linguistic motivation.” As the goal of semi linguistic motivation is social, English is seen as “a gateway . . . to a new form of society” (Ostler 2011) and “. . . correlates with urbanity, advanced education, [and] an international 231

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outlook that tends to go together with higher social strata . . .” (Schneider 2011). Thus, it is highly likely that native speakers of Indonesia and of local languages will dramatically shift their attitudes to the “prestigious” language (i.e., English) and eventually communicate in it as a means of displaying their social status. Whereas in the 80s and 90s English was taught as a mandatory school subject in only junior and high school levels, the craze of the English language in Indonesia hitherto has started from an early stage of learning. Enticed by the charm of English as a superpower language, many, if not most, Indonesians have high expectations that sending children to schools that expose them to English as early as possible will make the children’s future brighter. In other words, the Indonesians’ positive perception of English cannot be separated from the image of English as a language of modernity, superiority, prestige, and sophistication. Thus, the linguistic adequacy and geographic adequacy of the English language as a global language—advanced consciously and unconsciously by the government (through its repressive policy); local scholars (through their publications in scholarly journals); political figures (through their speeches); not to mention journalists, media commentators, and news presenters—has further motivated Indonesian native speakers and speakers of local languages to view and treat English with awe and seek educational alternatives that can equip them with this language. As a consequence, the preservation of local languages through education remains in limbo, with their users gradually but surely abandoning them.

Effects on the National Language Policy The promotion of English both through pedagogical contexts and other domains, such as commerce, entertainment, politics, and technology, backfires, in that it brings about resistance against Indonesia’s long-established national language policy. This policy stipulates that Bahasa Indonesia and its local languages must be the first resource to consult with in any attempt to find the equivalents from other foreign languages, including English. Should there be no equivalents found in these languages, words from foreign terminologies can be taken through the following ways: a. b. c.

To adopt new words in accordance with the international use To adopt new words due to their common usage To adopt new words by translating them (Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa Departmen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Lembar Komunikasi, 2.2. June–July 1986; see also Sneddon 2003)

The establishment of this policy was basically aimed at promoting the spirit of nationalism among the Indonesian people through the use of BI—the Indonesian language—and its local languages in all domains of life. Yet, many view that this policy still marginalizes the use of local languages, especially in the exhortation of the infamous slogan Bahasa Indonesia yang Baik dan Benar (correct and appropriate Indonesian), both in daily communication among the Indonesian societies and in education. With the hegemony of English seeping into all domains of people’s lives, including into pedagogy, there is overt resistance displayed by the Indonesian communities in conforming to the national language policy. Despite vociferous campaigns for using the national language and local languages and despite the move initiated by the Indonesian Language Center to legalize the policy through a language bill banning the use of English in all domains, people remain recalcitrant and continue to use English without fear of sanctions imposed by the state. Ironically, the resistance against the language policy is displayed not only by the common people, but also by 232

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the state officials. This is evident in the speeches of Indonesian politicians and government officials who often saturate their language with English, through, for example, the use of loan words and code-switches. In addition, the English-only policy imposed by local schools operating under the label of ‘international-standard schools’ provides further justification of the complete disregard of, as well as resistance to, the language policy.

New Debates There are at present two opposing camps related to how national education in Indonesia should be grounded. The first is the universalists who want to base the national education system on Western philosophy; the second is the localists who make efforts to revitalize the educational philosophies passed down from the Indonesian educational pioneers, most notably Suwardi Suryaningrat (better known as Ki Hajar Dewantara) and the first Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture in 1945. The former argues that in keeping with the spirit of globalization, Indonesian educational system needs to be overhauled and reformed by internationalizing it so as to attain the status of world-class education. This is carried out by adopting Western philosophical thinking in the national education system, such as the notion of Competency Based Education, an educational movement that first emerged in the U.S. in the 1970s (Richards and Rodgers 2001), and has recently been realized through the establishment of schools using imported curricula and assessments. Indonesia’s Vice President, Boediono (2012) has recently affirmed his position that espouses the use of Western philosophical orientation in the Indonesian education system. He suggests that the national curriculum needs to adopt the ideas of Derek Bok, professor emeritus and former president of Harvard University, USA, on the real substance of education. The latter contends that the educational system in the era of globalization ought to be contextualized in the rich historical roots of education in Indonesia. This is, in fact, an attempt to revitalize the spirit and vision of education laid by the Indonesian education pioneers and practiced during the Dutch colonization period. The well-known educational philosophy and local wisdom, which many Indonesia scholars believe to be highly germane at the present time, is In Ngarso Sung Tulodo, In Madya Mangun Karso, Tut Wuri Handayani, which literally means ‘set up a model, create an intention, and provide constructive support.’ Despite these two competing base camps, it is important to highlight that while at the discourse level, the conflicting ideas on how the national education needs to be grounded are real, in practice, they are not operating side by side. In other words, what Pennycook (1994) has suggested in terms of the co-existence of Anglicism (those who buttress education in English) and Orientalism (those who buttress education in the vernacular) in ideologies is just a delusion. While Pennycook (1994, 77) argues that “Anglicism never really replaced Orientalism, but rather operated alongside it,” the real practice of English education in Indonesia shows just the contrary. The problem here is that those espousing education in the vernacular belong to the silent minority, whose voices are often silenced and even suppressed by the political forces that often intrude into the process of decision making in educational policies. As a consequence, those who stay in power have the absolute last say in determining the contents of the policy without necessarily accommodating and taking voices from the opposing silent minority. For instance, although the judicial review—initiated by Indonesia’s noted education specialist H. A. R. Tilaar—against the establishment of the RSBI has been granted by the Indonesian Constitutional Court, the Education and Culture Ministry seems adamant that the RSBI must be maintained. Tilaar has not been upbeat about the dismissal of the RSBI: “The political pressure is too strong this time, and I am not certain whether our request for judicial review will be followed up and approved” (Sugiharto 2012c). 233

