Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960-2001 (Al Filo, No. 1, Band 1) - Hardcover

San Miguel, Guadalupe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574411713 ISBN 13: 9781574411713

Verlag: University of North Texas Press,U.S., 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Bilingual education is one of the most contentious and misunderstood educational programs in the country. It raises significant questions about this country’s national identity, the nature of federalism, power, ethnicity, and pedagogy. In Contested Policy, Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. studies the origins, evolution, and consequences of federal bilingual education policy from 1960 to 2001, with particular attention to the activist years after 1978, when bilingual policy was heatedly contested.

Traditionally, those in favor of bilingual education are language specialists, Mexican American activists, newly enfranchised civil rights advocates, language minorities, intellectuals, teachers, and students. They are ideologically opposed to the assimilationist philosophy in the schools, to the structural exclusion and institutional discrimination of minority groups, and to limited school reform.

On the other hand, the opponents of bilingual education, comprised at different points in time of conservative journalists, politicians, federal bureaucrats, Anglo parent groups, school officials, administrators, and special-interest groups (such as U.S. English), favor assimilationism, the structural exclusion and discrimination of ethnic minorities, and limited school reform.

In the 1990s a resurgence of opposition to bilingual education succeeded in repealing bilingual legislation with an English-only piece of legislation. San Miguel deftly provides a history of these clashing groups and how they impacted bilingual educational policy over the years. Rounding out this history is an extensive, annotated bibliography on federal bilingual policy that can be used to enhance further study.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., is professor of history at the University of Houston. He is the author of “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican-Americans and the Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas, 1910–1981; Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston; and Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century.

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Contested Policy

The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States 1960–2001

By Guadalupe San Miguel Jr.

University of North Texas Press

Copyright © 2004 Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57441-171-3

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
CHAPTER 1. Origins of Federal Bilingual Education Policy, 
CHAPTER 2. The Expansion of Bilingual Education, 1968–1978, 
CHAPTER 3. Retrenchment and Redefinition, 1980–1988, 
CHAPTER 4. The Final Push, 1990s, 
CONCLUSION, 
EPILOGUE, 
APPENDIX: Extended Bibliographic Essay, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

ORIGINS OF FEDERAL BILINGUAL EDUCATION POLICY

Bilingual education is not a new phenomenon. It has existed in various forms since this nation's founding. The use of non-English languages as well as the use of two or more languages to teach academic subjects to individuals in the elementary, secondary, or post-secondary grades has been supported, tolerated, or sanctioned by public and parochial school officials since the 1600s. For the most part, local or state officials made these language decisions. The federal government rarely legislated language choice, although it discouraged the use of non-English languages in American life, especially in the territories and among certain immigrant and racial minority groups. The tradition of refraining from taking official action related to language policies in general or school language policies in particular ended in 1968. In this year, the U.S. Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act. Why and how this occurred is the emphasis of this chapter.

Professional educators and language specialists initiated the contemporary push for federal bilingual education policy in the early part of the decade, but newly enfranchised Chicano/a activists, civil rights groups, and educational activists soon joined them. Although activist educators, language specialists, ethnic minorities, and others were crucial in the origins of bilingual education policy, several significant contextual factors influenced their ideas and approaches. Among the most important of these during the first half of the 1960s were bilingual research findings, the civil rights movement, federal social legislation and the emerging Chicano and Chicana Movement. These contextual forces brought to light questions about national identity, the federal role in school change, power, and pedagogy, and eventually contributed to the enactment of the federal Bilingual Education Act of 1968.

CONTEXTUAL FACTORS

Research on bilingualism—i.e., on the impact and extent of "non-English languages" in American society—began to influence many of the arguments that advocates would use to support bilingual education policy. This new research questioned two prominent myths in education: the myth of the negative impact of bilingualism on intelligence and on academic achievement and the myth of the declining significance of ethnicity in American life as implied by the melting pot theory of assimilation.

Research on Bilingualism

Since the 1920s, research on intelligence and achievement had indicated that bilingualism was an obstacle to success. This research showed a negative relationship between dual language capabilities and intelligence. However, in the early 1960s a gradual shift occurred in this literature. Scholars found that bilingualism was an asset to learning in the schools and that it played a positive role in intelligence. More specifically, they found that bilingual children were either equal to or superior to monolinguals on intelligence tests and in other areas of language usage.

Bilingual research studies also questioned the myth of underachievement based on language barriers. These new studies indicated that, in conjunction with other reforms, "non-English" or native language instruction could improve school achievement in general, rather than retard it. These studies also indicated that bilingualism could improve second language acquisition in particular. One such study, for example, found that Spanish-speaking children instructed bilingually tended to perform as well in English language skills and in the content areas as comparable students taught only in English. At the same time, these children were developing language skills in Spanish. Anglo students in bilingual programs were not adversely affected in their English language development and in the content subjects, and were learning a second language, Spanish.

This new research likewise raised questions about assimilation. Traditional theory had argued that ethnicity in general and ethnic minority languages and cultures in particular would disappear over time as a result of ethnic group assimilation into American life. Research on bilingualism, however, indicated that certain minority groups in the United States maintained their language abilities and cultural identity over time. Bilingualism and biculturalism, in other words, were not disappearing but being maintained and, in some cases, increasing. Much of this bilingualism was due to the language maintenance among the French-speaking groups in the Northeast and the Spanish-speaking population in the Southwest.

This new bilingual research reinforced the work of scholars such as Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan. These two noted scholars of the immigrant experience based their research on ethnic and immigrant groups in New York City and argued that people maintained their cultural identities and felt close affiliation to those of the same group. According to them, cultural and linguistic pluralism was a much more common phenomenon than previously assumed. More specifically, ethnic and language minority groups were not melting and ethnicity was not declining as rapidly as many scholars had believed. The melting pot, in other words, was a myth.

Civil Rights Movement

Domestic concerns, especially the growth of the civil rights movements and the passage of the War on Poverty legislation in the early 1960s, focused increased attention on the problems experienced by people of color living in poverty and the role that the federal government could play in resolving these issues.

The growing strength of the black civil rights movement, that is, the struggle for voting rights, equal employment, and an end to segregation in public facilities, as well as the enactment of civil rights policies, focused attention on the presence of racial discrimination in American life. The civil rights movement also suggested new means for eliminating discriminatory policies and practices, including the use of protest, demonstrations, pickets, and increased federal involvement.

Language scholars and ethnic minority activists strongly supported the civil rights movement. They, however, began to argue that discrimination was not simply based on race but on other factors such as national origin, religion, and gender. In the case of Spanish-speaking children and with respect to bilingual education arguments, civil rights leaders and educators began to emphasize the impact and significance of discrimination based on language and culture. This type of discrimination, many activists and scholars argued, negatively impacted the school achievement of Mexican Americans in particular and language minority children in general.

These activists also began to argue that the federal government had a responsibility for overcoming all forms of discrimination. Like racial discrimination, many of them noted,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of North Texas Press,U.S.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1574411713
• ISBN 13: 9781574411713
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 168
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar