Intercultural bilingual education
Encyclopedia
Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) or bilingual intercultural education (BIE) is an intercultural
and bilingual
model of education
designed for contexts with two (or more) culture
s and language
s in contact, in the typical case a dominant and an underprivileged culture. The IBE could be applied in almost any country in the world, however, it is discussed and also applied above all in Latin America, where it has been offered to indigenous people as an alternative to monolingual Hispanic education due to the efforts of indigenous movements. In recent years, it has become an important, more or less successful instrument of governmental language planning
in several Latin American countries, as has been described for the case of Quechua in Peru.
of the minority to the dominant culture and language, while the two others have the aim of multilingualism
and multiculturalism
.
at the beginning of the 21st century the elites imposed a model of unification based on the Criollo
culture and Spanish
or Portuguese language
respectively. This system reached only the privileged classes to at most the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking mestizo
population.
Only in the 20th century there were increasing attempts to offer school education to the whole population with the explicit goal of hispanization (castellanización) of the indigenous population. The exclusive use of Spanish as language of instruction for learner groups without anybody understanding it resulted in bad learning success and high repetition and dropout rates. The speakers of indigenous languages left school as analphabets, stigmatized as uneducated indios. The use or even knowledge of an indigenous language became a social disadvantage, so that the mother tongue was no longer used and instead of it a deficient Spanish. These people became uprooted, belonging neither to the indigenous nor to the dominant culture.
The evangelical
Summer Institute of Linguistics
(SIL) with seat in Dallas (USA) was the first institution to introduce bilingual education for indigenous people with the goal of evangelization
. The first bilingual education programs of SIL started in Mexico
and Guatemala
in the 1930s, in Ecuador
and Peru
in the 1940s and in Bolivia
in 1955.
A goal of the National Revolution in Bolivia in 1952 was to end discrimination of the indigenous people by integrating them into the majority society. This was to achieved by an adequate school education, adapted to the linguistic situation. The government of Víctor Paz Estenssoro
assigned education and hispanization in the eastern lowlands to the SIL, granting the at the same time the right to evangelize. Instruction in the first two grades of primary school took place in the indigenous languages to facilitate acquisition of Spanish. By the beginning of secondary school, the only language of instruction became Spanish.
The first education programs without the explicit goal of hispanisation were developed in the 1960s, among them a pilot program of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in a Quechua
-speaking area in the Quinua District
(Ayacucho Region
, Peru
). Due to the efforts of this university, the government of general Juan Velasco Alvarado
included bilingual education into its educational reform in 1972. Peru under general Velasco was the first country of the Americas to declare an indigenous language, Quechua, an official language in 1975. However, this proved to be a symbolic act: The introduction of Quechua as foreign of second language in Lima
failed due to racist prejudices, and even for the Quechua and Aymara
speakers in the Andes nothing changed, as the Velasco government was overthrown in 1975.
The General Directorate for Education of the Indigenous (DGEI) in Mexico was created in 1973, scheduling the use of 56 officially recognized indigenous languages. The Federal Education Law of 1973 ascertained that instruction in Spanish must not take place at the cost of cultural and linguistic identity of Spanish learners.
Despite contrary declarations all these bilingual programs were in fact transitional
, i.e. to prepare pupils for monolingual secondary and higher education. They contributed to a more effective distribution of Spanish as common language. However, these were experimental projects of limited extension and duration, enabled by international aid, e.g. by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
(GTZ), which supported a bilingual project with Spanish and Quechua or Aymara, or the United States Agency for International Development
(US-AID).
With the rise of indigenous movements in the 1970s and reflexion about multilingualism and previous bilingual education projects, a new education model of language maintenance and development emerged, which included cultural aspects which were not exclusively linguistic, e.g. aspects of everyday life culture, traditions and world concepts. Therefore, from the beginning of the 1980s people began speaking of Bilingual intercultural education in Latin America.
Since then, many countries have invented laws recognizing linguistic and cultural rights. In some countries as Argentina
, Bolivia
, Brazil
, Colombia
, Ecuador
, and Mexico
, constitutional reforms were realized. All countries of the Andes
have recognized the importance of intercultural bilingual education.
Currently, in most countries IBE does not reach the majority of the indigenous population and is applied only in primary education. According to the laws of some countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, IBE should reach the whole population speaking an indigenous language, in Paraguay the whole population.
In recent years, in some countries, above all in Bolivia, a two-way IBE for the whole population is discussed, which means all Spanish-speaking pupils and students should learn at least one indigenous language.
On the other hand, the Peru
vian indigenous teachers’ association Asociación Nacional de Maestros de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural criticizes the implementation of IBE in Peru as a bridge to castellanization and monoculturalization and that the education of indigenous people should be in the hands of the indigenous peoples and communities themselves.
