This article discusses emerging research on youth and Indigenous languages. Based on a comparative and international Indigenous education study in Peru and the United States, the intersection between Indigenous community spaces, schools, and languages is examined. Given global trends of Indigenous language loss, comparative research provides the…

This study describes a rare Swahili pidgin created by two five-year-old boys, one American and one African. The discussion examines the linguistic and social factors affecting the "origins, maintenance, change and loss" (Hymes 1971) of their language and the place it created for their friendship. This place, constructed by and through language,…

On the basis of an ethnographic study of the Voro-language revitalization in Estonia, this article explores the way teachers function as policy actors in the broader context of the school. As policy actors, the language teachers' appropriation of regional-language policy helps simultaneously to reproduce and challenge existing ideologies in the…

On the basis of a ten-month ethnography of a Raramuri school and community, this article contributes to the understanding of the role of sociolinguistic and socioeconomic contexts in creating Indigenous-language maintenance programs. Employing concepts of micro- and macrolevel variables in language endangerment and language vitality scales, it…

This article expands our understanding of how language-minoritized children's communicative competence interrelates with schooling. It features a verbal performance by a young Native American girl. A case is made for greater empirical specification of the real extent of children's non-school-sanctioned communicative competence. The case disrupts…

This article contributes to our knowledge of endangered language revitalization by offering a case study of a Cherokee Nation (CN) preschool immersion program named Tsalagi Ageyui, "Our Beloved Cherokee." A naturalistic inquiry into the micro- and macrosociocultural dimensions of reversing Cherokee language shift reveals that, of all CN language…

Although school- and university-based language programs can help strengthen threatened Indigenous languages, language revitalization at its heart involves reestablishing traditional functions of language use in the context of everyday speaker interactions. The inherent dynamics of Native oral language traditions suggest the limitations of…

Reversing language shift has proven to be difficult for many reasons. Although much of the literature has focused on educational practices, little research has attended to the visual presentation of language used in educational texts aimed at reversing shift. In this article, we compare language materials developed for two different language…

Orchestrating an Indigenous language program for Indigenous peoples within any academic environment is no easy task. In most cases, Indigenous languages are taught by a recognized community expert, in the community; teaching that same language in a university environment is much more challenging. This article responds to Mindy J. Morgan's…

Discusses endangerment of the Navajo language, blaming schooling, but noting several other factors that weaken language loyalty. Explains that vernacular literacy, traditional and introduced religion, and political structure have failed to establish a counterforce to language loss. Economic changes have led to new living patterns that, together…

Language shift among New Mexico Pueblo Indians threatens the loss of their oral-based cultures. Language revival for many Pueblos has resulted in school programs in which students are easily accessible and teachers are accountable to tribes rather than the state. Finding "Pueblo space" for the Native language in school, where it was…

Indigenous languages are powerful symbols of self-determination and sovereignty for tribal communities in the United States, and many community-based programs have been developed to support and maintain them. The successes of these programs, however, have been difficult to replicate at large research institutions. This article examines the issues…

Framed by the English language and positioned as a distinct subject, Ojibwe culture and language are often appreciated by students rather than taught for a deeper understanding or fluency, or used as the language of instruction in tribal schools. Ojibwe culture and language have been "added on" to existing school curriculum, an approach that…

This article examines language and literacy use in two communities in which Spanish-speaking children live and attend school, documenting the confounding of socioeconomic status, ethnic density, and access to Spanish language and print. Drawing on community observations and interviews with parents and children in a yearlong ethnographic study, we…

This article examines the implementation of educational policy in a religious education program at a Los Angeles Catholic parish. It charts the elimination of Spanish-based classes ("doctrina") for Mexican immigrant children in favor of "English-only" instruction. The article offers insights into the politics of language use in everyday practice…