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Clearly, the states’ initiation of internationalizing local schools through the use of English-only and imported material and immaterial resources—not to mention the widespread use of English in all spheres of Indonesian people’s life—have facilitated the hegemonic forces of English. In fact, the spirit of internationalizing and modernizing oneself in all life domains through English has seeped into these domains without any significant resistance. In other words, despite a wealth of publications on the resistance of linguistic imperialism to date, we cannot lay a claim that significant changes in English language education, especially in foreign contexts such as Indonesia, have been made (see Jenkins 2006). Nevertheless, the near-absence of resistance to English appropriation cannot uncritically be explained by the failure of Indonesian societies to develop critical attitudes, as critical scholars such as Pennycook (1994) and Canagarajah (1999) seem to suggest. Hegemonic practices are ubiquitous in the policy-making institutions here, and these institutions not only give them privileges, but also legitimize them as a “natural” condition (Fairclough 1989). To complicate the issue of the absence of resistant attitudes among the Indonesians, we need to understand the philosophical outlooks held by the majority of Indonesians. In almost all aspects of life, including in education, Indonesian societies firmly hold three types of Javanese philosophies—ways of life derived from the dominant Javanese culture that have seemingly permeated all cultures in Indonesia. These philosophies are (1) the Manut–lan-miturut philosophy (literally, ‘follow and obey’), (2) the Ewuh-pekewuh philosophy (literally, ‘feeling uncomfortable and uneasy’ [to argue and discuss controversial topics with and challenge those who are more senior in age and position, and who have a higher social hierarchy]), and (3) the Sabda Pendita Ratu philosophy (literally,‘the words of priestly king’). Undergirding these philosophies are “the principles of total obedience, the unquestioning mind, and the concept of elders-know-all, and the belief that teachers can do no wrong” (Dardjowidjojo 2001, 309). From these two conflicting orientations, further research needs to be carried out to validate the claims made by the proponents of each camp. First, from the perspective of sociology, it still needs to be proven to what extent the internationalization of local schools, which create elitism in education, will perpetuate further social class divisions, as well as language and cultural barriers among the Indonesian societies, given that Indonesia is a multicultural and multilingual country. Second, from the second language acquisition vantage point, to what extent a monolingual orientation to language pedagogy is effective in facilitating language acquisition is subject to empirical scrutiny, as research has shown that bilingual education is more effective than monolingual education (see, for example, Krashen 1996; 1999). A final area of research worth specifying is what Stern (1983, 430) calls ‘educational planning.’ Because the policy that motivated the establishment of the RSBI seems to be politically loaded and without a clear academic rationale, it remains to be seen whether the interconnectedness of complex factors (teachers, students, parents, curriculum, and equipment, among others) involved in the establishment of the schools has been acknowledged and included in the planning process.

Implications for Education I have shown that even without competing for dominance with the national language and local languages in almost all domains, including in education, English has penetrated with ease into the life of the Indonesians. As such, the imposition of hegemonic ideology of English takes place with no significant opposition from the periphery communities and causes undesirable effects on the equity of education, the preservation of local languages, and the national language policy. This is, on the one hand, due to the strong political power that intrudes upon the decision-making process in educational policies and silences those opposing voices. On the other hand, voicing 234

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opposition is considered culturally inappropriate because the Javanese philosophy is ingrained— in the education system, in particular, and in other domains of life, in general. Thus, to make student and would-be language teachers aware of the latent hegemonic power of English, it is important to begin with challenging and interrogating the dominant local Javanese culture. As the notion of linguistic imperialism also applies to the dominance of one culture over other cultures within a multicultural country (like Indonesia), resisting the Javanese philosophical outlooks should be one of the most important teaching agendas, before any efforts are made to resist the English hegemony. As for the language policy, attempts to preserve both Indonesian and its vernacular languages need to be placed in a larger sociopolitical context, not just simply in an educational setting.

Further Reading Alwasilah, C. 2006. Pokoknya Sunda: Interpretasi untuk Aksi [Nothing but Sunda: Interpretation for Action]. Bandung: Kiblat. Canagarajah, S. A., and Said, S. B. 2011. Linguistic imperialism. In J. Simpson. Ed. The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics. New York: Routledge. Makoni, S., and Pennycook, A. Eds. 2007. Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sumardi, M. (Ed.) 1992. Berbagai Pendekatan dalam Pengajaran Bahasa dan Sastra [Some Approaches in Language and Literature Teaching]. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.

References Boediono, W. 2012. Pendidikan kunci pembangunan. Kompas, August 27. Canagarajah, S. A. 1999. Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, S. A. 2002. Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Casanave, C. P. 2004. Controversies in Second Language Writing: Dilemmas and Decisions in Research and Instruction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Clachar, A. 1998. Differential effects of linguistic imperialism on second language learning: Americanisation in Puerto Rico versus Russification in Estonia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 1 (2): 101–18. Dardjowidjojo, S. 2000. English teaching in Indonesia. English Australia Journal 18 (1): 22–30. Dardjowidjojo, S. 1997. English policies and their classroom impact in some ASEAN/Asian countries. In G. M. Jacobs. Ed. Language Classrooms of Tomorrow: Issues and Responses (Anthology series 38). Singapore: SEAMEO-RELC. Dardjowidjojo, S. 2001. Cultural constraints in the implementation of learner autonomy: the case of Indonesia. Journal of Southeast Asian Education 2 (2):309–22. Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. 2004. Kurikulum 2004 standar kompetensi mata pelajaran bahasa Inggris sekolah menengah pertama dan madrasah tsanawiyah. Jakarta. Djiwandono, I. 2005. ‘Teach my children English’: Why parents want English teaching for their children. Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching 1 (1): 62–72. Fairclough, N. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman. Jazadi, I. 2004. ELT in Indonesia in the context of English as global language. In B. Y. Cahyono and U. Widiati. Eds. The Tapestry of English Language Teaching and Learning in Indonesia. Malang: Malang University Press. Jenkins, J. 2006. Current perspectives on teaching world Englishes and English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly 40 (1): 157–81. Kachru, B. Ed. 1992. The Other Tongue (2nd.). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kern, R. 2000. Literacy and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates.

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Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned Without a Trial: Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann. Krashen, S. 2006. English Fever. Taipeh City: Crane Publishing. McKay, S. 1993. Examining L2 composition ideology: A look at literacy education. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2 (1): 65–81. Matsuda, A., and Matsuda, K. 2010. World Englishes and the teaching of writing. TESOL Quarterly, 44 (2): 369–74. Mistar, J. 2005. Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Indonesia. In G. Braine. Ed. Teaching English to the World: History, Curriculum and Practice. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nunan, D. 1992. Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostler, N. 2011. Language maintenance, shift, and endangerment. In R. Mesthrie. Ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pennycook, A. 1994. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Purwo, B. K. 2013. Personal communication. Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa Departmen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.1986. Lembar komunikasi, 2.2 Juni–Juli. Jakarta. Richards, J., and Rodgers, T. S. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C., and Rodgers, T. S. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubin, J. 1977. New insights into the nature of language change offered by language planning. In B. G. Blount and M. Sanches. Eds. Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Change. New York: Academic Press. Schneider, E. W. 2011. Colonization, globalization, and the sociolinguistics of world Englishes. In R. Mesthrie. Ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silzer, J., and Clouse, H. H. 1984. Index of Irian Jaya Languages: A Special Bulletin of Irian Jaya. Unpublished manuscript. Sneddon, J. 2003. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society. Sydney: University of South Wales Press. Spack, R. 1997. The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language. Written Communication, 14 (1): 3–62. Stern, H. H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sugiharto, S. 2007a. Indigenous languages in danger of disappearing. The Jakarta Post, October 27. Sugiharto, S. 2007b. New directions in contrastive rhetoric: Some implications for teachers of writing in multilingual contexts. The Journal of ASIA TEFL, 4 (1): 105–22. Sugiharto, S. 2008a. Equity in national education the best option (Special Issue on Education). The Jakarta Post, May 2. Sugiharto, S. 2008b. Saving local languages through printed materials. The Jakarta Post, March 1. Sugiharto, S. 2008c. Uri Tadmor: Documenting linguistic heritage. The Jakarta Post, May 15. Sugiharto, S. 2009. RI’s English education: International in goal, local in substance. The Jakarta Post, June 21. Sugiharto, S. 2011. Schools as the regime of the rich. The Jakarta Post, July 30. Sugiharto, S. 2012a. The construction of self in academic writing: A qualitative case study of three Indonesian undergraduate student writers. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta, Indonesia. Sugiharto, S. 2012b. David Gill: In love with local languages. The Jakarta Post, August 1. Sugiharto, S. 2012c. H. A. R. Tilaar: Advocate of emancipatory education. The Jakarta Post, September 17. Sumardi, M. 1993. Pengajaran bahas Inggris di sekolah menengah: Tinjauan dari masa ke masa [English teaching in high schools: A historical perspective] In B. K. Purwo. Ed. Analisis Wacana Pengajaran Bahasa [Discourse Analysis of Language Teaching] PELLBA 6. Yogyakarta: Kanisius.

