Bilingual education is one of the most contentious and misunderstood
educational programs in the country. It raises significant questions
about this country's national identity, the nature of federalism, power,
ethnicity, and pedagogy. In Contested Policy, Guadalupe San Miguel,
Jr., studies the origins, evolution, and consequences of federal bilingual 
education policy from 1960 to 2001, with particular attention to the
activist years after 1978, when bilingual policy was heatedly contested.

    Traditionally, those in favor of bilingual education are language
specialists, Mexican American activists, newly enfranchised civil rights
advocates, language minorities, intellectuals, teachers, and students.
They are ideologically opposed to the assimilationist philosophy in
the schools, to the structural exclusion and institutional discrimination
of minority groups, and to limited school reform.

    On the other hand, the opponents of bilingual education, comprised
at different points in time of conservative journalists, politicians, federal
bureaucrats, Anglo parent groups, school officials, administrators, and
special-interest groups (such as U.S. English), favor assimilationism,
the structural exclusion and discrimination of ethnic minorities, and
limited school reform.

    In the 1990s a resurgence of opposition to bilingual education
succeeded in repealing bilingual legislation with an English-only piece
of legislation.

    San Miguel deftly provides a history of these clashing groups and
how they impacted bilingual educational policy over the years.
Rounding out this history is an extensive, annotated bibliography on
federal bilingual policy that can be used to enhance further study.

_________________________________________________________

GUADALUPE SAN MIGUEL, JR., is a professor of history at the 
University of Houston. He is the author of "Let All of Them Take 
Heed": Mexican-Americans and the Campaign for Educational 
Equality in Texas, 1910–1981; Brown, Not White: School 
Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston; and Tejano 
Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century.


Number One: Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series


What people are saying about this book

"In this book Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., provides important 
insights into the bilingual education debate at the federal 
level. This is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding
one of the most contentious and misunderstood educational policy
issues in the United States."—Rubén Donato, School of Education,
University of Colorado at Boulder