Unfracturing the impacts of language impositions: dual-language programs and Funds of Knowledge solutions with postscript / Desfraccionando el impacto de las imposiciones lingüísticas: programas de inmersión bilingüe y soluciones basadas en los Fondos de Conocimiento,con epílogo

Abstract

The conception, design and implementation of linguistic and cultural policies is closely tied, among others, to ideologies and their rationalizations. Cultural and linguistic colonial impositions are historically reviewed and analysed in relation to their subsequent impact on linguistic policies and educational models, particularly those directed at bilingual populations (migrant or not). Cultural erasure and fracture of the sense of self, and the resistance against these, are examined under the light of English-only or English-immersion educational policies, and the underlying eugenic ideologies. Bilingual education approaches are described not only as a response to the anti-immigrant and English-only policies previously presented but as a scientifically proven, potent developmental resource that draws on the cultural architecture of bilingual communities. Then, the framework of the Funds of Knowledge approach is integrated as a necessary and sufficient condition in order to counter class-based behavioral expectations of dual-language classes. This integration provides a stable, class-free social platform upon which rest equal language processes for especially ethnic-dominant contexts. Thus, an education with significance and possibilities for child development emerge, teacher bias reduced and learning enhanced. Lastly, the author describes his initial meetings and long-standing intellectual relationship with Luis C. Moll, with whom jointly rests their eventual construction of the application of multiple versions of the ‘Funds of Knowledge’ methodology.