AlterNative

Abstract

Scientific imperialism involves outsiders creating knowledge about dominated groups. This applies to the relationship between indigenous or minority children, parents, teachers and communities on the one hand, and dominant groups (schools, teachers/administrators, us as researchers) on the other hand. How can we as outsiders work together with other oppressed groups to overcome the legacy and consequences of linguistic and cultural genocide and, in the process, create new and liberating histories for us all? The article examines how scientific imperialism has contributed, and continues to contribute, to linguistic genocide in the education of indigenous and minority children and outlines some of the challenges and opportunities that people are faced with when trying to change the genocidal situation. New forms of linguistic genocide based on subtractive bilingualism, ‘free market’ economics, parental ‘consent’ and ‘good intentions’ can be more harmful to indigenous and minority children than overt attempts at extinguishing the language and culture, because they are more difficult to analyse.

 In subtractive language learning, a dominant or majority language is learned at the cost of the mother tongue. Subtractive teaching subtracts from the children’s linguistic repertoire (instead of adding to it). The children undergoing this type of education, or at least their children, are forcibly transferred to the dominant group linguistically and culturally, and the education can cause them mental and physical harm; both are defined as genocide in the United Nations Genocide Convention. The most decisive educational factor in causing negative statistics of indigenous ‘performance’ is the use of the wrong teaching language (together with lack of indigenous content, methods and ethos in schools). An additive approach to bilingualism based on long-term, mainly mother-tongue medium (MTM) education, can be employed to preserve and enrich indigenous and minority languages and cultures. In large-scale studies of educational models for minorities, the amount of education through the medium of the mother tongue is the strongest predictor of both children’s competence and gains in English, and of their school achievement. The final part of the article focuses on the struggle to combat linguistic genocide in education and its consequences on the island of Kosrae in Micronesia.