Title: (Linguistic and Cultural) Genocide in Education Signals Lack of Linguistic Human Rights
1(Linguistic and Cultural) Genocide in Education
Signals Lack of Linguistic Human Rights But
Why No Discussion?The Fourth Annual Lectures on
Language and Human RightsUniversity of Essex,
16-17 Nov. 2006 http//privatewww.essex.ac.uk/pa
trickp/lhr/lhrlectures.htm
2Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
- University of Roskilde, Denmark, and
- Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland
- http//akira.ruc.dk/tovesk/
- SkutnabbKangas_at_gmail.com
3List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
4List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
5List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
6(No Transcript)
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8Numbers of monolingual Gaelic speakers and
Gaelic/English bilinguals, Scotland, 1806 to 2001
9Numbers and percentages of Swedish-speakers in
Finland from 1610 to 1995
- The absolute numbers today are the same as in
1880 the decrease is due to immigration and
mixed marriages
10How have they succeeded in getting the legal
protection?
- They have (had) the power it takes to grant their
languages - the legal protection that
- ALL LANGUAGES
- SHOULD HAVE
11How have they succeeded in getting the legal
protection?
- Do any indigenous/ First Nation language speakers
have a similar protection for their languages
anywhere in the world? - NO!
- They do not have the power it takes
- or do they???
12Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) are a necessary
but not sufficient prerequisite for maintenance
of languages in modern societies.
13Exceptions? Extremely isolated small
groups/peoples, in areas difficult to approach
(island societies, mountains as barriers?) with
few resources of interest to multinational
companies.
14Some indigenous peoples languages have official
status, with some rights
- Linguistic numerical majority Quechua
- Linguistic (large) numerical minority Maori
- Linguistic (very small) numerical minority
Saami, in Norway (best rights, numerically
largest Saami people), Finland (fairly good
rights, numerically very small), Sweden (fewer
rights, numerically twice as many as in Finland).
Russia (almost no rights, very few people).
15The three groups of languages mentioned as having
linguistic rights in the Finnish Constitution
(1999), in a descending order
- 1. Finnish and Swedish (national languages)
- 2. a. Saami (all three North Saami, Skolt Saami
and Anar Saami) - 2. b. Romany
- 2. c. Finnish Sign language
- 3. ALL OTHER LANGUAGES
- All Canadian First Nations languages could be in
group 2, with Saami (regional official status)
16List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
17Most of the worlds languages are very small
1There are 6-7,000 spoken languages, and maybe
equally many Sign languages.(the Ethnologue,
15. Edition, lists 6,912 languages)www.sil.org/
ethnologue/
18Most of the worlds languages are very small 2
The median number of speakers of a language in
the world is 5.000-6.000.83-84 of the worlds
spoken languages are endemic, they exist in one
country only
19Most of the worlds languages are very small 3
Over 5.000 of the worlds almost 7.000 spoken
languages and 99 of the Sign languages have
fewer than 100.000 users. Over half of the
worlds oral languages are spoken by fewer than
10,000 speakers
20Languages and numbers 2 most (spoken) languages
have few speakers
N U M B E R O F L A N G U A G E S
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23Languages and numbers 3 The speakers of very few
languages dominate
N U M B E R O F S P E A K E R S
24Distribution of languages, Ethnologue 15 ed
Where? N of lang- uages of all lang-uages Number of speakers in thousands of all speakers
Europa 239 3,5 1,504,393 26,3
Americas SCN 1,002 14,5 47,559 0,8
Africa 2,092 30,3 675,887 11,8
Asia 2,269 32,8 3,489,897 61,0
The Pacific 1,310 19 6,124 0,1
Total 6,912 100 5,723,861 100
25List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
26What is happening today to the worlds languages?
Are they being maintained?NO
27Languages are today being killed faster than ever
before in human history
283-600 languages left in 2100?
- Optimistic estimates
- 50
- of todays spoken languages may be extinct or
seriously endangered in 2100
- Pessimistic but realistic estimates
- 90-95
- may be extinct or seriously endangered in 2100
29Still more pessimistic estimates (Mart Rannut
2003)
- Only those 40-50 languages will survive in which
you can talk to your fridge and stove and coffee
pot. - These are the languages into which Microsoft
programmes, Nokia mobile menus, etc, are being
translated.
30Most of the languages to disappear would be/ are
indigenous languages.Most of the worlds
indigenous languages would disappear.
