Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Published In

International Multilingual Research Journal

Abstract

This article explores how language ideologies—beliefs about immigrant students’ language use—carry conflicting images of Spanish speakers in one New Latino Diaspora town. We describe how teachers and students encounter, negotiate, and appropriate divergent ideologies about immigrant students’ language use during routine schooling practices, and we show how these ideologies convey different messages about belonging to the community and to the nation. Although the concept of language ideology often assumes stable macrolevel beliefs, our data indicate that ideologies can vary dramatically in one town. Elementary educators and students had a positive, “bilinguals-in-the-making” ideology about Spanish-speaking students, while secondary educators used more familiar deficit accounts. Despite their differences, we argue that both settings tended toward subtractive schooling, and we offer suggestions for how educators could more effectively build upon emergent bilinguals’ language skills and practices.

Keywords

emergent bilinguals, ethnography, language ideologies, New Latino Diaspora

Comments

This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in the International Multilingual Research Journal on April 15, 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/19313152.2013.825563.

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