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| History
Issues and Politics of Bilingual Education |
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The language of education has always been of a paramount
importance. This problems becomes even more important nowadays
since the migration processes in the contemporary world are
very active and the national and consequently linguistic situation
is permanently changing. For instance, the US are characterized
by high level of migration and the growth of population is
partially provided with new immigrants who arrive in a new
country often without knowledge of local culture, traditions
and even language.
Naturally in such circumstances the state has to cope with
the problem of linguistic diversity and focus on the bilingual
education as a possible way out from the difficulties that
are created for national minorities because of language.
However, the problem, or to put it more precisely the necessity
to introduce bilingual education, is not new for the US and
within the 20th century, especially in its second half, the
state attempts to solve this problem on both levels, federal
and state. As a result, different programs and legislative
acts were implemented in order to provide all nations and
national minorities with the possibility to receive education
in their own language along with the official language of
the whole country.
It should be pointed out that such programs and laws have
been started not just because of a political will of some
politicians but the moving force of the introduction of bilingual
education were juridical precedents which were the results
of quite numerous court cases which aimed at the solution
of the problem of a traditional education based on English
only and providing national minorities with equal rights to
receive the education as any other citizen of the US.
One of the first, or probably it would be more precisely to
say one of the most famous and significant court cases concerning
in a way the problem of bilingual education was the Brown
v. Board of education (of Topeka) case, which was in fact
probably the first step on the way to introduction of bilingual
education. As a result of this case in 1954, the US Supreme
Court ruled unanimously that “racial segregation in
public schools violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution,
which says that no state may deny equal protection of the
laws to any person within its jurisdiction” (Lambert
& Tucker 1972:241). In fact this means that the Supreme
Court officially recognized the equal opportunities of representatives
of different races and nations to receive education and in
such a context national minorities, which were not provided
with the education in their native language, were obviously
deprived.
Another significant breakthrough in the introduction of bilingual
education occurred during the presidency of John F. Kennedy,
who declared the War on Poverty, which besides implied the
promotion of educational opportunities of the most deprived
shares of American society, and particularly immigrants who
just arrived in the country. The problem was that in the situation
of difficult economic situation and growing tension in international
relations the attitude to immigrants was extremely negative
that makes the role of Kennedy’s attempt to solve the
problem of poverty, which basically concerned Afro-Americans,
national minorities and immigrants, was particularly important
and one of the possible solutions of the problem was the education,
which could be equally accessible for all national and linguistic
groups.
Probably, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was partially a result
of a great work started by John F. Kennedy, which aimed at
the achievement of real equality of all citizens of the US.
At the same time it was certainly motivated by court cases,
such as Brown v. Topeka. In the same time the act was another
step to develop bilingual education in the country. According
to this legislative act, any kind of discrimination, including
discrimination by schools was forbidden and the act called
“for desegregation of public schools” (Hakuta
2000:158). The latter fact has to be underlined since just
like Brown v Topeka case it basically concerned public schools,
which may be treated as one of the disadvantages of the law
that still does not make it less important.
In order to support the intentions of the act and provide
its proper execution the US Department of Education was created,
which was also “responsible for carrying out government
education programs” (Hakuta 2000:196). Established in
1968 it aimed at the improvement of education nationwide and
providing national minorities with equal opportunities to
realize the programs of bilingual education.
1970s were characterized by the development of law remedies,
which enlarged rights of representatives of different nations
to receive education on their native language and provide
possibilities to practice bilingual education.
However, the legislative activity was not limited only by
legislative acts and programs on federal level but states
were quite active as well. For instance, in Illinois Article
14C took effect on July 1, 1976. According to this article,
transitional bilingual education was required. In any building
where 20 or more limited English-proficient students of the
same language classification were present. It also provided
such establishment with certified bilingual personnel and
English was a second language. Students had an opportunity
to 3-year study to achieve proficiency in English and study
their own culture along with traditional American.
The following two decades 1980-2000 were characterized by
a significant increase of immigrants, particularly from Asia
and Latin America that eventually led to the development of
TBE/TBL, which provided services to all bilingual students.
Currently, any child can receive bilingual education through
participation in numerous programs, which aim at the creation
of equal opportunities to all students regardless their national
or racial identity.
Bibliography:
1. Hakuta, K. (2000). Mirror of language: The debate on bilingualism.
New York: Basic Books.
2. Lambert, W. E. & Tucker, G. R. (1972). Bilingual Education
of Children. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers.
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