Intergroup Contact and Minority-Language Education Reducing Language-Based Discrimination and Its Negative Impact

• Main Authors: Stephen C. Wright, Évelyne Bougie
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: language discrimination; Arctic; Posi; Tive; inuit
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1027.8469; http://jls.sagepub.com/content/26/2/157.full.pdf

The authors consider two related approaches that may be important in the amelioration of language-based discrimination. The first focuses on the attitudes of the dominant-language group and applies recent perspectives on the intergroup contact theory to sug-gest ways of reducing prejudice among members of the dominant group. Research with White/Anglo children in California are used to show the potential benefits of bilingual over English-only education in this regard. The second approach focuses on the psy-chology of the minority-language group. Supported by research with Inuit children in Arctic Quebec, the authors describe how heritage-language education can have a posi-tive impact on personal and social identity, support heritage-language development, facilitate second-language acquisition, and perhaps buffer the negative impact of dis-crimination on self-esteem and well-being by supporting the development of strong in-group identification.