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18 Immigrants and Education Lesley Bartlett and Jill Koyama

Introduction The past 50 years have been a period of unprecedented human mobility. An estimated 214 million people migrated transnationally in 2010 (Ratha et al. 2010). Seventy-three million migrants moved from developing countries to OECD countries, while another 74 million resettled in other developing countries (Ratha et al. 2010, 12). In this era, which is often described as ‘globalizing,’ immigrants strategically navigate overlapping and, at times, contradictory educational settings, routines, and socially sanctioned forms of knowledge. These situations bring issues of language and learning to the fore. The United States (U.S.) receives one of the largest flows of immigrants, thanks in part to changes to U.S. immigration law, international migration governing bodies, and more local shifts in trade treaties. An estimated 1 million migrants relocate to the U.S. per year, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey, 40 million people, or 13% of the U.S. population, are immigrants. Nearly a quarter of all school-aged children in the U.S. have at least one immigrant parent (Terrazas and Batalova 2009); twenty-five percent of children attending U.S. schools are foreign-born (Gibson and Koyama 2011). As U.S. “immigrant gateways” have diverged, with immigrants, especially Latinos, moving out of large urban destinations to smaller cities with opportunities in low-wage manufacturing and industry, increasing numbers of school districts are enrolling immigrant students (Zhou and Lee 2004; Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2000). The increased presence of immigrants in U.S. educational settings raises important questions regarding the significance of language in learning and teaching. The involvement of immigrant parents and students in formal schooling highlights the ways in which people use, negotiate, and aim to control language and influence social relations. In this chapter, we review the contributions of anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists to the topic of immigrants and education. Historically, the study of immigrant education has been embedded within research on the broader incorporation of immigrants into U.S. society. Because American sociology and anthropology have focused on issues of immigration and incorporation, we have a clearer understanding of the schooling experiences and educational attainment of immigrants over three generations, including those born outside the U.S., those born to immigrant parents in the U.S., and the grandchildren of immigrants. However, as described below, the two 237

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dominant frameworks used to guide the study of immigrant incorporation—cultural-ecological theory and segmented assimilation theory—fail to adequately address issues of language and literacy. To bridge the inquiry framed by theories of immigration and education to questions of language and languaging in increasingly transnational contexts, we review three schools of thought or approaches—sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology of education, and language socialization. We discuss how these approaches have shaped the existing knowledge base, posed new debates, and paved the way to new and emerging areas of inquiry regarding immigrant education.

Historical Perspectives: Cultural-Ecology and Segmented-Assimilation Theories In the anthropology of education, Ogbu’s (1974; 1987; 2003) cultural–ecological theory states that the participation of minority students in U.S. schools is affected by multiple social and cultural factors, including the historical and current treatment of the minority group by the larger society, the schools’ actions towards the groups, and immigrants’ interpretations of and collective responses to their treatment. In this theory, involuntary minorities, or those who have been incorporated into a host society as a result of conquest, colonization, or slavery, are shown to differ from voluntary immigrants in their perceptions of U.S. society and their responses to the education system. These differences, Ogbu argues, have emerged from the groups’ differing modes of incorporation into the host society and their subsequent discriminatory treatment. However, despite the theory’s role in reframing and illuminating questions about immigrant education, it has drawn criticism for restricting analysis to immigrants who have migrated for economic purposes; failing to consider intragroup and generational variations; neglecting the impact of school factors on academic engagement; and, most salient to our purposes in this chapter, not adequately considering the role of language immigrant adaptation and education. In response to the criticisms of Ogbu’s theory, and influenced by the ethnographic work of anthropologists (Gibson 1988; Suárez-Orozco 1987) whose work was influenced by Ogbu, the theory of segmented assimilation (Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Portes and Zhou 1993) emerged. Informed by large-scale sets of survey data and centered on second-generation youth, segmented assimilation theory suggests that assimilation, and related social mobility, results in one of three possible outcomes: a linear assimilation associated with upward mobility and middle class integration; downward assimilation characterized when youth integrate into peer groups of lower class; and consonant acculturation (Portes and Rumbaut 1996), or what Gibson (1988) calls accommodation and acculturation without assimilation, in which youth are grounded within their ethnic and linguistic group, while selectively taking up aspects of the host country culture. The latter strategy, Gibson (1988) found, encourages immigrant youth to engage strategically in a schooling system that too often promotes subtractive acculturation, or the subtractive schooling described by the ethnographer Valenzuela (1999), wherein school policies and practices often actively subtract immigrant students’ cultural and linguistic knowledge, to the detriment of their academic engagement and achievement. Overall, the research centering on the incorporation of immigrants into American society has contributed to our understanding of broad patterns of academic achievement for immigrant youth. Because Mexicans comprise nearly one quarter of America’s immigrant newcomers, and because many arrive with low levels of or interrupted education, numerous studies have focused on the education of Mexican immigrants in the United States. The analyses are mixed. Some scholars (Grogger and Trejo 2002) suggest that, because many Mexican immigrants do not enjoy the same early childhood opportunities and English-language foundation as some native-born Americans, they are likely to experience lower levels of academic achievement. Others demonstrate 238

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that Mexican immigrants have made substantial gains in three generations, narrowing education and income gaps with native-born Whites (Bean, Brown, and Rumbaut 2006). The 1.5 generation (those brought to the U.S. as children or early teens) and second generation (those born in the U.S. to immigrant parents) surpass their native-born peers in school achievement, offering the possibility of future advances in educational and occupational attainment (Farley and Alba 2002; Portes and Rumbaut 2006). Still, there are concerns. Portes and Rumbaut (2006) find that, despite the progress made by the second generation, there are signs—namely high school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and male unemployment and incarceration—of downward mobility among many. As well, the third generation, which has been more fully incorporated into the American “mainstream,” is declining in academic achievement (Perlmann and Waldinger 1997). Existing studies show that there is much variation across and within ethnic groups. Similar to the second generation of Mexican-Americans, the second-generation West Indian immigrants have been found by Portes and Rumbaut (2001) to exceed academic achievement among native-born blacks in New York City, and Dominicans, Columbians, Ecuadorans, and Peruvians do better than Puerto Ricans. Offering preliminary findings from their study of 1.5- and second-generation Mexicans, Chinese, and Vietnamese in Los Angeles, Zhou and Lee (2007) note that “like other native-born Americans who follow multiple paths to mobility . . . that 1.5-generation and second-generation Latinos and Asians are successfully pursuing routes that are just as variegated” (202). Second-generation Chinese students, according to Kasinitz et. al. (2004) have higher high school graduation rates and college attendance than all other ethnic groups, including native-born Whites. Much depends on income, human and social capital, networks, transnational ties, residential patterns, and norms in the ethnic community (Kasinitz et. al. 2008). While valuable, these studies of segmented assimilation do not adequately consider issues related to language learning, use, management, and politics and how these influence immigrant education. As noted by Baquedano-López and Figueroa (2011), “in emphasizing cross-group and cross-generation comparisons, scholars working within these frameworks may continue [erroneously] to assume a one-to-one correspondence between language code and community membership, and the focus on shared patterns of group behavior can lead to typified understandings of communities and convey implicit beliefs about how the ‘competent’ or ‘successful’ immigrant assimilates into the U.S. mainstream” (539).

