32.3504, Review: Applied Linguistics; Historical Linguistics: Moore (2021)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-32-3504. Thu Nov 04 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.3504, Review: Applied Linguistics; Historical Linguistics: Moore (2021)

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Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2021 21:46:07
From: Maria Turrero-Garcia [maria.turrero at gmail.com]
Subject: A History of Bilingual Education in the US

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1107.html

AUTHOR: Sarah C.K. Moore
TITLE: A History of Bilingual Education in the US
SUBTITLE: Examining the Politics of Language Policymaking
SERIES TITLE: Bilingual Education & Bilingualism
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Maria Turrero-Garcia, Drew University

SUMMARY

This book explores the history of bilingual education in the United States,
with a special focus on the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st
century. The extensive research presented by Sarah Moore provides a detailed
account of the complexities that have affected bilingual education policy in
the United States in recent decades, including social movements and
organizations, introduces specific personalities that have become essential in
the fight for bilingual education, and describes the relevant historical
context.

Chapter 1, “A Racist White House”, highlights the heavily racialized and
politicized decisions made from the White House during the most recent
presidential term and how they have affected the relationship that minority
groups have with their own languages and cultures as well as with the majority
group. Additionally, this chapter presents former Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos in context, providing the reader with information about Secretary
DeVos’s educational and ideological background as a means of understanding the
educational policies implemented by the Trump administration. Additionally,
this chapter spends some time defining Charter schools and putting them in the
context of bilingual education, explaining how their overabundance in recent
years has impacted the educational systems of different regions across the
United States.

In Chapter 2, “Prequel to the Bilingual Education Act”, the author
contextualizes early attempts at “bilingual” education as it was understood
during the 20th century, with all its variations across decades of political
and demographic changes. This section of the book provides some information
about immigration in the decade of the 60s by various groups of
Spanish-speakers (Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban), although it does not
provide an extensive vision of immigration at this time. The chapter also
focuses on specific early episodes that have advanced the knowledge in the
United States of bilingualism and of the role of bilingual education on
bilingual communities, such as the 1958 National Defense Education Act, the
publication of the Coleman report (1966), or the 1963/64 Coral Way bilingual
program. Additionally, the chapter presents key figures in the implementation
and improvement of bilingual education initiatives leading up to the 1968
Bilingual Education Act (BEA), such as Ralph Yarborough. 

Chapter 3, entitled “Early Bilingual Education and the Sociopolitical
Backdrop”, provides an enumeration and description of bilingual education
programs that were funded during the 60s and 70s before the implementation of
the BEA, while simultaneously presenting the social and political backdrop to
the implementation of the BEA in 1968. Highlighting the continuous political
focus on inequity during the Johnson administration as well as that
President’s focus on Mexican-American relations, followed by Nixon’s
understanding of the weight that Spanish-speaking groups can carry politically
in the United States, the chapter goes on to explain the roles of a variety of
programs, committees, and organizations. Standing out among them are the roles
of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Office of Civil
Rights, and the Committee on Mexican-American Affairs.

Moore goes on to give a detailed account of the types of programs, content
development, and policies that were implemented in the early 1970s. Chapter 4
(“Capacity Building”) goes into the changes that occurred before the 1974
reauthorization of the BEA, including the implementation of the Office of
Bilingual Education. The importance of increased funding is highlighted in
this chapter, where the author explains how this funding allowed for “resource
creation and distribution, evaluation and assessment regarding quality of
programs and curricula” (Moore 2021: 67).  

In “Systemic Infrastructure” (Chapter 5), the author describes the bilingual
education network that was implemented after the signing of the 1974 BEA
reauthorization. This network included the creation of the National
Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, as well as three kinds of bilingual
education resource centers: Materials Development Centers (in charge of
implementing efficient bilingual educational materials), Dissemination and
Assessment Centers (in charge of publishing and disseminating materials
produced by the Materials Development Centers), and Training Resource Centers
(in charge of aiding personnel participating in teacher training programs).
These centers constituted the National Network of Centers for Bilingual
Education.   

