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Bilingual Education for Indigenous Peoples in Mexico

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Bilingual and Multilingual Education

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

Abstract

This chapter summarizes Mexican indigenous education from the perspective of bilingual education including Spanish and one out of 68 indigenous languages. After a historical overview of its development in colonial times, it will concentrate on the development since the 1970s when indigenous education was formally installed as a special department of the Federal Ministry of Education. From bilingual bicultural to intercultural bilingual education (IBE), different approaches were established to reconcile the integration of indigenous peoples into the nation-state via education with their claim to maintain and develop their ethnic identity and their languages. The chapter focuses on the psycho- and sociolinguistic difficulties as well as the existing political and ideological barriers against the organization and implementation of a curriculum that fosters mother tongue and maintenance education and the incorporation of the indigenous knowledge systems into the teaching programs. It explains why in practice and beyond the official IBE curriculum, Hispanicization (castellanización) prevails in most indigenous schools, i.e., submersion or fast transitional programs which impose Spanish in a subtractive manner and assign no relevant curricular function to the indigenous languages. Mayor research contributions are revised and future directions and research needs are outlined. Finally a few independent school projects are referred to which attempt to create intercultural and bilingual programs from the bottom up.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, Mexico

    Rainer Enrique Hamel

Authors
  1. Rainer Enrique Hamel
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Correspondence to Rainer Enrique Hamel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, New York, New York, USA

    Ofelia García

  2. Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

    Angel M. Y. Lin

  3. Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephen May

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Hamel, R.E. (2017). Bilingual Education for Indigenous Peoples in Mexico. In: García, O., Lin, A., May, S. (eds) Bilingual and Multilingual Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02258-1_30

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