Research Approaches: Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Anthropology of Education, and Language Socialization Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistic approaches have been productive in the study of ethnic differences and schooling. Sociolinguists “work on language choice and language change, while trying to engage in a dialogue with formal grammarians, with whom they share an interest in how to represent linguistic competence . . . Sociolinguists also continue to be concerned with the definition of the speech community as a reference point for investigating the limits of individual variation in language use. For these intellectual pursuits, . . . phenomena like pidgins and creole languages or language planning have proved to be rich testing grounds” (Duranti 1997, 14). Foundational sociolinguistic studies used quantitative methods to empirically demonstrate the difference between working class and middle class norms in linguistic codes (Bernstein 1974) and contextualized variations in Black English, or what is now referred to as African American English (Labov 1969). 239

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Early interactional sociolinguistics employed a conversation analytical approach (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974) with comprehensive, sequential analyses of naturally occurring conversations to document how people accomplished interactions. When code-switching became a central focus for the field, ethnic differences and immigrant students became more central to these investigations. Gumperz (1982) demonstrated that code-switching was purposeful and meaningful, not the result of language deficiencies. His work incited a series of studies on code-switching and its meaning. Early research on code-switching identified and quantified communicative functions, while more recent work has a qualitative, interactional focus on the socially purposeful uses of such shifts (Martin-Jones 1995). For example, Zentella (1982, 1997) engaged an “anthropolitical linguistic” lens to consider language socialization in Latino/a families and code-switching as conversational strategy. Alternately, Martin-Jones and Saxena (2001) examined the positioning and discourse strategies of bilingual students in primary classrooms in England. Code-switching and code-shifting, as well as pedagogical approaches to support bilingual learning and to transition to second academic language learning, remain enduring concerns (see discussion of translanguaging, below).

Linguistic Anthropology Linguistic anthropology presents a second major approach applicable to the study of immigrants and education. Linguistic anthropology entails the “study of language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice”—that is, “language as a set of symbolic resources that enter the constitution of social fabric and the individual representation of actual or possible worlds” (Duranti 1997, 2–3). It provides strategies and tools for exploring the ways in which language use reflects, influences, and creates social relations (Wortham and Rymes 2003). Linguistic anthropologists focus on communication in cultural contexts and within social and cultural relationships and networks (Wortham 2006, 2008), with attention to three major areas: (i) performance, (ii) indexicality, and (iii) participation (Duranti 1997). Early work in this area derived from ethnographers of communication, who demonstrated that speech can have multiple functions and, in fact, serves various functions in different educational contexts. Reacting to Chomsky’s notion of “ideal speakers” with “grammatical competence,” Hymes (1972) stressed the idea of communicative competence, emphasizing “the socially situated elements integral to each event of communication,” and promoted ethnographic examinations of “communicative practice, focusing their analysis on recurring speech events like recurrent caretaker–child events (Ochs 1988; Ochs and Schieffelin 1984), story-telling (Goodwin 1990), or literacy events (Duranti and Ochs 1986)” (Rymes 2008, 3). This vein of work led in the 1990s to calls for a critical ethnographic approach (e.g., Toohey 1995, Canagarajah 1993). Yet students from non-mainstream language speech communities that used communication from their home language communities were often misinterpreted as “uneducated” (Cazden, John, and Hymes 1972). Work on communicative competence in classrooms easily became prescriptive (but see Hornberger 2003 for a broad review). Linguistic anthropologists of education draw upon key concepts—form, use, ideology, domain, and trajectory—“to understand how linguistic signs have meaning in practice” (Wortham 2008, 84). They attend to linguistic form in order to understand cultural patterns of social relationships and interactions. Linguistic anthropologists of education consider how language ideologies, or “models of linguistic features and the speakers who characteristically use them, which people use to understand the social relations signaled through language use,” “move from event to event, across time and across social space, and how such movement contributes to local and historical change in both language and society” (Wortham 2008). Ideologies represent “the socially 240

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and culturally embedded metalinguistic forms of language and language use,” including notions of ownership, value, and norms (Blommaert 2006, 241; see also Woolard 1998). So, for example, Heller and Martin-Jones (2001) consider how language and educational ideologies are perpetuated, reinforced, or challenged, with consequences for social inequalities; social differences are imbricated in language varieties, and ideologies pervade language instruction and language policies in and through schooling. The concept allows researchers to “explore the relations between the emergent meanings of signs in use, socially circulating ideologies, and broader social structures” (Wortham 2008, 91). When linguistic features are associated with particular types of speakers, there emerges what scholars refer to as a “domain”—“the set of people who recognize the indexical link between a type of sign and the relevant ideology” (Wortham 2008, 84; see also Agha 2006; Agha and Wortham 2005). Domains can range from pairs to large networks of globalized language communities. The trajectory of individuals in one domain can be traced across time and contexts to examine how their identities are enacted linguistically and change over time. For example, Bailey (2001) investigates how youth from the Dominican Republic living in Providence, Rhode Island, rethink ethnic identification in the face of U.S. racial categories. Mendoza-Denton (2008) describes how Latina gang members in Northern California resignify referents and project local discourses of “turf,” place, and identity onto broader domains of race and modernity (104). Contemporary research is also recasting traditional concerns with code-switching among immigrant youth. Rampton’s work (2005, 2006), for instance, describes a discursive strategy that he dubs language “crossing,” or the use of linguistic features from Punjabi, Caribbean Creole, and Asian English by white, South Asian, and Caribbean youth in the United Kingdom. Through language crossing, youth culturally produce meanings of race/ethnicity and negotiate social relations. Such research shows how individuals and groups use “forms of language to co-construct social norms and manage locally contingent criteria for membership” (Baquedano-López and Figueroa 2011, 541). Moving beyond the global-local, macro-micro, and structure-agency binaries, recent work in linguistic anthropology aims to make explicit the complex networked connections between situated daily linguistic practices and broader ideologies and discourses (Warriner 2007). For example, Wortham (2006) illustrates how individuals are differentially socialized in a classroom through speech chains that engage the curriculum and more broadly circulating models of the self. He identifies not an overgeneralized pattern of “Western school discourse” but “many evolving ways of speaking” and how different students are positioned within and among them (Rymes 2008, 7). Linguistic anthropologists, then, have traced linkages among language ideologies, patterns of speech, models that link types of language with types of speakers, emergent identities, and broader social structures at multiple scales for immigrants within and beyond schools. There is great potential in extending this conceptual framework for immigrant education. Ethnographers of language and schooling examine the changeability and contradictions in language use to better understand relations of power and ideology. These studies take up varying concerns. For example, McGroarty (2002; see also 2008) demonstrates that educational language policies, especially those that guide bilingual instruction provisions, reflect social judgments and values—or ideologies—as well as a plethora of other factors that could be seen as unrelated to language. Park and Bae (2009), on the other hand, explore the linkages between migration, transnationalism, and language ideologies. They show how the temporary migration of pre-university South Korean students to English-speaking countries, such as the U.S., reflects the ideology that acquiring English skills is necessary for future success in a globalized world, but that such an ideology is, in fact, in continuous negotiation with another dominant South Korean ideology, the value of Mandarin. 241

