(Linguistic and Cultural) Genocide
in Education Signals Lack of
Linguistic Human Rights
– But Why No Discussion?
The Fourth Annual Lectures on
Language and Human Rights
University of Essex, 16-17 Nov. 2006:
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrick
p/lhr/lhrlectures.htm
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
University of Roskilde, Denmark, and
Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland
http://akira.ruc.dk/~tovesk/
SkutnabbKangas@gmail.com
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their
•
•
•
•
•
languages?
2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
3. What is happening today with the world’s
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
Figure 1. Sweetgrass First Nations Language Council Inc., Speakers of Aborigina
Languages Survey
A Survey of 24 Aboriginal Communities in Southern Ontario
Total Aboriginal Population: 51,778 (June 1995)
Total Aboriginal Population who now only speak English: 50,771
Total Aboriginal Population who also speak an Aboriginal Language: 1,601
3.09% of total First Nations Aboriginal Population speak a Native Language.
Figure 2. Aboriginal Language by Age Group in 24 Firs
Nations Communities in Southern Ontario as of Octobe
20, 1995
Numbers of monolingual Gaelic speakers and
Gaelic/English bilinguals, Scotland, 1806 to 2001
Year
1806
1808
1881
1891
1901
1911
1921
1931
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
Total numbe r
of speakers
297 823
289 798
231 594
210 677
202 700
183 998
148 950
129 419
93 269
80 978
88 892
79 307
65 978
58 652
Number of monolingua l speakers
No data
No data
No data
43 738
28 106
18 400
9 829
6 716
2 178
974
477
No data
No data
No data
Combined share in
popu lation, Scotland
18,5%
22,9%
6,2%
6,3%
5,1%
4,3%
3,5%
2,9%
2,2%
1,5%
1,7%
1,6%
1,35%
1,2%
Numbers and percentages of Swedish-speakers in
Finland from 1610 to 1995
•
Year
No.
% of total
population
Year
No.
% of total
population
1610
70,000
17.5
1930
342,900
10.1
1749
87,200
16.3
1940
354,000
9.5
1815
160,000
14.6
1950
348,300
8.6
1880
294,900
14.3
1960
330,500
7.4
1890
322,600
13.6
1970
303,400
6.6
1900
349,700
12.9
1980
300,500
6.3
1910
339,000
11.6
1990
296,700
5.9
1920
341,000
11.0
1995
294,664
5.8
The absolute numbers today are the same as in 1880; the
decrease is due to immigration and mixed marriages
How have they succeeded in
getting the legal protection?
They have (had) the power it takes
to grant their languages
the legal protection that
ALL LANGUAGES
SHOULD HAVE
How have they succeeded
in getting the legal protection?
Do any indigenous/ First Nation language
speakers have a similar protection for
their languages anywhere in the world?
NO!
They do not have the power it takes…
… or do they???
Linguistic Human Rights
(LHRs) are a necessary but
not sufficient prerequisite for
maintenance of languages in
modern societies.
Exceptions?
Extremely isolated small
groups/peoples, in areas
difficult to approach (island
societies, mountains as
barriers?) with few resources
of interest to multinational
companies.
Some indigenous peoples’ languages have
official status, with some rights:
• Linguistic numerical majority: Quechua
• Linguistic (large) numerical minority: Māori
• Linguistic (very small) numerical minority:
Saami, in Norway (best rights, numerically
largest Saami people), Finland (fairly good
rights, numerically very small), Sweden (fewer
rights, numerically twice as many as in Finland).
Russia (almost no rights, very few people).
The three groups of languages mentioned as
having linguistic rights in the Finnish
Constitution (1999), in a descending order
• 1. Finnish and Swedish (national languages)
• 2. a. Saami (all three; North Saami, Skolt
Saami and Anar Saami)
2. b. Romany
2. c. Finnish Sign language
• 3. ALL OTHER LANGUAGES
All Canadian First Nations languages could
be in group 2, with Saami (regional
official status)
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
Most of the world’s languages are very
small 1
There are 6-7,000 spoken languages,
and maybe equally many
Sign languages.
(the Ethnologue, 15. Edition, lists
6,912 languages)
www.sil.org/ethnologue/
Most of the world’s languages
are very small 2
The median number of speakers of a
language in the world is 5.000-6.000.
