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Indigenous Language Policy and Education in Mexico

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Introduction

The policies which nation‐states, and their societal majorities, apply to their ethnic and linguistic minorities have become a touchstone to evaluate the quality of democracy, pluricultural commitment and the construction of modern states in almost any part of the world. Therefore, educational and language policies for the minorities can no longer be dismissed as marginal components of state policy that may be dealt with outside the domains of mainstream power relations and the state. Mexico is a paradigmatic case in point. At least in America it represents the probably most‐centralized, all‐embracing and vertical case of nation‐state building. It did not, however, achieve its historical goals of creating a homogeneous nation (cf. May, Language Education, Pluralism and Citizenship, Volume 1) and fully assimilating the indigenous peoples in the 500 years since the beginning of Spanish colonization. On the contrary, the Mexican indigenous population is the largest in the...

Keywords

  • Indigenous People
  • Language Policy
  • Indigenous Community
  • Bilingual Education
  • Indigenous Language

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Hamel, R.E. (2008). Indigenous Language Policy and Education in Mexico. In: Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_22

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