This article explores relationality and relational accountability in Indigenous education, contextualizing these processes within a current US-wide study of Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) schooling. With the goals of promoting language and culture revitalization alongside education equity, self-determination, and community well-being, ILI…

This article explores research and practice on the holistic benefits of education for language revitalisation and reclamation -- ELR[superscript 2] -- efforts that link home, school, and community in mutually supportive language work informed by a critical understanding of coloniality as the root cause of language endangerment. The article…

This article examines Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) schooling, an innovative approach in which most or all instruction occurs in the Indigenous language, with a strong culture-based curriculum. With the goals of promoting language revitalization, academic/holistic wellbeing, and cultural identity and continuance, ILI is a form of sustainable…

This essay is based on a June 2014 interview with Bernard Spolsky, in which he discussed his life with educational linguistics. A self-described "accidental professor," Spolsky directed the first study of Navajo sociolinguistics, established educational linguistics as a field of study and practice, co-created a national language policy…

Drawing on the work of Philip Deloria (2004) and recent explorations of "American Indian languages in unexpected places" (Webster & Peterson, 2011a), this article challenges received expectations of Native American languages and language users as "rural" and physically distant and of "urban" Indigenous language…

Fifty years after the U.S. Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA), Native Americans continue to fight for the right "to remain an Indian" (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006) against a backdrop of test-driven language policies that threaten to destabilize proven bilingual programs and violate hard-fought language rights protections…

In this article, Teresa L. McCarty and Tiffany S. Lee present critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy as a necessary concept to understand and guide educational practices for Native American learners. Premising their discussion on the fundamental role of tribal sovereignty in Native American schooling, the authors underscore and…

Comprehensive in scope and rich in detail, this book explores language planning, language education, and language policy for diverse Native American peoples across time, space, and place. Based on longterm collaborative and ethnographic work with Native American communities and schools, the book examines the imposition of colonial language…

In this chapter, the authors offer a critical examination of a growing field of educational inquiry and social practice: the reclamation of Indigenous mother tongues. They use the term "reclamation" purposefully to denote that these are languages that have been forcibly subordinated in contexts of colonization. Language reclamation…

In Native American communities, the "global here and now" (Appadurai, 2001) is linked to twin movements for standardization and English supremacy, resulting in the decline of Indigenous languages and persistent educational disparities. This article takes up Appadurai's call to democratize research on globalization, juxtaposing theories that…

This article offers a grounded view of language shift as experienced by Native American youth across a range of early- to late-shift settings. Drawing on data from a long-term ethnographic study, we demonstrate that the linguistic ecologies in which youth language choices play out are more complex than a unidirectional notion of shift might…

This article examines current efforts to revitalise, stabilise, and maintain Indigenous languages in the USA. Most Native American languages are no longer acquired as a first language by children. They are nonetheless languages of identity and heritage, and in this sense can and should be considered mother tongues. The article begins with a…

This paper examines preliminary findings from an ongoing federally funded study of Native language shift and retention in the US Southwest, focusing on in-depth ethnographic interviews with Navajo youth. We begin with an overview of Native American linguistic ecologies, noting the dynamic, variegated and complex nature of language proficiencies…

This paper discusses the contribution of school-based mother-tongue literacy to the maintenance and renewal of endangered languages, with Navajo as the case in point. Although Navajo claims the most speakers among U.S. indigenous languages, the absolute number and relative proportion of Navajo speakers have declined drastically in the last 30…

In this article, the authors explore the personal, familial, and academic stakes of Native language loss for youth, drawing on narrative data from the Native Language Shift and Retention Project, a five year (2001-06), federally funded study of the nature and impacts of Native language shift and retention on American Indian students' language…