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Relatedly, contemporary ethnographies of literacy center on cultural forms and socially situated literacy practices as inextricably linked to global circulations and discourses. Scholars (e.g., Street 2004) have called for ethnographies of literacy that make explicit the connections between global and local literacies. Heeding that call, several recent studies have carefully examined the complex social and cultural interactions that influence what kind of ‘outcomes’ will result from schooling (Bartlett 2009). They consider what Kanno and Norton (2003) describe as “the interaction between national ideologies and individual learners’ identities on the one hand, and the influence of globalization and transnationalism on the language learning and identity construction on the other” (248). As globalization, immigration, and transnational circulation increases, further ethnographic focus on transnational literacy and languaging practices of immigrant learners across multiple contexts is clearly needed.

Language Socialization Language socialization, a subset of linguistic anthropology, also offers valuable approaches to the study of immigrants and education. Scholars in this tradition “study and analyze developmental language data obtained through sustained ethnographic fieldwork. Language socialization research is thus longitudinal—it involves the observation and analysis of language data over time and, in many cases, across sites and contexts of interaction” (Baquedano-López and Figueroa 2011, 541). Though the earliest work was focused outside of formal schooling contexts (particularly within homes), for decades language socialization scholars have contrasted language use in classrooms and schools to students’ home and out-of-school contexts (Baquedano-López and Kattan 2008). Such concerns were central to Heath’s (1983) landmark study of African American working class, White working class, and White middle class children learning to use language at home and at school: Her ethnographic study raised fundamental questions about the culture- and class-specific ways of using language rewarded by schools. Similar concerns informed Phillips’ (1983) research on learning styles and interaction norms for Native American students in Warm Springs, Oregon, Gonzalez’s (2001) advocacy of an additive model for bilingual Mexican immigrant children, work by Pease-Alvarez and colleagues (Pease-Alvarez and Vásquez 1994; Vásquez, Pease-Alvarez, and Shannon 1994) on linguistic and cultural disjunctures between home and school for Mexican immigrant children, and Zentella’s investigation (1997) of home, peer, and school-based language socialization patterns among Puerto Ricans in New York City. Much of this work contrasted home and community language socialization, showing how difference is consistently cast as deficit. As Duff (2010) shows, language socialization into academic discourse communities is a process “characterized by variable amounts of modeling, feedback, and uptake; different levels of investment and agency on the part of learners; by the negotiation of power and identities; and, often, important personal transformations for at least some participants. However, the consequences and outcomes of academic discourse socialization are also quite unpredictable, both in the shorter term and longer term” (169). Language socialization approaches have blossomed into a productive framework for research on immigrant education. Scholars working in this vein have conducted research on language socialization in immigrant communities, language socialization of immigrants within schools (including by peers), language and social exclusion, and language and transnational identities. For example, Willett (1995) examined how four immigrant students in a first-grade ESL classroom contended with gender roles, class expectations, and teachers’ assumptions about students’ capabilities. Similarly, Rymes and Pash (2001) examined how a second-grade boy from Costa Rica “passed” as a competent speaker during classroom interactions while being assigned to special 242

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education classes, with significant consequences for his education. Revisiting Bernstein (1974), research by Kyratzis, Tang, and Koymen (2009) on peer socialization among Mexican immigrants in a Head Start program challenged the idea that working class kids relied on restricted codes and lacked elaborated codes. There is important work on children as cultural and linguistic brokers, including as translators in parent-teacher conferences (Orellana 2009; Garcia Sanchez and Orellana 2006; García Sánchez, Orellana, and Hopkins 2011). Increasingly, scholars are considering such issues in migration contexts beyond the United States. For example, based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in southwest Spain and Morocco, García Sánchez (2010a, b) explores how relationships among languages, relations within multilingual communities, and larger sociopolitical processes shape identity development among Moroccan immigrant youth and children living and studying in Spain. There is a great need for more research in this vein that considers how immigrants “reconcile macro-sociological categories of belonging with micro-interactional negotiations of group membership and identity” (Baquedano-López and Figueroa 2011, 541). However, critics charge that language socialization studies produce “overly normative characterizations,” tend to overgeneralize, and “lack a systematic methodology to characterize an individual’s unique trajectory of socialization across events, longitudinally” (Rymes 2008, 8). These weaknesses are problematic because taken together, the logical conclusion of this line of research is a proliferation of studies that identify multiple forms of communicative competence that support the notion of “LS” as a dialectical process of give and take between community norms and individual action, but which have no way of identifying the processes through which norms are taken up or contested. For researchers in education, this is a significant problem. If LS research is to be illuminating, a methodology will need to be specified to (1) avoid essentializing static cultural types and the uncritical relativism that can attend such generalizations; (2) track the emergence of new forms of participation; and (3) document how individuals negotiate or are positioned and repositioned in processes of socialization over time, possibly, in part, through more sustained and detailed ethnographic study. (Rymes 2008, 8) These limitations must be addressed in efforts to extend the approach. The work will require close ethnographic attention to the multidirectional aspect of language socialization across settings and discourse communities (Garrett 2008).

Core Issues, Key Findings, and Educational Implications Pragmatic discussions of immigrants and education often narrow to the goal of developing academic language in the language of wider communication. There is strong support for additive bilingual education approaches. Empirical evidence around the world shows near consensus among researchers that greater support for a student’s home language and academic development in that language is “positively related to higher long-term academic attainment” (Ferguson 2006, 48). Cummins made an early and influential distinction between contextualized language, which is used for basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), and the sort of decontextualized language for cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) required to complete most school tasks—especially assessment tasks. Cummins posited that whereas BICS can be developed in one to three years, it takes five to seven years to develop the academic abstract languaging needed for CALP (1981a; 1981b; 2000). In the United States, studies conducted by Thomas and Collier 243

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(1997) and Lindholm-Leary (2001) support the call for longer-term academic instruction in L1. Thomas and Collier (1997) state: The first predictor of long-term school success is cognitively complex on-grade level academic instruction through students’ first language for as long as possible (at least through grade 5 or 6) and cognitively complex on-grade level academic instruction through the second language (English) for part of the day. (15) In their synthesis of the research evidence in the education of emergent bilinguals, Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, and Christian (2006) showed that students enrolled in educational programs that provide extended instruction in their home language through late-exit bilingual education programs outperformed students who receive only short-term instruction through their home language. They also found that bilingual proficiency and biliteracy are positively related to academic achievement in both languages. Other meta-analyses of the literature have repeatedly shown that emergent bilinguals who are in bilingual education programs where content is taught in their home language, even if these programs are transitional in nature and students eventually exit into mainstream classes, outperform those in English-only programs on tests of academic achievement (Krashen, Rolstad, and McSwan 2007; Rolstad, Mahoney, and Glass 2005; Slavin and Cheung 2005). Researchers have consistently found that there is a cross-linguistic relationship between the students’ home language and additional languages (Riches and Genesee 2006). The National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth concluded that bilingual education approaches in which the child’s home language is used are more effective in teaching children to read than are English-only approaches (August and Shanahan 2006). August and Shanahan (2006) summarize these findings for the United States by saying: “Language-minority children who are instructed in their first language, as well as English, perform better on English reading measures than students instructed only in English. This is the case at both secondary and elementary levels [emphasis added]” (639). The educational implications are clear but largely ignored.