83-84% of the world’s spoken
languages are endemic, they exist in
one country only
Most of the world’s languages are very
small 3
Over 5.000 of the world’s almost 7.000
spoken languages and 99% of the Sign
languages have fewer than 100.000 users.
Over half of the world’s oral languages
are spoken by fewer than 10,000
speakers
Distribution of languages, Ethnologue 15 ed
Where?
N of % of all
lang- languages uages
Number of
speakers in
thousands
% of all
speakers
Europa
239
3,5%
1,504,393
26,3%
Americas SCN 1,002
14,5%
47,559
0,8%
Africa
2,092
30,3%
675,887
11,8%
Asia
2,269
32,8%
3,489,897
61,0%
The Pacific
1,310
19%
6,124
0,1%
Total
6,912 100%
5,723,861
100%
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
What is happening
today to the world’s
languages? Are they
being maintained?
NO
Languages are today being
killed faster than ever
before in human history
3-600 languages left in 2100?
Optimistic
estimates
50%
of today’s spoken
languages may be
extinct or seriously
endangered in 2100
Pessimistic but
realistic estimates
90-95%
may be extinct or
seriously
endangered in
2100
Still more pessimistic estimates (Mart
Rannut 2003)
• Only those
40-50 languages will
survive in which you can talk to your
fridge and stove and coffee pot.
• These are the languages into which
Microsoft programmes, Nokia mobile
menus, etc, are being translated.
Most of the languages to
disappear would be/ are
indigenous languages.
Most of the world’s
indigenous languages would
disappear.
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
In studying causes for the
disappearance of languages we find
two explanatory paradigms:
language death and language
murder.
When languages, the vast libraries of human
intangible heritage, disappear, is it
(natural) death or is it murder?
 DEATH
 Languages just disappear

naturally…
Languages commit suicide;
speakers are leaving them
voluntarily for instrumental
reasons and for their own
good
 MURDER
 Arson: the libraries are
set on fire!
 Educational systems,
mass media, etc
participate in
committing linguistic
and cultural genocide
Which paradigm corresponds to your situation?
Is it death or is it murder?
The difference between seeing the disappear-ance of
languages as death or as murder?
 DEATH
 If languages just
disappear naturally,
there is no agent. The
only ones to blame are
the speakers themselves.
It is THEIR individual
and collective
responsibility … and
they have profited by
language shift.
 MURDER
 If languages have been
murdered/ killed, we can analyse
the structural and ideological
agents responsible: the world’s
economic, techno-military and
political systems. Even when
language shift has happened
with speakers’ ”consent”,
ideological factors behind this
”consent” can be analysed.
When speakers shift to another
language, and their own language
disappears, the incoming new
language can function as a killer
language.
Has English functioned as a killer
language in relation to your
languages?
Definition of
KILLER LANGUAGES 1
When ”big” languages are learned
subtractively
(at the cost of the mother tongues)
rather than
additively
(in addition to mother tongues),
they become
KILLER LANGUAGES.
Definition of
KILLER LANGUAGES 2
 Being a killer language is NOT a
CHARACTERISTIC of any language.
 Languages may BECOME killer
languages on the basis of how they
FUNCTION in relation to other
languages.
Definition of
KILLER LANGUAGES 3
 It is not languages that kill each other.
The agency is with ”speakers”, meaning
power relations between speakers that
reflect ideologies, structures, processes
and networks. These are working and
being performed in ways that produce and
result in unequal relations.
KILLER LANGUAGES 3
Killer languages
pose serious threats towards
the linguistic diversity of the world.
English is today the world’s
most important killer
language…
… but
most dominant languages function as
killer languages vis-à-vis smaller
languages. There is a nested hierarchy of
languages, and glottophagy (”language
cannibalism”).
Sign languages and killer languages
1
• ALL oral languages can, through enforced
oralism, function as killer languages, in
relation to Sign languages
• Official/national oral languages may be
especially important killer languages vis-avis Sign languages
Agents of linguistic genocide
Educational systems and mass media
are (the most) important direct
agents in linguistic and cultural
genocide. Behind them are the
world’s economic, techno-military
and political systems.
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
Genocide?
Is the term not
too strong?