31List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
32In studying causes for the disappearance of
languages we find two explanatory paradigms
language death and language murder.
33When languages, the vast libraries of human
intangible heritage, disappear, is it (natural)
death or is it murder?
- DEATH
- Languages just disappear naturally
- Languages commit suicide speakers are leaving
them voluntarily for instrumental reasons and for
their own good
- MURDER
- Arson the libraries are set on fire!
- Educational systems, mass media, etc participate
in committing linguistic and cultural genocide
Which paradigm corresponds to your situation? Is
it death or is it murder?
34The difference between seeing the disappear-ance
of languages as death or as murder?
- DEATH
- If languages just disappear naturally, there is
no agent. The only ones to blame are the speakers
themselves. It is THEIR individual and collective
responsibility and they have profited by
language shift.
- MURDER
- If languages have been murdered/ killed, we can
analyse the structural and ideological agents
responsible the worlds economic,
techno-military and political systems. Even when
language shift has happened with speakers
consent, ideological factors behind this
consent can be analysed.
35When speakers shift to another language, and
their own language disappears, the incoming new
language can function as a killer language.Has
English functioned as a killer language in
relation to your languages?
36Definition of KILLER LANGUAGES 1
- When big languages are learned subtractively
- (at the cost of the mother tongues)
- rather than
- additively
- (in addition to mother tongues),
- they become
- KILLER LANGUAGES.
37Definition of KILLER LANGUAGES 2
- Being a killer language is NOT a CHARACTERISTIC
of any language. - Languages may BECOME killer languages on the
basis of how they FUNCTION in relation to other
languages.
38Definition of KILLER LANGUAGES 3
- It is not languages that kill each other. The
agency is with speakers, meaning power
relations between speakers that reflect
ideologies, structures, processes and networks.
These are working and being performed in ways
that produce and result in unequal relations.
39KILLER LANGUAGES 3
- Killer languages
- pose serious threats towards
- the linguistic diversity of the world.
40English is today the worlds most important
killer language
- but most dominant languages function as killer
languages vis-à-vis smaller languages. There is
a nested hierarchy of languages, and glottophagy
(language cannibalism).
41Sign languages and killer languages 1
- ALL oral languages can, through enforced oralism,
function as killer languages, in relation to Sign
languages - Official/national oral languages may be
especially important killer languages vis-a-vis
Sign languages
42Agents of linguistic genocide
- Educational systems and mass media are (the most)
important direct agents in linguistic and
cultural genocide. Behind them are the worlds
economic, techno-military and political systems.
43List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
44Genocide?Is the term not too strong?Many
people use the term loosely.We must define it
properlyevery time we use it!
45UN International Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793,
1948), final Draft, Article III, had definitions
of linguistic and cultural genocide and saw them
also as crimes against humanity. Article III was
voted down by 16 states in the UN General
Assembly, and is NOT part of the final
Convention. But all states then members of the UN
agreed about the definition.
- Therefore, we can still use this definition too
46UN International Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793,
1948). Final draft, 1948. Article III(1) defined
linguistic genocide
- 'Prohibiting the use of the language of the
group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the
printing and circulation of publications in the
language of the group'. - Article III was voted down in the UN General
Assembly by 16 states in 1948 and is NOT part of
the final Genocide Convention
47United Nations International Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (E793, 1948) has five definitions of
genocide.
48Article 2In the present Convention, genocide
means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such emphasis added
49 Article 2 (a) Killing members of the group
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group (c) Deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part (d) Imposing
measures intended to prevent births within the
group (e) Forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group. emphases added
50Genocide is
- Article II(e) 'forcibly transferring children of
the group to another group' and - Article II(b) 'causing serious bodily or mental
harm to members of the group' (emphasis added).
51List of contents
- 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
- 2. Most of the worlds languages are small.
- 3. What is happening today with the worlds
languages? Are they being maintained? - 4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages. - 5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention. - 6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
52Examples of linguistic genocide in
educationaccording to Articles 2(b) and 2(e)For
more, readSkutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000).
Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide
Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey
Lawrence Erlbaum. See my home page for list of
contents and details http//akira.ruc.dk/tovesk/
53EUROPE, Pirjo Janulf 1998
- Janulf shows in a longitudinal study that of
those Finnish immigrant minority members in
Sweden who had had Swedish-medium education, not
one spoke any Finnish to their own children. Even
if they themselves might not have forgotten their
Finnish completely, their children were certainly
forcibly transferred to the majority group, at
least linguistically.