Chapter 6, “Language Ideologies, Politics and Policymaking”, highlights the
debates that arose with regards to the changes made to bilingual education
policy described in Chapter 5. Focusing on publications and discussions in
public forums that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this chapter
summarizes the views of advocates and opponents of bilingual education,
including a description of English-only movements that arose in the late 1990s
and early 2000s. The chapter emphasizes the role of a series of reports
(Epstein Report, AIR Report) on the bad press received by bilingual education
during this time. Although those reports include inaccurate information or
questionable methodologies that are easily debunked (Cárdenas 1977), the
damage done by these reports was extensive, fueling English-Only movements and
impacting funding for bilingual programs.   

The final chapter in this book, “Current Endeavors and Future Possibilities”,
explores the current situation of bilingual education in the United States.
The author emphasizes the problematic view of bilingual education as a
commodity for the white elite, as opposed to its role as a resource for
minority groups. Moore discusses the concept of “monolingual hegemonic
Whiteness” as presented by Flores (2016), connecting it to the current
situation of bilingual education in the United States. Additionally, this
chapter discusses potential next steps that could be taken to improve the
current status of bilingual education, including the following: the creation
of symposia for bilingual education scholars and instructors; stakeholder
meetings with administrators and regional representatives, educators, and
activists for bilingual education; the creation of regional technical
assistance centers to collaborate with local and State education agencies; the
creation of centers for the development of educational materials; better
development of educator preparation programs; and new policymaking that
implements better bilingual education opportunities for emergent bilingual
students.  

EVALUATION

“A History of Bilingual Education in the US: Examining the Politics of
Language Policymaking” is a thorough, well-researched, and carefully planned
book. It provides interesting perspectives on how bilingual education in the
United States arrived at its current state, looking into connections between
political movements and policy decisions that may not be evident to the
untrained eye. Additionally, the reader learns about how different educational
agencies evolved throughout the years to improve or deter bilingual education,
catching a glimpse of the potential of certain policies and agencies in the
development of a better bilingual education system for the future. This volume
provides a wealth of information and is decidedly complete when looking into
the history of bilingual education and policies in the 20th century (one could
perhaps say that it provides too much information, as the sheer number of
facts that are presented can be hard to follow at times). However, the book
does not explore bilingual education in the 21st century in depth, which could
have been very beneficial for bilingual language educators interested in this
book in order to better understand their current situation in their
professional endeavors. Considering the amount of research and the richness of
information that the book provides for every previous decade, the author could
have painted a clearer picture of exactly what has been and is being done in
the United States over the past two decades with regards to bilingual
education. A clear summary of current agencies, policies, and actual
implementations of bilingual education programs across the country, together
with a few more examples of actual implementation of these programs, would
make this book even more informative and useful for current and future
bilingual education professionals and advocates alike. Additionally, the
future steps laid out at the very end of the book may well deserve a chapter
of their own, as opposed to a few pages at the end of the volume. Many of the
readers of this book will be educators or policymakers looking to understand
bilingual education better for the sake of improving it in the future, and
therefore they will be interested in understanding how an expert such as Sarah
Moore would suggest moving forward. But the book ends somewhat abruptly and
there is no clear conclusion to all the information provided. However, these
are very small faults when considering the high-quality work that Moore
presents in this book. The book, through its abundant research, provides the
reader with a vision of the many steps forward and backward that bilingual
education has taken in the US, with a focus on the people that have
contributed to this situation one way or another. It is refreshing to learn
the names and some personal facts about specific contributors to the field of
bilingual education, as we typically learn about their proposals but not who
they are and how this informs their work. In sum, this book is definitely a
must-read for those who would benefit from learning how bilingual education in
the United States arose and how we got to our current situation. Educators,
advocates, administrators, and even those curious about bilingual education
among the general public would all benefit from reading this volume. 

REFERENCES

Cárdenas, J. A. (1977). “The AIR Evaluation of the Impact of ESEA Title VII
Spanish/English Bilingual Education Programs: An IDRA Response”. Intercultural
Development Research Association.

Flores, N. (2016). A tale of two visions: Hegemonic whiteness and bilingual
education. “Educational Policy”, 30(1), 13-38.

Moore, S. C. (2021). “A History of Bilingual Education in the US: Examining
the Politics of Language Policymaking”. Multilingual Matters.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

María Turrero-García holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from the University
of Massachusetts Amherst. She is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at
Drew University. Her research interests are Bilingualism, Second Language
Acquisition and Applied Linguistics.





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