ABSTRACT
Language is perhaps the most common issue that surfaces in debates over school reform, and plays a vital role in virtually everything we are involved. This edited volume explores linguistic apartheid, or the disappearance of certain languages through cultural genocide by dominant European colonizers and American neoconservative groups. These groups have historically imposed hegemonic languages, such as English and French, on colonized people at the expense of the native languages of the latter. The book traces this form of apartheid from the colonial era to the English-only movement in the United States, and proposes alternative ways to counter linguistic apartheid that minority groups and students have faced in schools and society at large.
Contributors to this volume provide a historical overview of the way many languages labeled as inferior, minority, or simply savage have been attacked and pushed to the margins, discriminating against and attempting to silence the voice of those who spoke and continue to speak these languages. Further, they demonstrate the way and the extent to which such actions have affected the cultural life, learning process, identity, and the subjective and material conditions of linguistically and historically marginalized groups, including students.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|54 pages
Linguistic Apartheid in the United States
chapter 2|13 pages
21st Century Linguistic Apartheid
chapter 3|19 pages
Cultural Hegemony, Language, and the Politics of Forgetting
part II|70 pages
Beyond Draconian Language Policies
chapter 8|18 pages
Colonial Education in the Southwest
chapter 9|12 pages
(Dis)Appearance of Deficit
part III|136 pages
In Defense of Language Rights of Minorities