54AFRICA 1, Edward Williams 1995 Zambia and
Malawi, 1,500 students, grades 1-7
- Large numbers of Zambian pupils (all education in
English) have very weak or zero reading
competence in two languages. - The Malawi children (taught in local languages
during the first 4 years, English as a subject) - had slightly better test results in the English
language than the Zambian students. In addition,
they could read and write their own languages.
55AFRICA 1, Edward Williams 1995 Zambia and
Malawi, 1,500 students, grades 1-7
- Conclusion there is a clear risk that the
policy of using English as a vehicular language
may contribute to stunting, rather than
promoting, academic and cognitive growth. This
fits the UN genocide definition of - causing serious mental harm
56AFRICA 2, Zubeida Desai 2001
- Xhosa-speaking grade 4 and grade 7 learners in
South Africa were given a set of pictures which
they had to put in the right order and then
describe, in both Xhosa and English. - In Desai's words, it showed the rich vocabulary
children have when they express themselves in
Xhosa and the poor vocabulary they have when they
express themselves in English. Mental harm?
57AFRICA 3, Kathleen Heugh 2000
- Countrywide longitudinal statistical study of
final exam results for Black students in South
Africa - The percentage of Black students who passed
their exams went down every time the number of
years spent through the medium of the mother
tongues decreased. Mental harm?
58AUSTRALIA, Anne Lowell Brian Devlin 1999
- Article describing the 'Miscommunication between
Aboriginal Students and their Non-Aboriginal
Teachers in a Bilingual School, clearly
demonstrated that 'even by late primary school,
children often did not comprehend classroom
instructions in English' . Communication
breakdowns occurred frequently between children
and their non-Aboriginal teachers', with the
result that 'the extent of miscommunication
severely inhibited the children's education when
English was the language of instruction and
interaction' . - Conclusions and recommendations the use of a
language of instruction in which the children do
not have sufficient competence is the greatest
barrier to successful classroom learning for
Aboriginal Children. Serious mental harm?
59CANADA 1, Katherine Zozula Simon Ford 1985
- Report Keewatin Perspective on Bilingual
Education - tells about Canadian Inuit students who are
neither fluent nor literate in either language
and - presents statistics showing that the students
end up at only Grade 4 level of achievement
after 9 years of schooling. - Serious mental harm?
60CANADA 2, The Canadian Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples 1996 Report
- The Report notes that submersion strategies
which neither respect the child's first language
nor help them gain fluency in the second language
may result in impaired fluency in both
languages. Serious mental harm?
61CANADA 3, The Nunavut Language Policy Conference
in March 1998
- in some individuals, neither language is firmly
anchored. - Serious mental harm?
62CANADA 4, Mick Mallon and Alexina Kublu, 1998
- a significant number of young people are not
fully fluent in their languages, and - many students remain apathetic, often with
minimal skills in both languages. - Serious mental harm?
63CANADA 5, 1998 report, Kitikmeot struggles to
prevent death of Inuktitut
- teenagers cannot converse fluently with their
grandparents. - Serious mental harm?
64Deaf students Branson Miller, Jokinen, Lane,
etc
- Assimilationist submersion education where Deaf
students are taught orally only and sign
languages have no place in the curriculum, often
causes mental harm, including serious prevention
or delay of cognitive growth potential.
65Deaf students Ladd 2003
- Example Deaf boys of normal intelligence are put
in oral submersion education, with no Sign
language. At the age of 12, they are sent to a
Deaf school because the teachers cannot cope.
They are at this stage described as intellectual
cabbages. - Serious mental harm?
66Ad List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Issues NOT discussed here
- The history of linguistic genocide in drafting
the Genocide Convention - How are most of the concepts in the Article 2 to
be interpreted? Destroy? Serious physical harm?
Mental Harm? Transfer of children? Forcible
transfer? Degree and kind of force required? - Issues of permanency of outcomes, issues of
education as the causal factor. For these, see
Dunbar et al., forthcoming
67List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
68To qualify as genocide, an act has to be
intentional. Have states had an intention to
- 'forcibly transfer children of the group to
another group' and - 'cause serious bodily or mental harm to members
of the group' ? - YES, unfortunately THEY HAVE
- to members of the group'
69How is the intention manifested? 1
- There are countless examples from many parts of
the world from the early and mid-1800s onwards
and up to the mid-1900s and even longer where the
intention to destroy an indigenous group as a
group (a nation, a people) has been overtly
expressed earlier. Some examples follow - (for more, see Magga et al., 2005 and Dunbar et
al., forthcoming).
