Leisy T. Wyman

Experiences of Simultaneity in Complex Linguistic Ecologies: Implications for Theory, Method, and Practice

Sociolinguists have made considerable headway in identifying and describing the relationship between mobility, linguistic resources, and forms of inequality. Despite such advances, however, we argue that it is as important as ever to continue to rethink what kinds of phenomena are analyzed, the distinctions and categories that might be imposed on the data collected, and the theoretical and methodological approaches used to pursue that inquiry. This special issue investigates how movement across borders (and over time) influences ideologies of language, experiences of language learning, and the linguistic repertoires that emerge in specific local contexts.

50(0) Years Out and Counting: Native American Language Education and the Four Rs

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 such as the Native American Languages Act of 1990/1992. In this article we focus on the “four Rs” of Indigenous language education—rights, resources, responsibilities, and reclamation—forefronting the inherent sovereignty of Indigenous peoples in language education decision making. Drawing on our work together and our individual long-term ethnographic work with Native American communities, we present three case studies that illuminate larger issues of language rights, resources, responsibilities, and reclamation as they are realized in these communities. We conclude by “reflecting forward” (Winn, 2014) on language education possibilities and tensions, 50 years out from passage of the CRA and more than 500 years out from the original Indigenous-colonial encounter.

When Indigenous and Modern Education Collide in the Global Culture

Indigenous education has been heralded as an effective pedagogical strategy for perpetuating and reinvigorating the history, culture, and language of indigenous groups globally. In this chapter, we present the case that the specific goals and practices of indigenous education, with an indispensable particularistic approach, find opposite hegemonic counterparts in national systems of education, which end up diluting and weakening its intended purpose. By exploring the curricular and pedagogical issues, relationship between children and nature, connections between school and community, promotion of certain languages above others, and commodification of education, this chapter analyzes the common tensions that arise from the divergent epistemologies of indigenous and Western, modern education in the global culture. The chapter concludes that if indigenous education is to be successful, it must continuously re-invent itself to ensure that it honors the basic cultural tenets of the ethnic groups that it serves, recognizes the hybrid nature of many indigenous practices, and uses learning as a springboard to foster social and environmental integrity both locally and globally.