Carlos J. Ovando

Bilingual Education in the United States: Historical Development and Current Issues.

Abstract Bilingual education in the United States has been contested and reformulated within varying historical, political, social, and economic contexts. Guided by three interrelated research questions on ideology, policy, and politics, this article examines the various interpretations of the historical forces that have determined language policy in the United States by first briefly discussing the permissive, restrictive, opportunist, and dismissive periods and then focusing on the current challenges to bilingual education. The author argues that changing political, social, and economic forces, rather than any consistent ideology, have shaped the nations responses to language diversity. He concludes that language ideology in the United States has shifted according to changing historical events, and the absence of a consistent U.S. language ideology has enhanced the role of symbolic politics—the resentment of special treatment for minority groups.

Change in school and community attitudes in an Athapaskan village

During the spring of 1983, I investigated the attitudes of students, parents, and teachers toward school and community issues in Nulato, a remote Athapaskan village in Alaskas Yukon-Koyukuk School District. I chose this village because it was known among Alaska bush schools to have a strong educational program. The inquiry focused on attitudes of each group toward the following five groups of variables: (a) the purpose of schooling, (b) community loyalty, (c) ethnic identity and schooling, (d) vision of the future, and (e) ideal individual and school roles. Among the findings were that parents and students appeared to feel more strongly than teachers the need to incorporate Athapaskan cultural patterns into the school curriculum. Likewise, parents and students were more likely to express a desire for native teachers. The common value of social interdependence was suggested in that all three groups reported very positive attitudes toward the community and the friendliness of its residents. However, at the same time a majority of the students indicated that they would leave Nulato to get a better paying job if necessary. Thus, there was for the students the situation of having strong positive attitudes toward the community but also wanting a level of economic security that might force them to leave (Ovando, 1984). I returned to Nulato in 1992 to reexamine the earlier findings, and in this article I report on some of the changes that seem to have occurred over nearly a decade in this indigenous context. I will focus here only on

Beyond “Blaming the Victim”: Successful Schools for Latino Students

The news about schools is grim, we are told. We are constantly reminded that schools are supposedly failing. Our children are not being prepared to meet the challenges of the present or the future. Our educational system is inefficient and ineffective, with poor test scores and even worse discipline. Our teachers are poorly trained academically and are more interested in pay than in meeting the needs of our students and our economy. The knowledge that is taught is “dumbed down,” or fails to uphold traditional moral standards. These and other charges are constantly leveled at schools and teachers. The solutions that have been proposed are varied—and sometimes contradictory. But all agree that major reforms are needed. —Michael Apple, in Contradictions of School Reform: Education Costs of Standardized Testing

Global migration, diversity, and civic education: improving policy and practice

high-school teacher, I find the examples relevant and useful to draw from. I find Chapter 6 on teacher-student education very ambitious, but I also find it hard to translate into the more rigid Swedish system for higher education. In Chapter 7, the author Jolanta AmbrosewiczJacobs provides constructive insights and sometimes moves beyond the legacy of the Third Reich when presenting museums and memorial sites as ‘carriers of the memory of the past’. She discusses how, for instance, visits can be prepared and reflected upon and how recorded testimonies from Rwanda and Darfur can be used as a way of stimulating questions about human rights in practice. In the final chapter, Else Engel summarises in a way the Change approach when discussing how to translate this approach into non-formal education. But still this is not the end of the book. It may actually be the beginning. Depending on what interest you have as a reader you may actually start here in the last chapter. As an educator in non-formal education you may find this to be the best introduction to the rest of the book. And this is possible since the book is tagged and possible to read almost as hypertext. Still I would recommend all educators interested in human rights and history education to read Chapters 2–4 at some point. They provide important insights into this emerging field of theory, research and practice that go far beyond the geographic limitation of this book. Knowing this field of research of human rights in history education I would say that the focus on Germany is also a matter of scholarly attention. German scholars of history and education have in constructive ways paid more attention to these delicate and important matters than scholars in other countries. Important concepts, like historical consciousness and multiperspectivity stem from the vast attention paid to living with a legacy of human rights violations. Other countries can certainly learn a lot from this. Readers from across the globe may certainly find this book useful when trying to balance the many goals of history and human rights education and map out new ways to learn about the past. But more than anything, this book can be seen as an important reminder that research and practices across the world can benefit from reflective history education, paying attention to the ideals of human rights.