70How is the intention manifested? 2
- Tribal dissolution, to be pursued mainly through
the corridors of residential schools, was the
Departments new goal, John Milloy (1999 18)
states about the Canadian 1857 Act to Encourage
the Gradual Civilization of the Indian tribes in
the Province.
71How is the intention manifested? 3
- Norwegianisation was also the official goal for
boarding schools in Norway "The building of the
boarding schools and the Norwegianisation of
Finnmark are closely bound together.
Norwegianisation was the goal. And the building
of the boarding shools was the means. Both were
part of Norwegian educational policy in Finnmark
(Lind Meløy 1980 14 Lind Meløy was himself
headmaster of one of the boarding schools). - In the process of Norwegianisation it was the
goal of many school administrators that the Saami
languages should become extinct (e.g. Bernt
Thomassen, Superintendent for schools 1902-1920
quoted in Lind Meløy 1980 98-99).
72How is the intention manifested? 4
- Hans Vogt, later Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oslo, wrote in 1902
Norwegianisation through schools has been
victorious, a policy which means purely and
simply an intentional extinction of the Saami and
Finnish languages (emphasis added quoted in
Lind Meløy 1980 106). - Similar policy statements abound from all over
the world.
73How is the intention manifested? 5
- For obvious reasons, no state or educational
authority can today be expected to express openly
an intention to destroy a group or even to
"seriously harm" it or to "transfer its members
to another group". - However, the intention can be inferred in other
ways, by analysing those structural and
ideological factors and those practices which
cause the destruction, harm or transfer. We have
done this in several ways, comparing with the
older more overt ways.
74Not force itself, but the capacity to present
force as being in the service of right and peace
- Sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a
series of national and supranational organisms
united under a single logic of rule. This new
global form of sovereignty is what we call
Empire. (p. xii) - Empire is formed not on the basis of force
itself but on the basis of the capacity to
present force as being in the service of right
and peace. (p. 15). Hardt, Michael Negri,
Antonio (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA Harvard
University Press - Empire is NOT anchored in a place (e.g. USA) but
in organisms and networks. No conspiracy
theories. But the US just happens to control many
of the networks.
75How is the intention manifested? 6
- We claim that if state school authorities
continue an educational policy which uses a
dominant language as the main medium of education
for indigenous and minority children, when the
negative results of this policy have been known
both through earlier concrete empirical feedback
(as in Canada and the United States) and through
solid theoretical and empirical research evidence
(as they have, at least since the early 1950s
see, e.g. UNESCO 1953 see also our first Expert
paper, Magga et al. 2004), this refusal to change
the policies constitutes strong evidence for an
intention.
76How is the intention manifested? 7
- In Canada, for most of school systems life,
though the truth was known to it, the Department
of Indian Affairs, after nearly a century of
contrary evidence in its own files, still
maintained the fiction of care and contended
that the schools were operated for the welfare
and education of Indian children(Milloy 1999
xiii-xiv). These schools represented a system
of persistent neglect and debilitating abuse,
violent in its intention to kill the Indian in
the child for the sake of Christian civilization
(ibid. xiv xv). They were finally closed down
in 1986.
77How is the intention manifested? 8
- The Department and the churches were fully aware
of the fact" that the schools unfitted many
children, abused or not, for life in either
Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal communities. The
schools produced thousands of individuals
incapable of leading healthy lives or
contributing positively to their communities
(ibid. xvii).
78Being able freely to choose the language of
instruction among existing alternatives which are
qualitatively approximately at the same level is
for schools one of the most important necessary
factors for successful study through the medium
of a foreign language and for becoming high-level
bilingual through this type of education.
79This necessary factor for successful study
through the medium of a foreign language does NOT
exist for most indigenous, minority or dominated
group students in the world, neither at school
nor at university level. It is often the most
decisive factor in the educational failure of
students, quantitatively especially in Africa and
Asia.