Many people use the term
loosely.
We must define it properly
every time we use it!
UN International Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793, 1948),
final Draft, Article III, had definitions of linguistic and
cultural genocide and saw them also as crimes against
humanity. Article III was voted down by 16 states in the
UN General Assembly, and is NOT part of the final
Convention. But all states then members of the UN
agreed about the definition.
Therefore, we can still use this definition too
UN International Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793, 1948). Final
draft, 1948.
Article III(1) defined linguistic genocide:
'Prohibiting the use of the language of the
group in daily intercourse or in schools, or
the printing and circulation of publications
in the language of the group'.
Article III was voted down in the UN General
Assembly by 16 states in 1948 and is NOT part of
the final Genocide Convention
United Nations International
Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(E793, 1948)
has five definitions of genocide.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the
following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such [emphasis added]:
Article 2
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births
within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group. [emphases added]:
Genocide is…
• Article II(e): 'forcibly transferring
children of the group to another
group'; and
• Article II(b): 'causing serious bodily
or mental harm to members of the
group'; (emphasis added).
List of contents
• 1. Which groups/peoples maintain their languages?
• 2. Most of the world’s languages are small.
• 3. What is happening today with the world’s
•
•
•
languages? Are they being maintained?
4. Death or murder? Two paradigms. Killer
languages.
5. Definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide
Convention.
6. Examples of linguistic (and cultural) genocide.
Examples of linguistic genocide in
education
according to Articles 2(b) and 2(e)
For more, read
Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000). Linguistic
Genocide in Education – or Worldwide
Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. See my home
page for list of contents and details:
http://akira.ruc.dk/~tovesk/
EUROPE, Pirjo Janulf 1998
Janulf shows in a longitudinal study that of
those Finnish immigrant minority members in
Sweden who had had Swedish-medium
education, not one spoke any Finnish to their
own children. Even if they themselves might
not have forgotten their Finnish completely,
their children were certainly forcibly
transferred to the majority group, at least
linguistically.
AFRICA 1, Edward Williams 1995
Zambia and Malawi, 1,500 students, grades 1-7
Large numbers of Zambian pupils (all education
in English) ‘have very weak or zero reading
competence in two languages’.
The Malawi children (taught in local languages
during the first 4 years, English as a subject)
had slightly better test results in the English
language than the Zambian students. In addition,
they could read and write their own languages.
AFRICA 1, Edward Williams 1995
Zambia and Malawi, 1,500 students, grades 1-7
Conclusion: ‘there is a clear risk that the
policy of using English as a vehicular
language may contribute to stunting, rather
than promoting, academic and cognitive
growth’. This fits the UN genocide
definition of
“causing serious mental harm”
AFRICA 2, Zubeida Desai 2001
• Xhosa-speaking grade 4 and grade 7 learners
in South Africa were given a set of pictures
which they had to put in the right order and
then describe, in both Xhosa and English.
• In Desai's words, it showed ‘the rich
vocabulary children have when they express
themselves in Xhosa and the poor vocabulary
they have when they express themselves in
English’. Mental harm?
AFRICA 3, Kathleen Heugh 2000
• Countrywide longitudinal statistical
study of final exam results for “Black”
students in South Africa:
• The percentage of “Black” students
who passed their exams went down
every time the number of years spent
through the medium of the mother
tongues decreased. Mental harm?
AUSTRALIA, Anne Lowell & Brian Devlin 1999
•
•
Article describing the 'Miscommunication between
Aboriginal Students and their Non-Aboriginal Teachers in a
Bilingual School‘, clearly demonstrated that 'even by late
primary school, children often did not comprehend
classroom instructions in English' . Communication
breakdowns occurred frequently between children and their
non-Aboriginal teachers', with the result that 'the extent of
miscommunication severely inhibited the children's
education when English was the language of instruction and
interaction' .
Conclusions and recommendations: the use of a language
of instruction in which the children do not have sufficient
competence is the greatest barrier to successful classroom
learning for Aboriginal Children’. Serious mental harm?
CANADA 1, Katherine Zozula & Simon Ford 1985
• Report ‘Keewatin Perspective on Bilingual
Education’
• tells about Canadian Inuit ‘students who are
neither fluent nor literate in either language’
and
• presents statistics showing that the students
‘end up at only Grade 4 level of
achievement after 9 years of schooling’.