Academic Language and Literacy Among Youth A specific concern in the education of immigrants is that many arrive as youth. Elementary school children born in the United States and raised in Spanish-speaking homes usually come into school with some receptive ability in English as a result of watching television and having lived for five years in an English-speaking society, even if their exposure to that society is minimal. The literacy demands are not as exacting, and there’s more emphasis on oral development. The English language and literacy development of adolescents is, by contrast, a more complex and demanding task. Though adolescents are neither less successful nor less efficient in acquiring an additional language than children (Singleton 2001), they need a firm foundation of decontextualized language skills in their home languages, and they need time to develop those same skills in English (Cummins 1991; Hakuta, Gotto Butler, and Wit 2000). However, some immigrants have experienced low quality and even interrupted formal education; further, when immigrants arrive in the United States as high school students, state assessment policies do not provide them with five to seven years to develop their English. Moreover, as work in New Literacy Studies shows, what counts as literacy, and which literacy practices are considered appropriate, varies situationally and relationally. Thus, a student who has gone to school outside the U.S. for many years has experienced a way of communicating “in and around writing” (Hornberger 1990) that is profoundly different from what is expected once they 244

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migrate to the U.S. (or elsewhere). It is not simply that English differs from their home language; rather, the ways of using language and literacy vary in the two societies and the two school systems. The expressive tradition and expository writing so common in the United States are difficult for students from places “where the central focus is either the text or the teacher as the central authority and source of information” (Watkins-Goffman and Cummings 1997, 438), or places where oral traditions dominate (Vinogradov and Bigelow 2010). Expectations about argumentation and structure vary by cultural contexts; e.g., writing in Spanish is often less direct (or some might say more subtle) than the argumentation that predominates in American academic literacies (Watkins-Goffman and Cummings 1997). These sociocultural differences in literacy and assessment practices have important implications for educating immigrant students, for despite all the evidence of transfer of skills from one language to another (e.g., Cummins 1981b; 1991; 2000; Carson, Carrell, Silberstein, Kroll, and Kuehn 1990; Gabriele, Troseth, Matohardjono, and Otheguy 2009), the lack of convergence in literacy practices leaves many immigrant students unable to apply what they know about reading, writing, and testing in their home language to tasks in English. In order for transfer to occur, either students need the languages to feature similar literacy practices, or students need to be taught new genres and textual expectations more explicitly (August and Shanahan 2006). Immigrant students must develop academic literacy practices in their home language that are similar to academic English literacy practices in U.S. schools, and/or they need to receive explicit instruction in, and opportunities to practice, different writing conventions. Recent research has worked to identify language education models for these populations (e.g., Bartlett and García 2011).

Educational Models for Migrant and Immigrant Students Increasingly scholars have turned their attention to identifying, describing, and even helping to create whole schools or school programs that are successful in educating immigrant-origin children. For example, Gibson and Hidalgo (2009) explored the role of the federally funded Migrant Education Program in supporting the children of migrant farmworkers. Drawing from four years of ethnographic research in one successful California high school, the study identified teachers’ multiple roles as mentors, counselors, advocates, and role models as a major factor in supporting migrant students. In a second example, Alvarez and Mehan (2006) identified key features of a Grade 6–12 charter school they helped to develop that prepares students from low income backgrounds, including many children from immigrant families, to strong levels of academic achievement: a culture of learning, academic, and social supports to help students meet the demands of a rigorous curriculum, and an environment designed to make students feel both confident and safe. A third example of whole school reform is Gregorio Luperón, a high school for Latino newcomers in New York City. Even in the face of the city’s divisive educational politics and polices that emphasize English only, the school successfully promotes a bilingual (Spanish– English) curriculum, supports additive acculturation or additive schooling, and brings together parents, community members, teachers, administrators, and students to promote student learning (Bartlett and García 2011). Comparative cross-national studies of the educational experiences of the children of immigrants are rare, given their costs and complexity. The Children of Immigrants in Schools (CIS), a four-year international study of how receiving-society educational systems and processes impact on the children of immigrants in Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, aims to address this gap (Alba and Holdaway 2013). Several of the comparisons in the study found that, despite systemic differences, the educational systems maintained similar mechanisms of exclusion related to the maintenance of cultural and linguistic hierarchies. While such studies provide important insights into the social and academic supports 245

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provided by successful models, there is much to learn about specific language supports offered at these schools.

New Debates and Future Directions This pragmatic concern for the education of immigrants has reignited debates over second language acquisition models for immigrant students. While some continue to promote transitional bilingual education, others are proposing more dynamic approaches. Based on the belief that bilinguals have two or more dynamically interdependent language systems whose interactions create new structures that are not found in monolingual systems, García (2014) has proposed a model of dynamic bilingualism. García argues that bilingualism is not linear, as in the additive and subtractive models of bilingualism proposed by Lambert (1974) where a second language is merely added or a first one subtracted. Instead, bilinguals develop language practices that are complex and interrelated but that differ for distinct purposes and contexts. Dynamic bilingualism does not emphasize a static conception of learning in order to approach having “native-like proficiency,” which is itself a political construct (see Canagarajah 1999; Kramsch 1997). Instead, dynamic bilingualism employs a practice approach to bilingualism that accentuates using languages to negotiate situations (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008; Van Lier 2000). This view raises significant debates about the pedagogical uses of code-switching, code-shifting, and translanguaging. A second area in need of further research is the application of linguistic anthropological and language socialization perspectives to immigrants and schooling outside the United States. There is promising research in this area. For example, García Sánchez’s (2013) fieldwork demonstrated how Moroccan Muslim immigrants in southwest Spain linguistically negotiate exclusionary discourses concerning “Arabs.” Similarly, Lucko (2011) conducted fieldwork in Madrid, where essentialist discourses of cultural differences positioned working class Ecuadorian youth as violent and uneducable. Thus, while examples exist, there is a need to expand linguistic anthropological inquiries into schooling for immigrants, and especially to consider destinations beyond Europe to include the increasing phenomenon of South-South migration. Finally, despite the increase in numbers of especially vulnerable subpopulations of immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees (King and Punti 2012; Pinson and Arnot 2007), inadequate research attention has been given to their schooling experiences, their unique linguistic challenges and resources, and their educational trajectories. For refugee youth, displacement and resettlement abruptly disturb, and often deconstruct, their educational trajectories. As stated by Nolan (2006): “The agency and life choices of the world’s refugees are quite different from those of (im)migrants and the social processes that bind the two contexts when physical presence is impossible in the home country” (183). For those resettled in the U.S., their pre-refugee lives are substantially different from their post-resettlement ones, and their pre-refugee education is usually not commensurate with the system they enter in the United States; the certifications, degrees, and licenses previously earned by young adults are likely not recognized; and their family’s previous social status and educational history do not provide advantages in U.S. schooling. Most, especially during the first year of resettlement, exist on the margins of society—and, perhaps because of their vulnerability, at the edges of educational linguists’ research lenses. However, two million plus refugees have resettled in the U.S. since 1975, and since the 1990s most belong to what is best described as acute refugee movements, those in which populations flee from violence and war, and are characterized by poverty, limited education, and few vocational skills. Nearly half of these are school-aged youth. Concern and research attention should thus be paid to their experiences. 246

