Diverging Paths: Case Study of Spanish Bilingual Schools and the Related Latino Community in a Large Western Canadian City
Creators: name: Alvarez Murillo, Edna
Publisher: name: Werklund School of Education
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Bilingual education
subject: Latino community
subject: power relations
subject: Bilingualism
subject: Discourse
subject: Discourse analysis
subject: Education
subject: Education--Bilingual and Multicultural
subject: Education--Language and Literature
subject: Linguistics
subject: FOS: Languages and literature
subject: Education--Social Sciences
subject: Literature--Latin American
subject: Anthropology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Social Structure and Development
subject: Psychology--Social

description: This research is an attempt to study some puzzles that present themselves around the Spanish/English bilingual schools in Alberta. These schools are the most in demand of the bilingual school offerings in Alberta at the present time but they are poorly attended by the children of the large Latino community presently in the major urban centres where these schools are located. In order to understand why this is, the commentaries of a number of the Latino parents who did send their children to these schools as well as those who chose not to were analyzed and discussed. Parallel to this a number of the teachers and administrators of these schools were also asked to comment on the puzzling phenomenon of low Latino involvement in these schools. The demographics are not known with precision, but it is clear from the commentary of the principals of the schools in question that at least ten percent of the enrolees are of Latino origin. The population of Latinos in Alberta is presently between censuses but the previous census lists their numbers as roughly the fifth largest minority group. This research is a case study of the circumstances in a single large Alberta urban centre that involves these parents, teachers and administrators. Discourse analysis was applied to the recorded commentaries of these Latino parents, teachers and administrators. The results of the study were three fold: first there were a number of systemic barriers to more Latino children’s participation, such as the lack of free school buses and the fact that the programs are designed entirely for speakers of English in order to learn a second language; secondly not all of the parents felt that it was crucial to maintain the Latino versions of Spanish language and culture and emphasized rather that they wanted their children to master English as they could always get Spanish at home anyway; and third the Latino community was not as well organized nor as willing to participate as some of the other communities in Alberta such as for example the Ukrainian or German ones who also have bilingual schools and where the language and culture and the participation of the parents was seen as crucial to their success. It also became clear from the commentaries that the Latino culture was not central to the approach to Spanish in the schools and that Spanish was essentially just used as a translation from the standard English programs in all Alberta schools. Although there were some U.S. studies of Spanish-English bilingual schools the situation in the United States is sufficiently different from the Canadian context so that it is not helpful.