80Assimilation is not freely chosen if the choice
is between ones mother tongue and ones future
- The United Nations 2004 Human Development Report
links cultural liberty to language rights and
human development (http//hdr.undp.org/reports/glo
bal/2004/) - and argues that there is
- no more powerful means of encouraging
individuals to assimilate to a dominant culture
than having the economic, social and political
returns stacked against their mother tongue. - Such assimilation is not freely chosen if the
choice is between ones mother tongue and ones
future. (p. 33).
81Assimilation not freely chosen if the choice is
between ones mother tongue and ones future
- The press release about the UN report exemplifies
the role of language as an exclusionary tool - Limitations on peoples ability to use their
native languageand limited facility in speaking
the dominant or official national languagecan
exclude people from education, political life and
access to justice. - Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 2,500
languages, but the ability of many people to use
their language in education and in dealing with
the state is particularly limited. In more than
30 countries in the region, the official language
is different from the one most commonly used.
Only 13 percent of the children who receive
primary education do so in their native
language.
82Assimilation is not a free and rational choice
- Abandonment of local community languages is
always a result of powerful and destructive
external pressures rather than a free and
rational choice, argues the Irish linguist James
McCloskey (2001 26, 38 quoted in Glaser, in
press).
83Assimilation not freely chosen if there are no
alternatives, and if the consequences are not
known
- We can only speak about choice, if
- - there are (qualitatively equal) alternatives,
and - - the students have enough research-based
knowledge about the likely long-term consequences
of the choices. - This includes consequences such as possible
dispossession of linguistic (and intellectual?)
capital through subtractive learning,
hierarchisation, and endangerment for other
languages.
84List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
85Have the states known? 1
- The negative results of subtractive teaching have
been known by indigenous peoples and documented
at least since the mid-1700s - (e.g. Handsome Lake).
- States and educational authorities (including
churches) have had the knowledge at the latest
since the end of the 1800s (e.g. Board of Indian
Commissioners).
86Board of Indian Commissioners 1880 77
- first teaching the children to read and write in
their own language enables them to master English
with more ease when they take up that study - a child beginning a four years course with the
study of Dakota would be further advanced in
English at the end of the term than one who had
not been instructed in Dakota.
87Board of Indian Commissioners 1880 98
- it is true that by beginning in the Indian
tongue and then putting the students into English
studies our missionaries say that after three or
four years their English is better than it would
have been if they had begun entirely with English.
88Have the states known? 2
- Modern research results about how indigenous
and minority education should be organised have
been available for at least 50 years, since the
UNESCO expert group book The use of vernacular
languages in education (1953).
89Have the states known? 3
- If states, despite this, and despite very
positive results from properly conducted additive
teaching, have continued and continue to offer
subtractive education, with no alternatives,
knowing that the results are likely to be
negative and thus to 'forcibly transfer children
of the group to another group' and 'cause
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group' - this must be seen as intentional.
90List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
91(Teacher) question Are research results
being implemented in the education of indigenous
and minority children? Do states act in a
rational way?
92Ramirez et al. study, 1991, 2,352 students
Group Medium of education Results
English only English Low levels of English and school achievement likely not to catch up
Early-exit transi-tional Spanish 1-2 years then all English Fairly low levels of English and school achievement not likely to catch up
Late-exit transi-tional Spanish 4-6 years then all English Best results likely to catch up with native speakers of English
93Thomas Collier, 210,000 students 1
- the largest longitudinal study in the world on
the education of minority students, - with altogether over 210,000 students,
- including in-depth studies in both urban and
rural settings in the USA, - included full MTM programmes in a minority
language, - dual-medium or two-way bilingual programmes,
where both a minority and majority language
(mainly Spanish and English) were used as medium
of instruction, - transitional bilingual education programmes,
- ESL (English as a second language) programmes,
and - so-called mainstream (i.e. English-only
submersion) programmes.
94Thomas Collier, 210,000 students 2
- Across all the models, those students who reached
the highest levels of both bilingualism and
school achievement were the ones where the
children's mother tongue was the main medium of
education for the most extended period of time. - This length of education in the L1 (language 1,
first language), was the strongest predictor of
both the children's competence and gains in L2,
English, and of their school achievement.
95Thomas Collier, 210,000 students 3
- Thomas Collier state (2002 7)
-
- the strongest predictor of L2 student
achievement is the amount of formal L1 schooling.
The more L1 grade-level schooling, the higher L2
achievement.