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Further Reading Baquedano-López, P., and Figueroa, A. M. 2011. Language socialization and immigration. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, B. Schieffelin. Eds. The handbook of language socialization, (pp. 536–563). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Rymes, B. 2008. Language socialization and linguistic anthropology. In P. Duff and N. H. Hornberger, Eds., Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd Edition, Volume 8: Language Socialization, pp. 1–14). New York: Springer. Wortham, S., and Rymes, B. (Eds.) 2003. Linguistic anthropology of education. Westport, CT: Praeger.

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19 Critical Pedagogy in Classroom Discourse Loukia K. Sarroub and Sabrina Quadros

Historical Perspectives The classroom is a unique discursive space for the enactment of critical pedagogy. In some ways, all classroom discourse is critical because it is inherently political, and at the heart of critical pedagogy is an implicit understanding that power is negotiated daily by teachers and students. Historically, critical pedagogy is rooted in schools of thought that have emphasized the individual and the self in relation and in contrast to society, sociocultural and ideological forces, and economic factors and social progress. In addressing conceptualizations in Orthodox Marxism (with Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim) in the mid-19th century and the Frankfurt School (with Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Friedrich Pollock, Leo Lowenthal, and Walter Benjamin), contemporary critical theory still embodies the concept of false consciousness, the idea that institutional processes and material mislead people, and the internalization of values and norms, which induce people to act and behave according to what it is expected in society (Agger 1991). The problem of domination (which cannot be reduced to oppression, nor is it akin to it), a complex understanding of how social structures mediate power relations to create different forms of alienation (Morrow and Brown 1994), mainly depicts the reproduction of social struggles, inequities, and power differences, reflecting some of the main aspects of critical pedagogy classrooms. In considering such critical theory in classroom settings, Giroux and McLaren (1989) acknowledge the importance of teachers and students understanding classroom pedagogical practices as a form of ideological production, wherein the classroom reflects discursive formations and power-knowledge relations, both in schools and in society. Within these conceptualizations, Livingstone (1987), referring to Freire (1970), refers to critical theory in classrooms as a critical pedagogy of practice, claiming the concept as a radical perspective in which “intellectuals engage in social change to make the political more pedagogical and the pedagogical more political” (xii). In such terms, the “political more pedagogical” calls for a redefinition of historical memory (which, in critical theory, is the basis for the understanding of cultural struggles), critique, and radical utopianism, as the elements of a political discourse highlighting pedagogical processes, such as knowledge being constructed and deconstructed, dialogue being contextualized around emancipatory interests, and learning being actively pursued in radical practices of ethics and 252

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political communities. In making the “pedagogical more political,” Freire (1970) refers to a more profound idea of schooling in order to embrace the broader category of education in the forms of critically examining the production of subjects and subjectivities that take place outside of school settings and developing a radical critical teaching in which educators are able to examine how different public settings interact in shaping the ideological and material conditions that contribute to sites of domination and struggle. Theoretically, critical pedagogy in classroom discourse embodies the practice of engaging students in the social construction of knowledge, which grounds its pillars on power relations. In utilizing critical pedagogy in the classroom, teachers must question their own practices in the process to construct knowledge and why the main knowledge is legitimized by the dominant culture. Moreover, through emancipatory knowledge (Habermas 1981) educators draw practical and technical knowledge together, creating a space for understanding the relations of power and privilege that manipulate and distort social relationships. In the end, participants in critical pedagogy classrooms are encouraged to engage in collective action, founded on the principles of social justice, equality, and empowerment (McLaren 2009). One example of the application of the theory in classroom contexts in which English is taught as a foreign language directs the concept of critical pedagogy to a narrower, but no less powerful, dismantling of power structural systems of imposition and false consciousness. Pennycook (1989, 2006) and Canagarajah (1999, 2007) examine the role of English as a foreign language, which embodies political ideological assumptions in international classrooms. According to Pennycook (1989), educators need to understand local political configurations in order to know whether a particular language policy is “reactionary or liberatory” (112). Theorists in foreign language teaching (Phillipson 1988; Canagarajah 1999; 2007; Pennycook 1989; 2006) argue that the political imposition of English as a foreign language interferes with the vitality of local multilingualism due to the hegemonic status of English (in Canagarajah 1999, 208). Considering the harmful effects of linguistic influence, Phillipson (1988) and Canagarajah (2007) cite two instances of struggle for local communities where English is the imposed foreign language. The first instance is the dependence and subjugation of the third world and, second, the values of the industrial consumerism culture, which reflect aspects of capitalist societies and countries that maintain the status of global, powerful structures. Pennycook (1989) complements such claims by arguing that the international spread of English historically has paralleled the spread of Western cultural norms of international business and technological standardization. Peirce (1989) also argues that we need to expand our views of language as “neutral,” since “English, like all other languages, is a site of struggle over meaning, access, and power” (405). Regarding these assumptions of subjugation of the third world, industrial consumerism, the cultural norms of international business and technological standardization, and struggle over meaning, access, and power, critical pedagogy practitioners approach English as a tool to engage participants in larger ideological discourses, promoting agency and knowledge, not only about the learning of the structural aspects of becoming fluent in the language, but, and more importantly, how such a language influences their immediate reality and communities. In literacy studies, the discourse of critical pedagogy embodies the emancipatory force that challenges the idea of literacy as not being politically neutral, observing that with literacy comes perspectives and interpretations that are ultimately political (Gee 2008). In using literacy as a skill to prepare individuals to “read the word” and “read the world” (in Freirean terms), classroom discourse adds to the idea of learning the ability to decipher symbols and acquire the academic language to empower participants in their contexts, calling educators to open spaces for marginalized students to voice their struggles in political, social, and economic spheres. Freire (1985) defends the idea that literacy in itself does not empower those who live in oppressive conditions, 253

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but it must be linked to a critical understanding of the social context and action to change such conditions. In these terms, Auerbach (1995) refers to critical literacies as the “rhetoric of ‘strengths’” (644) for focusing on cultural sensitivity, celebration of diversity, and empowerment of parents, and she also highlights that empowerment is not regarded in individual terms but in social terms (655). An essential aspect of critical pedagogy in literacy learning includes the ongoing recognition of the power relationships amongst individuals who are involved in education, such as the power dynamics within family, classrooms, programs, and institutions. Street (1990) also argues that the failure of literacy campaigns reflects the non-consideration of significant aspects of literacy practices by those more powerful outsiders such as teachers, administrators, and politicians.