In most Latin American countries, IBE is under control of the Ministry of Education. By contrary, IBE in Ecuador
was administered by the indigenous organizations, which were members of ECUARUNARI
and CONAIE
, since an agreement of the government and the indigenous movement and the creation of the national IBE directorate DINEIB (Dirección Nacional de Educacion Intercultural Bilingue) in 1988. Indigenous representatives appointed teachers and school directors, designed curricula and wrote text books. However, according to partial investigations in 2008 a fundamental change in the decline of indigenous languages including Kichwa
and Shuar
has not been achieved. Even in Otavalo
and Cotacachi
, where there are a Kichwa middle class and indigenous mayors, many young people speak no more Kichwa, and even parents organized in the indigenous movement send their children to Spanish-only schools, as these are much better equipped than their IBE counterparts. In February 2009, president Rafael Correa
decided to put IBE under control of the government, restricting indigenous autonomy in educational affairs.
Intercultural learning
Intercultural learning is an area of research, study and application of knowledge about different cultures, their differences and similarities. On the one hand, it includes a theoretical and academic approach...
and bilingual
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
model of education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
designed for contexts with two (or more) culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
s and language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s in contact, in the typical case a dominant and an underprivileged culture. The IBE could be applied in almost any country in the world, however, it is discussed and also applied above all in Latin America, where it has been offered to indigenous people as an alternative to monolingual Hispanic education due to the efforts of indigenous movements. In recent years, it has become an important, more or less successful instrument of governmental language planning
Language planning
Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of languages or language variety within a speech community. It is often associated with government planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations, such as grass-roots...
in several Latin American countries, as has been described for the case of Quechua in Peru.
Types of education in bilingual and bicultural contexts
Colin Baker distinguishes four models of education for bilingual or multilingual contexts. The first two of them are models of assimilationAssimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
of the minority to the dominant culture and language, while the two others have the aim of multilingualism
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
and multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
.
| Type of education | Learners' mother tongue | Language of instruction | Social and educational goals | Linguistic goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submersion | Minority language | Majority language | Assimilation | Monolingualism in dominant language |
| Transition | Minority language | Transition from minority language to majority language | Assimilation | Relative monolingualism in dominant language (substractive bilingualism) |
| Immersion | Majority language | Bilingual, with initial importance of L2 (minority language) | Pluralism and development | Bilingualism and biliteracy |
| Maintenance | Minority language | Bilingual, with emphasis on L1 (minority language) | Maintenance, pluralism and development | Bilingualism and biliteracy |
History of BIE in Latin America
After the independence of the nation states in Latin AmericaLatin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
at the beginning of the 21st century the elites imposed a model of unification based on the Criollo
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
culture and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
or Portuguese language
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
respectively. This system reached only the privileged classes to at most the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
population.
Only in the 20th century there were increasing attempts to offer school education to the whole population with the explicit goal of hispanization (castellanización) of the indigenous population. The exclusive use of Spanish as language of instruction for learner groups without anybody understanding it resulted in bad learning success and high repetition and dropout rates. The speakers of indigenous languages left school as analphabets, stigmatized as uneducated indios. The use or even knowledge of an indigenous language became a social disadvantage, so that the mother tongue was no longer used and instead of it a deficient Spanish. These people became uprooted, belonging neither to the indigenous nor to the dominant culture.
The evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Summer Institute of Linguistics
SIL International
SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...
(SIL) with seat in Dallas (USA) was the first institution to introduce bilingual education for indigenous people with the goal of evangelization
Evangelization
Evangelization is that process in the Christian religion which seeks to spread the Gospel and the knowledge of the Gospel throughout the world. It can be defined as so:-The birth of Christian evangelization:...
. The first bilingual education programs of SIL started in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
in the 1930s, in Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
in the 1940s and in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
in 1955.
A goal of the National Revolution in Bolivia in 1952 was to end discrimination of the indigenous people by integrating them into the majority society. This was to achieved by an adequate school education, adapted to the linguistic situation. The government of Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro was a politician and president of Bolivia. He ran for president 8 times , winning in 1951, 1960, 1964, and 1985....
assigned education and hispanization in the eastern lowlands to the SIL, granting the at the same time the right to evangelize. Instruction in the first two grades of primary school took place in the indigenous languages to facilitate acquisition of Spanish. By the beginning of secondary school, the only language of instruction became Spanish.
The first education programs without the explicit goal of hispanisation were developed in the 1960s, among them a pilot program of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in a Quechua
Quechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
-speaking area in the Quinua District
Quinua District
Quinua District is one of fifteen districts of the province Huamanga in Peru.-References:...
(Ayacucho Region
Ayacucho Region
Ayacucho is a region of Peru, located in the south-central Andes of the country. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho. The region was one of the hardest hit by terrorism during the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path known as the internal conflict in Peru.A referendum was held on...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
). Due to the efforts of this university, the government of general Juan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado was a left-leaning Peruvian General who ruled Peru from 1968 to 1975 under the title of "President of the Revolutionary Government."- Early life :...
included bilingual education into its educational reform in 1972. Peru under general Velasco was the first country of the Americas to declare an indigenous language, Quechua, an official language in 1975. However, this proved to be a symbolic act: The introduction of Quechua as foreign of second language in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
failed due to racist prejudices, and even for the Quechua and Aymara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
speakers in the Andes nothing changed, as the Velasco government was overthrown in 1975.
