International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism
Editor: Colin Baker, University of Wales, Bangor
Review Editor: Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University, Philadelpia
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Volume: 7 Number: 6 Page: 529–548
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Language Policy, Indigenous Languages and the Village School: A Study of Bilingual Education for the Tarahumara of Northern Mexico
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Carla Paciotto
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In 1991, the Bilingual Bicultural Education Program (BBEP) was launched in Chihuahua, Mexico, as a way of responding to the educational needs of the indigenous Tarahumara populations and the growing threat to their language and culture. Using a conceptual framework based on the literatures
of curriculum inquiry, language shift and maintenance, and literacy studies, this 10-month ethnographic case study examines the sociocultural contexts of the implementation of the BBEP in a federal school serving Tarahumara and the role of the school and the BBEP in indigenous language maintenance.
Specifically, the paper reports and discusses findings on how state-developed BBEP goals relate to the teachers' and parents' expectations of school and literacy and biliteracy. As the findings show, the school is the place of children's first intense contact with mestizo culture and language
and the agency where children are expected by parents and teachers to acquire Spanish oral and literacy skills.
Keywords: TARAHUMARA, BILINGUAL EDUCATION, INDIGENOUS EDUCATION, LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE, LANGUAGE POLICY, MEXICO
© 2004 Multilingual Matters
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