Serious mental harm?
CANADA 2, The Canadian Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
1996 Report
• The Report notes that ‘submersion
strategies which neither respect the
child's first language nor help them
gain fluency in the second language
may result in impaired fluency in both
languages’. Serious mental harm?
CANADA 3, The Nunavut Language
Policy Conference in March 1998
• ‘in some individuals, neither
language is firmly anchored’.
Serious mental harm?
CANADA 4, Mick Mallon and
Alexina Kublu, 1998
• ‘a significant number of young people
are not fully fluent in their languages’,
and
• many students ‘remain apathetic, often
with minimal skills in both languages.’
Serious mental harm?
CANADA 5, 1998 report,
Kitikmeot struggles to prevent death
of Inuktitut
• ‘teenagers cannot converse
fluently with their grandparents’.
Serious mental harm?
Deaf students
Branson & Miller, Jokinen, Lane, etc
• Assimilationist submersion education
where Deaf students are taught orally
only and sign languages have no place in
the curriculum, often causes mental
harm, including serious prevention or
delay of cognitive growth potential.
Deaf students
Ladd 2003
• Example: Deaf boys of normal intelligence
are put in oral submersion education, with
no Sign language. At the age of 12, they are
sent to a Deaf school because the teachers
cannot cope. They are at this stage
described as “intellectual cabbages”.
• Serious mental harm?
Ad List of contents
7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide:
Issues NOT discussed here:
- The history of linguistic genocide in drafting the
Genocide Convention
- How are most of the concepts in the Article 2 to be
interpreted? Destroy? Serious physical harm?
Mental Harm? Transfer of children? Forcible
transfer? Degree and kind of force required?
- Issues of permanency of outcomes, issues of
education as the causal factor. For these, see Dunbar
et al., forthcoming
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
To qualify as genocide, an act has to be
intentional. Have states had an intention
to
'forcibly
transfer children of the group to
another group'; and
'cause serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group' ?
YES, unfortunately THEY HAVE
to members of the group'
How is the intention manifested? 1
• There are countless examples from many parts of
•
the world from the early and mid-1800s onwards
and up to the mid-1900s and even longer where the
intention to destroy an indigenous group as a group
(a nation, a people) has been overtly expressed
earlier. Some examples follow
(for more, see Magga et al., 2005 and Dunbar et al.,
forthcoming).
How is the intention manifested? 2
• “Tribal dissolution, to be pursued
mainly through the corridors of
residential schools, was the
Department’s new goal”, John Milloy
(1999: 18) states about the Canadian
1857 Act to Encourage the Gradual
Civilization of the Indian tribes in
the Province.
How is the intention manifested? 3
•
•
Norwegianisation was also the official goal for boarding
schools in Norway: "The building of the boarding schools
and the Norwegianisation of Finnmark are closely bound
together. Norwegianisation was the goal. And the building
of the boarding shools was the means. Both were part of
Norwegian educational policy in Finnmark” (Lind Meløy
1980: 14; Lind Meløy was himself headmaster of one of the
boarding schools).
In the process of Norwegianisation it was the goal of many
school administrators that the Saami languages should
become extinct (e.g. Bernt Thomassen, Superintendent for
schools 1902-1920; quoted in Lind Meløy 1980: 98-99).
How is the intention manifested? 4
• Hans Vogt, later Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oslo, wrote in 1902:
”Norwegianisation [through schools] has
been victorious, a policy which means purely
and simply an intentional extinction of the
Saami and Finnish languages” (emphasis
added; quoted in Lind Meløy 1980: 106).
• Similar policy statements abound from all
over the world.
How is the intention manifested? 5
For obvious reasons, no state or educational authority
can today be expected to express openly an
intention to “destroy” a group or even to "seriously
harm" it or to "transfer its members to another
group".
However, the intention can be inferred in other
ways, by analysing those structural and
ideological factors and those practices which
cause the destruction, harm or transfer. We
have done this in several ways, comparing
with the older more overt ways.
