Chapter 1: Historical Perspectives in Language Policy and Literacy Reform

Historically, an assimilation ideology has influenced the policies in the United States toward linguistic and culturally diverse individuals. The assimilation ideology is illustrated by policies incorporated in France, where the central government defines and regulates the national language and culture and considers the French language to be the only language of the country, protecting it from foreign impact. France treated all citizens equally as long as linguistic and cultural minorities (both national and immigrant) assimilated into the dominant French language and culture (Bourhis & Marshall, 1999).

In the United States, the Common School movement of the late 1800s reflected the first large scale policy efforts to influence education and to stress a mainstreamed “Americanizing” course. Immigrants were taught to become trustworthy citizens to provide the government with a sense of security (August & Hakuta, 1998). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries large numbers of immigrants entered the country; causing the public school systems to implement such policy. The rising numbers of “new immigrants” from Southern and Eastern Europe raised intrinsic fears of separatism; the nation’s only possible response to this fear was to quickly assimilate the new immigrants into the mainstream American culture (Wiese & García, 1998). The problems of assimilation continue today as new immigrants continue to enter from different parts of the world.