1 - Political, Social, and Educational Challenges in the Struggle to Develop Bilingual Education as a Pedagogical Model in the United States

Summary

This chapter explores the history of bilingual education in the context of civil rights. Bilingual education has evolved as a pedagogical model capable of serving the needs of students in multilingual classrooms. Where the history of bilingual education can be traced to protecting the rights of all children to learn, the reality is that most students from diverse backgrounds in US classrooms cannot access an equitable education. Thus, we need a content-based curriculum that supports diversity and that integrates the children of immigrant families. We describe the various types of bilingual programs and their theoretical constructs, exploring the question of language separation or unified language systems in bilinguals. We provide a detailed account of opposition to bilingual education, from the subtle stance in NYC, where dual-language programs are scarce and not available to the majority of children from homes where a language other than English is spoken, to the banning of bilingual education in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. Millions of students, the children of immigrants, have been deprived access to an equitable education by suppressing their bilingual backgrounds.