Sociocultural comparison of bilingual education policies and programmes in three Andean countries and the United States

Abstract

This paper presents a model of the sociocultural circumstances surrounding the development of language policies and planning, and of bilingual education programmes in the United States and three Andean countries: Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. These countries developed their language policies and established bilingual education programmes approximately contemporaneously. But as they emerge from radically different sociocultural‐political circumstances, they make an interesting comparison.

The model presents the legal frameworks of the Andean and American language policies, the historical processes of their establishment and their implementation. Finally, the model considers implications for long‐term results in terms of: (1) the final linguistic state of the societies, whether they are to be bilingual or monolingual, and (2) the degree of mutual versus unidirectional influence of the languages involved.