The General Directorate for Education of the Indigenous (DGEI) in Mexico was created in 1973, scheduling the use of 56 officially recognized indigenous languages. The Federal Education Law of 1973 ascertained that instruction in Spanish must not take place at the cost of cultural and linguistic identity of Spanish learners.
Despite contrary declarations all these bilingual programs were in fact transitional
Transitional bilingual education
Transitional Bilingual Education is an educational theory that states that children can most easily acquire fluency in a second language by first acquiring fluency in their native language. Fluency is defined as linguistic fluency as well as literacy Transitional Bilingual Education is an...
, i.e. to prepare pupils for monolingual secondary and higher education. They contributed to a more effective distribution of Spanish as common language. However, these were experimental projects of limited extension and duration, enabled by international aid, e.g. by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit or GIZ is an international enterprise founded in 1975 by Erhard Eppler and owned by the German Federal Government, operating in many fields across more than 130 countries. It primarily works for public-sector organizations and is...
(GTZ), which supported a bilingual project with Spanish and Quechua or Aymara, or the United States Agency for International Development
United States Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas...
(US-AID).
With the rise of indigenous movements in the 1970s and reflexion about multilingualism and previous bilingual education projects, a new education model of language maintenance and development emerged, which included cultural aspects which were not exclusively linguistic, e.g. aspects of everyday life culture, traditions and world concepts. Therefore, from the beginning of the 1980s people began speaking of Bilingual intercultural education in Latin America.
Since then, many countries have invented laws recognizing linguistic and cultural rights. In some countries as Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, constitutional reforms were realized. All countries of the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
have recognized the importance of intercultural bilingual education.
Currently, in most countries IBE does not reach the majority of the indigenous population and is applied only in primary education. According to the laws of some countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, IBE should reach the whole population speaking an indigenous language, in Paraguay the whole population.
In recent years, in some countries, above all in Bolivia, a two-way IBE for the whole population is discussed, which means all Spanish-speaking pupils and students should learn at least one indigenous language.
On the other hand, the Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian indigenous teachers’ association Asociación Nacional de Maestros de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural criticizes the implementation of IBE in Peru as a bridge to castellanization and monoculturalization and that the education of indigenous people should be in the hands of the indigenous peoples and communities themselves.
In most Latin American countries, IBE is under control of the Ministry of Education. By contrary, IBE in Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
was administered by the indigenous organizations, which were members of ECUARUNARI
ECUARUNARI
ECUARUNARI , also known as Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality is the organization of indigenous peoples of Kichwa nationality in the Ecuadorian central mountain region, founded in 1972.Twelve ethnic groups of the region—Natabuela, Otavalos, Karanki , Kayampi...
and CONAIE
CONAIE
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador or more commonly, CONAIE, is Ecuador's largest indigenous organization. Formed in 1986, CONAIE has pursued social change on behalf of the region's significant native population using a wide range tactics including direct action...
, since an agreement of the government and the indigenous movement and the creation of the national IBE directorate DINEIB (Dirección Nacional de Educacion Intercultural Bilingue) in 1988. Indigenous representatives appointed teachers and school directors, designed curricula and wrote text books. However, according to partial investigations in 2008 a fundamental change in the decline of indigenous languages including Kichwa
Kichwa
Kichwa is a Quechuan language, and includes all Quechua varieties spoken in Ecuador and Colombia by approximately 2,500,000 people...
and Shuar
Shuar language
Shuar, also known as Chiwaro, Jibaro, Jivaro, Shuara, or Xivaro, is a Jivaroan language spoken in the Southeastern jungle of the Morona-Santiago Province in Ecuador....
has not been achieved. Even in Otavalo
Otavalo
Otavalo, capital of Otavalo Canton, is a largely indigenous town in the Imbabura Province of Ecuador. The town has about 50,000 inhabitants and is surrounded by the peaks of Imbabura 4,630m, Cotacachi 4,995m, and Mojanda volcanoes.- The market :...
and Cotacachi
Cotacachi (city)
Cotacachi is a city and the seat of Cotacachi Canton, Imbabura Province, Ecuador. for a map of the Cotacachi area.Cotacachi is an artisan town that is famous for its leather goods and handicrafts. Cotacachi residents are also well known for their bizcochos and queso de hoja ....
, where there are a Kichwa middle class and indigenous mayors, many young people speak no more Kichwa, and even parents organized in the indigenous movement send their children to Spanish-only schools, as these are much better equipped than their IBE counterparts. In February 2009, president Rafael Correa
Rafael Correa
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado born is the President of the Republic of Ecuador and was the president pro tempore of the Union of South American Nations. An economist educated in Ecuador, Belgium and the United States, he was elected President in late 2006 and took office in January 2007...
decided to put IBE under control of the government, restricting indigenous autonomy in educational affairs.