96But might it not, in all these cases, be because
of the students socio-economic and cultural
conditions not because of the subtractive
teaching???
97Ramirez and Thomas Collier 1
- The length of mother tongue medium education was
in both Ramirez' and Thomas Collier's studies
more important than any other factor in
predicting the educational success of bilingual
students. - It was also much more important than
socio-economic status, something extremely vital
in relation to poor and/or oppressed indigenous
and minority students. - (Remember that the education of most African
students can also be analysed as minority
education from a power relations point of view)
98Ramirez and Thomas Collier 2
- The worst results, were with students in regular
submersion programmes where the students' mother
tongues (L1s) were either not supported at all or
where they only had some mother-tongue-as-a-subjec
t instruction. They were in a subtractive
learning situation.
99There are hundreds of smaller studies showing
similar conclusions, with many different types
of groups and many languages, and from many
countries.And the knowledge is not new
100CANADA, Arlene Stairs 1994
- in schools which support initial learning of
Inuttitut, and whose Grade 3 and Grade 4 pupils
are strong writers in Inuttitut, the results in
written English are also the highest.
101USA, Alaska, Nancy Sharp, 1994
- The Alaska Yu'piq teacher Nancy Sharp compares
- when Yu'piq children are taught through the
medium of English, they are treated by White
teachers as handicapped, and they do not achieve - when they are taught through the medium of
Yu'piq, they are excellent writers, smart happy
students.
102Results in dominant language ,after 9 years of
Finnish mother-tongue medium teaching in a
maintenance programme for an immigrant minority.
Competence in Swedish own evaluation and test
results (working class Finns, middle class
Swedes, 2 Stockholm suburbs from
Skutnabb-Kangas 1987).
103The Finnish students Finnish
- The Finnish students Finnish was, after 9 years
of Finnish-medium education in Sweden, at almost
the same level as that of Finnish control groups
in Finland - whereas Finnish children in Swedish-medium
education show extremely poor results in Finnish,
and often in Swedish too.
104All these studies show both the positive results
of additive mother tongue medium maintenance
education, and the mostly negative results of
subtractive dominant-language medium education.
105Dominant-language-only submersion programmes are
widely attested as the least effective
educationally for minority language students
(May Hill 2003 14, study commisioned by the
Maori Section of the Aotearoa/New Zealand
Ministry of Education).
106Dominant-language-only submersion programmes
are widely attested as the least effective
educationally for minority language students
This is the model mostly used with children
representing endangered language communities all
over the world (provided that the children attend
formal education in the first place)
107Today research results are NOT being
implemented. States do NOT act in a rational
way.
108There are very large gaps between
- theory and practice,
- research and implementation, and
- rhetoric and realities.
109List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
110Poverty is capability deprivation (Sen)
- Economics Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen
conceptualises poverty as "capability
deprivation" "Capability" refers to - the alternative combinations of functionings
from which a person can choose freedom - the
range of options a person has in deciding what
kind of life to lead. Poverty lies not merely
in the impoverished state in which the person
actually lives, but also in the lack of real
opportunity - given by social constraints as well
as personal circumstances - to choose other types
of living. Even the relevance of low incomes,
meagre possessions, and other aspects of what are
standardly seen as economic poverty relates
ultimately to their role in curtailing
capabilities (that is, their role in severely
restricting the choices people have). Poverty
is, thus, ultimately a matter of 'capability
deprivation'. - (Dreze Sen 1996 10-11, quoted from Misra
Mohanty 2000a 262-263)
111Poverty is not mainly economic
- Poverty is no longer to be viewed simply in
terms of generating economic growth expansion of
human capabilities can be viewed as a more basic
objective of development" (Misra Mohanty 2000a
263). The loci of poverty, and of intervention,
are in Amartya Sen's view, economic, social and
psychological this implies that measures have to
be taken in each of these areas. "Psychological
processes, such as cognition, motivation, values
and other characteristics of the poor and the
disadvantaged are to be viewed both as
consequences as well as antecedent conditions
which are ultimately related to human
capabilities" (Misra Mohanty 2000a 264).