Core Issues and Key Findings The practicality of critical pedagogy, while considered highly theoretical, has brought up a series of questions founded on empirical research wherein educators have attempted to incorporate its principles in classroom discourse. While such practitioners highlight the positive facets of critical pedagogy, such as students’ stronger engagement with curriculum, empowerment through dialogue and involvement in their communities, critiques of their cultural norms, and participation in patriarchal countries/communities, the same researchers have also pointed out the shortcomings of the theoretical and ideological model. Some of these deficiencies include students’ aversion to idealized concepts, teachers’ limited understanding of the implementation of “critical” in their curricula, lack of support in adopting critical perspectives within the school site, as well as practitioners’ skepticism of the “empowering” outcome in students’ lives. To use critical pedagogy, practitioners attempt to reconstruct their classrooms as a threepronged discourse structure. Structurally, these three aspects include a curriculum that needs to be founded upon students’ interests, cultural needs, and community empowerment. In terms of the dynamics of interaction, the teacher/educator in the classroom usually focuses on participation and skills in dialogue in a rational articulation of one’s context with others who are differently situated (Young 1997). In this regard, the participatory dynamics and dialogical skills involve the construction of dialogues amongst peers, questioning concepts and common behavior, doubting the ritualized form, explaining one’s perception of reality, providing evidence of assertions, advancing arguments from diverse knowledge and/or disciplinary perspectives, drawing upon experience with the curriculum and topics addressed, and listening to a variety of voices in different discourses. In essence, this is the capacity for critique, reflecting the critical agency of participants (Habermas 1981). Meeting Different Voices: Teaching English for Cultural Awareness. The research about the use and implementation of critical pedagogy in international language classrooms possibly exemplifies some of the structural and dynamic rearrangements that teachers and educators have undergone to teach critically. In this regard, Sadegui (2008) opted to implement critical pedagogy in an Iranian classroom through adopting locally and situated forbidden topics or taboos, as well as engaging students through discussion; reading diverse articles; and utilizing students’ own sources of information and knowledge, such as texts, pictures, and audio-recordings. Although meeting resistance, Sadegui (2008) suggests that critical consciousness does not necessarily urge critical action, but it gives participants of the prevalent discourse the chance to resist or change. Showing similar results in Iranian high schools, Ghahremani-Ghajar and Mirhosseini (2005) focus on utilizing dialogue journals to express students’ thoughts on any topic of interest. Ghahremani-Ghajar and Mirhosseini (2005) found that students consistently appropriated the opportunity to utilize “their” English to express dissatisfactions and opinions. In coding the journals into descriptive and personal versus critical and creative essays, Ghahremani-Ghajar and 254

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Mirhosseini (2005) assert that in the last quarter, one percent of the journals were written with descriptive and/or personal style, 82% being either critical or creative, with 42% being creative ones. In an English class in South Korea, Shin and Crookes (2005) employed critical pedagogy by creating projects, such as slide presentations, travel plans, discussion groups, poster presentations, and written essays. The outcomes reported show that students highly valued class discussions as sites for listening to their peers’ thoughts to further their views and experiences. Shin and Crookes (2005) point out that students engaged in dialogue by asking questions, revealing disagreements, and clarifying others’ comments. Generally, time allotted to discussion with and among students has been thought of as good teaching practice, and in the United States, it has long been part of child-centered learning; however, elsewhere, and in countries where historically there has been little communication in the classroom from students, a more dialogue-oriented set of teaching and learning tools form a critical pedagogy. Huang (2011), exploring an English reading and writing classroom in Taiwan, utilized writing journals by focusing on notions of critique (Luke and Freebody 1999) and different perspectives of reading material referring to the same topic. Huang (2011) explains that reading became a conscious process through which students uncovered hidden messages and contemplated multiple perspectives. In writing, students were encouraged to write because writing became, in some way, meaningful. Despite the positive experiences within English language classrooms using critical pedagogy, challenges have not been absent from these practices. Rice (1998) ponders the welcoming concept of “criticality” in different cultural practices at the time that Eastman (1998) and Canagarajah (1993) question the integration of critical pedagogy into a curriculum in which English is learned as a means for survival and cultural status. Sadeghi (2008) highlighted her “solitude” in the school site as a result of adopting the perspective and touching on complex topics, adding the struggle in examining biased voices in every different context. Shin and Crookes’ (2005) concerns focus on combining the dialogical discourse while maintaining a certain level of authority. The researchers also point out the limited language proficiency to participate in English talk. Ko and Wang (2009) emphasize the teacher’s lack of time, insufficient classroom time, large class size, and cultural expectations in education as barriers in Taiwan English classrooms. Empowering Through Literacy: Practices and Limitations. In literacy studies, the social change perspective embodies principles of the multiple-literacies approach, further emphasizing the issues of institutional power, cultural struggles, and social change. Essentially, literacy becomes a site for struggle because the conditions created by institutions and structural forces influence the forms and access to literacy acquisition (Auerbach 1995). In the critical perspective, literacy, in itself, does not lead to empowerment or resolve economic problems, if the link does not embody a critical understanding of the social contexts and initiatives to change inequitable conditions. In critical theory studies, literacy processes comprise complementary modalities, such as connecting the oral and written “word” to the understanding and critique of controlling structures and domination, offering students the opportunity to successfully participate in the academic discourse. In terms of literacy programs, such as family literacy, critical pedagogy practice encompasses the parents’ control over the program’s goals, issues, themes, research agenda, dialogue as a key to pedagogical process, content centering on critical social issues for participants, and the critical notion of action for social change. In short, and theoretically, critical studies in literacy practices challenge power structures through the study and discernment of hierarchies as a first step to improve the condition of marginalized groups, engaging them in social participation and discourse patterns. Empirically, participants have demonstrated indifference to the discourse of critical pedagogy. Within a family literacy program for Guatemalan Maya families, Schoorman and Zainuddin 255

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(2008) examine changes in the curriculum to implement critical pedagogy and the empowerment practices with which teachers were engaged. The researchers discovered that participants in the program did not have social and structural change as their primary goal for seeking literacy education. Conversely, Schoorman and Zainuddin (2008) highlight that parents sought literacy education to “fit in” to the American system, mainly contributing to the academic success of their children. On the positive side, contributors and participants of the Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research group, Rogers, Mosley, and Folkes (2009), examined a classroom where the literacy practices focused on “literacies of labour,” bringing up the (economic) class conflict topic within students’ immediate job contexts at work as a tool to negotiate awareness and critique in adults’ lives. Through the use of slide-based picture story and dialogue, Rogers et al. (2009), argue that while the students became more proficient with language and literacy, they also became more knowledgeable about their rights as workers and “how to be advocates for action” (136). Although focusing the findings on her practice as a critical educator, Rocha-Schmid (2010) investigates a family literacy program in London where she attempted to engage immigrant parents in a critical pedagogy discourse of empowerment. The approach gave opportunities for parents to discuss the school culture and practices and to position themselves within a different cultural system. Rocha-Schmid (2010) also acknowledges that parents displayed their own deep awareness of the topics and issues addressed and debated; however, the discourse patterns in which she was involved as a teacher did not allow for further and deeper dialogues within the classroom. Through the exercise of critical pedagogy in literacy programs, researchers have also presented the limitations of the perspective. For example, Rogers and colleagues (2009) understand that the use of critical literacy in education is necessary but insufficient in the struggle for justice and soc