Dealing with cultural communities in political communities: Balkanization, bilingual education, and the liberal democratic tradition

Despite the mounting evidence in its favor, bilingual education faces continuous attacks. Its most recent, and perhaps most deadly, challenge came in the form of a citizen initiative in California, which effectively banned bilingual instruction in favor of English-immersion. Similar initiatives are now making their way through Arizona, Colorado, and New York City (New York state law does not permit citizen initiatives).;In this dissertation, I argue that bilingual education is required in liberal democracies because without it language minorities are faced with an educational opportunity not worth wanting. For many language minority families, English-only education is not worth wanting because it depreciates their first language. It fails to recognize the greatest capacity that language minority children bring with them to school. In fact, in many instances, it causes the loss of this capacity. Language is, for many, an important part of who they are and their language community sets the stage and choices available as to who they will become. Given the importance of the language community to the individual, protections for language minority groups are imminently consistent with the liberal democratic tradition.;This liberal democratic tradition is violated in nationalist movements that coerce language minorities into abandoning the cultural attachments they hold dear. The survival of our national, political community is in no way threatened by the maintenance of local, cultural communities. And arguments to the contrary are simply not supported.