Language Policy, Indigenous Languages and the Village School: A Study of Bilingual Education for the Tarahumara of Northern Mexico
Author(s)
Paciotto, Carla
Abstract
In 1991, the Bilingual Bicultural Education Program (BBEP) was launched in Chihuahua, Mexico, as a way of responding to the educational needs of the indigenous Tarahumara populations and the growing threat to their language and culture. Using a conceptual framework based on the literatures of curriculum inquiry, language shift and maintenance, and literacy studies, this 10-month ethnographic case study examines the sociocultural contexts of the implementation of the BBEP in a federal school serving Tarahumara, and the role of the school and the BBEP in indigenous language maintenance. Specifically, the paper reports and discusses findings on how state-developed BBEP goals relate to the teachers’ and parents’ expectations of school, literacy, and biliteracy. As the findings show, the school is the place of children’s first intense contact with mestizo culture and language, and the agency where children are expected by parents and teachers to acquire Spanish oral & literacy skills.
