Equal treatment as exclusion: language, race and US education policy

Abstract

This paper examines the political meanings of language in the USA, from the perspectives of both majority‐ and minority‐language groups, and focuses especially on Mainstream US English, African‐American Vernacular English, and Spanish. It briefly traces the history of language policy in US education and argues that because language serves as a proxy for race, power and identity, language policy alone is not sufficient to address exclusionary practices. As long as the issues underlying language are not addressed, the rhetoric of equal treatment and language policies based on such rhetoric will continue to be manipulated to serve an exclusionary agenda that reinforces traditional social hierarchies.

Notes

1. Although the public outcry unofficially rejected the use of AAVE in the classroom, the language of the amended resolution was somewhat ambiguous on the subject, stating that the district would implement programmes to ‘facilitat[e] the acquisition and mastery of English language skills, while respecting and embracing the legitimacy and richness of the [AAVE] language patterns …’. Most significantly, it eliminated a section asserting AAVE‐speaking children's right to receive instruction in their native language.

2. The term ‘Chicanos’ refers to people of Mexican heritage living in the USA. It usually indicates a politicized identity.

1. The ‘equal protection’ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution states that: ‘no state shall make or enforce any law which shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws’. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) (US Congress, 1964) further explicates this principle, prohibiting educational institutions from discriminating based on race, colour, sex or national origin.

2. In 1965, the much‐publicized Moynihan Report (Moynihan, 1965) published by the US Department of Labor had identified and blamed African‐American family structures for persistent black poverty; this report led to widespread hypothesizing about a self‐perpetuating ‘culture of poverty’ among African‐Americans.