Indigenous Language Policy and Education in Mexico

Hamel, Rainer Enrique

doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_22

Cited by 28 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…While there are an estimated 100,000 speakers of Isthmus Zapotec (INALI, ), the increasing use of Spanish within families (Augsburger, ) and dominance of Spanish in high‐status social spaces is evidence of the marginalization of Zapotec. Indigenous languages of Mexico have been officially recognized since 2003; however, this policy has not substantially changed the negative evaluations of Indigenous languages in society (De Korne, López Gopar, & Ríos Ríos, ; Hamel, ). In the multilingual ecology of the Isthmus, Spanish is necessary for social mobility in the formal economy and Zapotec is valued in relation to private and certain public social spaces, including music and poetry, but is widely viewed as less valuable than Spanish and other European languages (De Korne, ).…”

Section: The Lived Spaces Of Minority Language Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning language regimes: Children's representations of minority language education

Purkarthofer

Korne

2019

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Minority language education initiatives often aim to resist dominant language regimes and to raise the social status of migrant or autochthonous minorities. We consider how participating children experience these alternative language regimes by analysing drawings made by children in two minority education settings—a Slovene‐German bilingual school in Austria and an Isthmus Zapotec (Indigenous) language and art workshop in Mexico. We examine how children's drawings represent language regimes in the social spaces they inhabit. Considering these drawings in relation to ethnographic observations and interviews with educators, we illustrate differences between how the social spaces are planned by educators and how they are represented and experienced by learners. Generally speaking, the children in our studies depict flexible, multilingual experiences and spaces, in contrast to the educators’ agendas of separating or emphasizing languages for pedagogical purposes. Mexican children's perception of themselves as participants in fluid language regimes, and Austrian children's increasing appropriation of multilingual space over time through both (school‐like) routines and (fun) exceptions can inform the efforts of minority language educators.

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Section: The Lived Spaces Of Minority Language Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning language regimes: Children's representations of minority language education

Purkarthofer

Korne

2019

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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“…The first regional teacher training college in the Isthmus, the Escuela Normal Regional de Juchitán, 7 opened in 1926, and an increasing number of primary and secondary schools followed (Ruíz Martínez, 2013). It was as a result of this aggressive national campaign for school construction and Spanish-language literacy that use of Spanish began to become more common among the general population in Oaxaca in the 1940s (Hamel, 2008b;Sicoli, 2011).…”

Section: Shame and Silence Through Schooling: The Price Of Colonialismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As one mother commented, As in many parts of the world, schooling played a significant role in placing Diidxazá and other local languages at the bottom of the linguistic hierarchy in Mexico (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009;Tollefson, 1991). A nominally bilingual (Indigenous language-Spanish) education system has existed under different titles and formats since the 1960s, but has generally functioned to transition students to use of Spanish without developing bilingual or biliterate capacities (Coronado Suzán, 1992;Hamel, 2008aHamel, , 2008bRebolledo, 2010) and without significantly raising the symbolic capital of the language. While many people with whom I spoke felt that there was more prejudice towards use of Diidxazá in the past, others noted that it carries on in the present.…”

Section: Shame and Silence Through Schooling: The Price Of Colonialismentioning

confidence: 99%

3. ‘A Treasure’ and ‘A Legacy’: Individual and Communal (Re)valuing of Isthmus Zapotec in Multilingual Mexico

Korne

2017

Language, Education and Neoliberalism

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Speaking Isthmus Zapotec has represented different forms of material and symbolic capital at different times and places throughout the pre-Hispanic, colonial and post-colonial history of Mexico. This chapter explores the shifting and contrasting discourses of value around the language in the current era of neoliberal multiculturalism drawing on an ethnographic study of the use of Isthmus Zapotec in educational contexts in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The effects of educational politics across historical eras and into the present have largely devalued Isthmus Zapotec use and contributed to the material inequalities experienced by Isthmus Zapotec speakers. The social capital associated with Isthmus Zapotec remains subject to negotiation, however, as local actors continue to revalue Isthmus Zapotec through communal, genealogical and place-based discourses, as well as individualist, ahistorical and mobile discourses. This case illustrates the influence of both politico-economic trends and local agency in the negotiation of linguistic capital, and argues the importance of attending to local counter-discourses.

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“…A search in GVRL under the terms ''indigenous'' AND ''culture'' AND ''preservation'' will yield hundreds of results, providing insight into the wide interdisciplinary interest in this topic. For example, content on cultural heritage preservation can thus be found in the Encyclopedia of Public Health (Durie, 2008), Encyclopedia of Environment and Society (Robbins, 2007), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (Hamel, 2008), World History Encyclopedia (Andrea and Neel, 2011), and Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (Clark, 2007), among other sources.…”

Section: Indigenous Cultural Heritage Literature: the General Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Indigenous cultural heritage preservation

Roy

2015

IFLA Journal

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This literature review shows the realm of Indigenous cultural heritage preservation within libraries is an area still ripe for meaningful exploration and achievement. Yet this field is also still sensitive and potentially harmful for the cultural communities who have entrusted these institutions with their living treasures. Opportunities abound to make a difference, but they may need to evolve from changes in generational attitudes and approaches.

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Indigenous Language Policy and Education in Mexico

Cited by 28 publications

References 1 publication

Learning language regimes: Children's representations of minority language education

Learning language regimes: Children's representations of minority language education

3. ‘A Treasure’ and ‘A Legacy’: Individual and Communal (Re)valuing of Isthmus Zapotec in Multilingual Mexico

Indigenous cultural heritage preservation

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