Although multilingualism and multilingual education have existed for centuries, our 21st-century entrance into the new millennium has brought renewed interest and contestation around this educational alternative. Ethnolinguistic diversity and inequality, intercultural communication and contact, and global political and economic interdependence are…

In this article, we take up the call for more multilayered and ethnographic approaches to language policy and planning (LPP) research by sharing two examples of how ethnography can illuminate local interpretation and implementation. We offer ethnographic data collected in two very different institutions--the School District of Philadelphia and the…

Examines the potentially problematic tension between the goals of authenticity and unification in Quechua-language planning. One case study examines the orthographic debate that arose in Peru, and the second case study concerns two indigenous communities in Saraguro in the Southern Ecuadorian highlands where Spanish predominates but two Quichua…

This article considers instances of biliterate educational practice in contexts of indigenous language revitalization involving Quechua in the South American Andes, Guarani in Paraguay, and Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In these indigenous contexts of sociohistorical and sociolinguistic oppression, the implementation of multilingual language…

Discusses bilingual education policy and reform in the context of indigenous languages of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, exploring the ideological paradox inherent in transforming a standardizing education into a diversifying one and in constructing a multilingual, multicultural national identity. Data come from policy documents and practitioner…

Introduces a collection of papers that address issues related to the maintenance and revitalization of indigenous languages in Latin and Central America. Two papers focus on the case of Quechua, another considers bilingual intercultural education to help sustain the Harakmbut languages in Peru, and the last considers one of three native language…

Indigenous languages are under siege, not only in the United States but also around the world, in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation. Immigrants and their languages worldwide are similarly subject to seemingly irresistible social, political, and economic pressures. Yet, at a time when phrases such…

Literacy in South America must be understood in terms of the linguistic diversity there, where only 2 of 14 nations and territories are monolingual. Oral traditions, standardization of indigenous languages, nonstandard varieties of colonial languages, bilingual education and mother tongue literacy, literacy teaching, and politics are discussed.…

Recent developments in language policy and educational reform in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia have opened new possibilities for indigenous languages and their speakers through bilingual intercultural education. Use of the term "intercultural" is examined in official policy documents and in short narratives about intercultural practice by…

Discusses cases of indigenous/immigrant languages that are in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation, including languages of South America, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Wales, New Zealand, Turkey, and native languages of California. Such cases provide evidence that language policy and education serve…

A discussion of language policy formation and planning in South America focuses on the highland indigenous sectors and covers the following: colonial languages; immigrant languages; and indigenous languages, including planning, acquisition planning, and corpus planning. (Contains 83 references.) (LB)

Examines two initiatives to revitalize Quechua, the language of the Incas: Bolivia's 1994 reform incorporating the provision of bilingual intercultural education; and a community-based effort to incorporate Quichua as a second language instruction in a school in Ecuador. Points out that census records and sociolinguistic studies document a…