An Ethnography of Bilingual Education in a Chinese Community
Guthrie, Grace Pung
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/68826
Description
Title
An Ethnography of Bilingual Education in a Chinese Community
Author(s)
Guthrie, Grace Pung
Issue Date
1982
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Bilingual and Multicultural
Abstract
This study is an ethnography of a ten-year-old "maintenance" Chinese bilingual program in a public school located at the heart of a Chinatown community in California.
Participant observation was carried out at the target school for the entire 1980-81 school year and in the community for approximately 20 months. In-depth ethnographic interviews were conducted with school administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community leaders and residents.
The school and community members' perceptions of and attitudes toward bilingual education and the target program were examined; the introduction and implementation of the program in the school and at the classroom level were described; the linguistic, cultural and economic factors in the community relating to educational aspirations, processes, and outcomes were analyzed; the nature of the Chinese community's involvement in the initiation of the program was explored; the interaction of the various groups in the program, the school, the immediate Chinese community, the school district, and the larger community in relation to the development of the Chinese bilingual program was systematically examined.
The history of the program showed that the community was not involved in the initiation, and the school and the program in fact had little contact with the immediate Chinese community. In spite of being called a "maintenance" program, it was primarily a transitional program designed to develop children's competence in English. Attitudes toward the program varied among different groups. It appears that originally federally-funded initiative has been successfully continued with local support. However, changing economic and demographic patterns in the community may portend major changes in the program and the school in the future.
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