Not force itself, but the
capacity to present force as being in the
service of right and peace
”Sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of
national and supranational organisms united under a single
logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what
we call Empire.” (p. xii)
”Empire is formed not on the basis of force itself but on the
basis of the capacity to present force as being in the service
of right and peace.” (p. 15). Hardt, Michael & Negri,
Antonio (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press
Empire is NOT anchored in a place (e.g. USA) but in
organisms and networks. No conspiracy theories. But the
US just happens to control many of the networks.
How is the intention manifested? 6
We claim that if state school authorities continue an
educational policy which uses a dominant language
as the main medium of education for indigenous and
minority children, when the negative results of this
policy have been known both through earlier
concrete empirical feedback (as in Canada and the
United States) and through solid theoretical and
empirical research evidence (as they have, at least
since the early 1950s; see, e.g. UNESCO 1953; see
also our first Expert paper, Magga et al. 2004), this
refusal to change the policies constitutes strong
evidence for an “intention”.
How is the intention manifested? 7
In Canada, “for most of school system’s life,
though the truth was known to it”, the
Department of Indian Affairs, “after nearly a
century of contrary evidence in its own files”, still
“maintained the fiction of care” and “contended
that the schools were ‘operated for the welfare
and education of Indian children’”(Milloy 1999:
xiii-xiv). These schools represented “a system of
persistent neglect and debilitating abuse”,
“violent in its intention to ‘kill the Indian’ in the
child for the sake of Christian civilization” (ibid.:
xiv; xv). They were finally closed down in 1986.
How is the intention manifested? 8
The Department and the churches were “fully
aware of the fact" that the schools “unfitted
many children, abused or not, for life in
either Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal
communities. The schools produced
thousands of individuals incapable of
leading healthy lives or contributing
positively to their communities” (ibid.: xvii).
Being able freely to choose the language of
instruction among existing alternatives
which are qualitatively approximately at the
same level is for schools one of the most
important necessary factors for successful
study through the medium of a foreign
language and for becoming high-level
bilingual through this type of education.
This necessary factor for successful
study through the medium of a foreign
language does NOT exist for most
indigenous, minority or dominated
group students in the world, neither at
school nor at university level. It is often
the most decisive factor in the
educational failure of students,
quantitatively especially in Africa and
Asia.
Assimilation is not freely chosen if the
choice is between one’s mother tongue
and one’s future
The United Nation’s 2004 Human Development Report links
cultural liberty to language rights and human development
(http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/)
and argues that there is
“ no more powerful means of ‘encouraging’ individuals to
assimilate to a dominant culture than having the economic,
social and political returns stacked against their mother
tongue.
Such assimilation is not freely chosen if the choice is between
one’s mother tongue and one’s future”. (p. 33).
Assimilation not freely chosen if the choice is between
one’s mother tongue and one’s future
The press release about the UN report exemplifies the
role of language as an exclusionary tool:
“Limitations on people’s ability to use their native
language—and limited facility in speaking the
dominant or official national language—can exclude
people from education, political life and access to
justice.
Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 2,500 languages, but the ability of
many people to use their language in education and in dealing with the
state is particularly limited. In more than 30 countries in the region,
the official language is different from the one most commonly used.
Only 13 percent of the children who receive primary education do so
in their native language.”
Assimilation is not
“a free and rational choice”
• Abandonment of local community
languages is always a result of ”powerful
and destructive external pressures” rather
than a ”free and rational choice”, argues
the Irish linguist James McCloskey
(2001: 26, 38; quoted in Glaser, in press).
Assimilation not freely chosen if there are
no alternatives, and if the consequences are
not known
• We can only speak about ”choice”, if
• - there are (qualitatively equal) alternatives, and
• - the students have enough research-based
•
knowledge about the likely long-term consequences
of the choices.
This includes consequences such as possible
dispossession of linguistic (and intellectual?) capital
through subtractive learning, hierarchisation, and
endangerment for other languages.
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
Have the states known? 1
• The negative results of subtractive teaching
have been known by indigenous peoples
and documented at least since the mid1700s
(e.g. Handsome Lake).
• States and educational authorities
(including churches) have had the
knowledge at the latest since the end of the
1800s (e.g. Board of Indian
Commissioners).
Board of Indian Commissioners 1880: 77
• …first teaching the children to read and
write in their own language enables them
to master English with more ease when
they take up that study…
• …a child beginning a four years’ course
with the study of Dakota would be further
advanced in English at the end of the term
than one who had not been instructed in
Dakota.