112Education is the most crucial input
- The question, if we are interested in more equity
in the world, in reducing the gaps, is, in Misra
Mohanty's view "What is the most critical (and
cost effective) input to change the conditions of
poverty, or rather, to expand human
capabilities?" There is "a general consensus
among the economists, psychologists and other
social scientists that education is perhaps the
most crucial input" (ibid., 265). - This is what leads me to the roles of the mother
tongues/first languages, and of English (or other
dominant languages), respectively, in education. -
113Subtractive teaching curtails childrens
capabilities and perpetuates poverty
- If poverty is understood as "both a set of
contextual conditions as well as certain
processes which together give rise to typical
performance of the poor and the disadvantaged" in
school, and if of "all different aspects of such
performance, cognitive and intellectual functions
have been held in high priority as these happen
to be closely associated with upward
socio-economic mobility of the poor" (Misra
Mohanty 2000b 135-136), we have to look for the
type of division of labour between languages in
education that guarantees the best possible
development of these "cognitive and intellectual
functions" which enhance children's "human
capabilities", rather than curtailing them and
depriving children of the choices and freedom
that are, according to Sen and others, associated
with the necessary capabilities.
114Political science conclusion on the economic
argument on poverty eradication Do states try to
achieve common aggregate welfare with sensible
means, also economically? Do they try to
eradicate poverty through theireducational
language policies? NO!
115States follow emotional common sense and harm
the children - and themselves
- To under-educate or mis-educate children, to
prevent them from reaching the potential that
they have, is economically enormously costly both
for the individuals concerned and for the states - Quite apart from moral and ethical human rights
arguments (which are compelling), this wastage is
what states should be concerned about if they
want to follow any kind of economic rationality.
116Linguicism
- LINGUICISM 'ideologies, structures and practices
which are used to legitimate, effectuate,
regulate and reproduce an unequal division of
power and resources (both material and
immaterial) between groups which are defined on
the basis of language' (Skutnabb-Kangas 1988
13). - Most education systems worldwide reflect
linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000).
117List of contents
- 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for
genocide - Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group
as a group through enforced assimilation been
expressed openly? Free choice? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Has the knowledge about negative
results existed? - Intention to transfer members of the group and
harm them? Have research results been adhered to? - Intention to inflict negative conditions of life
on the group - poverty? Economic rationality of
enforced assimilation? - 8. Why no discussion?
118 Indigenous and minority children and children
from dominated groups are taught SUBTRACTIVELY.
119Subtractive versus additive
- SUBTRACTIVE teaching minority children are
taught through the medium of a dominant language
which replaces their mother tongue. - They learn the dominant language at the cost of
the mother tongue. - ADDITIVE teaching minority children are taught
mainly through the medium of the mother tongue,
with good teaching of the dominant language as a
second language. - It can make them HIGH LEVEL BILINGUAL OR
MULTILINGUAL. They learn other languages in
addition to their own language and learn them all
well.
120The subtractive dominant-language-only-medium
submersion education has clearly caused serious
mental harm to the indigenous, minority and/or
dominated group students, and has attempted to
forcibly transfer them to another group
linguistically. This is linguistic genocide.
121Most indigenous and minority education in the
world participates in committing linguistic and
cultural genocide, according to the genocide
definitions in the UN Genocide Convention
122Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
- Too often, policies of national integration, of
national cultural development, actually imply a
policy of ethnocide, that is, the wilful
destruction of cultural groups.
123Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
- The cultural development of peoples, whether
minorities or majorities, must be considered
within the framework of the right of peoples to
self-determination, which by accepted
international standards is the fundamental human
right, in the absence of which all other human
rights cannot really be enjoyed.
124Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
- Governments fear that if minority peoples hold
the right to self-determination in the sense of a
right to full political independence, then
existing States might break up.
125Guidelines for USA foreign policy from 1948
Bret-ton Woods, to World Bank IMF to WTO.
George Kennan, main USA BW negotiator in 1948
- We have 50 of the worlds wealth, but only
6,3 of its population. In this situation, our
real job in the coming period is to devise a
pattern of relationships which permit us to
maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we
have to dispense with all sentimentality ... we
should cease thinking about human rights, the
raising of living standards, and democratisation
126Neo-imperialist ideas spreading again
- The rest of the world is best served by the
USA pursuing its own interests because - American values are universal.
- Condoleezza Rice, 2000
- EU also follows a US agenda
- (Robert Phillipson, 2005).
127Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
- State interests thus are still more powerful at
the present time than the human rights of
peoples.
128Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
- University of Roskilde, Denmark, and
- Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland
- http//akira.ruc.dk/tovesk/
- SkutnabbKangas_at_gmail.com