Board of Indian Commissioners 1880: 98
• …it is true that by beginning in the
Indian tongue and then putting the
students into English studies our
missionaries say that after three or
four years their English is better
than it would have been if they had
begun entirely with English.
Have the states known? 2
”Modern” research results about how
indigenous and minority education
should be organised have been
available for at least 50 years, since the
UNESCO expert group book ”The use
of vernacular languages in education”
(1953).
Have the states known? 3
If states, despite this, and despite very positive
results from properly conducted additive
teaching, have continued and continue to
offer subtractive education, with no
alternatives, knowing that the results are
likely to be negative and thus to 'forcibly
transfer children of the group to another
group'; and 'cause serious bodily or mental
harm to members of the group'
this must be seen as intentional.
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
(Teacher) question:
Are research results being
implemented in the education of
indigenous and minority children?
Do states act
in a rational way?
Ramirez et al. study, 1991, 2,352 students
Group
Medium of education Results
English
only
English
Low levels of English
and school achievement;
likely not to catch up
Early-exit Spanish 1-2 years;
transithen all English
tional
Fairly low levels of
English and school
achievement; not likely
to catch up
Late-exit Spanish 4-6 years;
transi- then all English
tional
Best results; likely to
catch up with native
speakers of English
Thomas & Collier, 210,000 students 1
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
the largest longitudinal study in the world on the education of
minority students,
with altogether over 210,000 students,
including in-depth studies in both urban and rural settings in the
USA,
included full MTM programmes in a minority language,
dual-medium or two-way bilingual programmes, where both a
minority and majority language (mainly Spanish and English) were
used as medium of instruction,
transitional bilingual education programmes,
ESL (English as a second language) programmes, and
so-called mainstream (i.e. English-only submersion) programmes.
Thomas & Collier, 210,000 students 2
• Across all the models, those students who
reached the highest levels of both bilingualism
and school achievement were the ones where
the children's mother tongue was the main
medium of education for the most extended
period of time.
• This length of education in the L1 (language 1,
first language), was the strongest predictor of
both the children's competence and gains in L2,
English, and of their school achievement.
But might it not, in all these
cases, be because of the students’
socio-economic and cultural
conditions – not because of the
subtractive teaching???
Ramirez and Thomas & Collier 1
The length of mother tongue medium education was in
both Ramirez' and Thomas & Collier's studies more
important than any other factor in predicting the
educational success of bilingual students.
It was also much more important than socio-economic
status, something extremely vital in relation to poor
and/or oppressed indigenous and minority students.
(Remember that the education of most African
students can also be analysed as minority education
from a power relations point of view…)
Ramirez and Thomas & Collier 2
The worst results, were with students
in regular submersion programmes
where the students' mother tongues
(L1s) were either not supported at all
or where they only had some mothertongue-as-a-subject instruction. They
were in a subtractive learning
situation.
There are hundreds of smaller studies
showing similar conclusions,
with
many different types of groups
and many languages,
and from many countries.
And the knowledge is not new…
CANADA, Arlene Stairs 1994
• ‘in schools which support initial learning
of Inuttitut, and whose Grade 3 and Grade
4 pupils are strong writers in Inuttitut,
the results in written English are also the
highest.’
USA, Alaska, Nancy Sharp, 1994
• The Alaska Yu'piq teacher Nancy Sharp
compares:
• when Yu'piq children are taught through the
medium of English, they are treated by
‘White’ teachers as handicapped, and they
do not achieve;
• when they are taught through the medium
of Yu'piq, they are ‘excellent writers, smart
happy students’.
Results in dominant language ,after 9 years of Finnish mothertongue medium teaching in a maintenance programme for an
immigrant minority. Competence in Swedish; own evaluation and
test results (working class Finns, middle class Swedes,
2 Stockholm suburbs; from Skutnabb-Kangas 1987).
GROUP
Finnish coresearchers
Swedish
controls
Own evaluation
of Swedish
competence (scale
1-5)
sd
Mean
4.50
0.41
4.83
Swedish test
results; difficult
CALP-type test
(scale 1-13);
sd
Mean
5.68
1.86
0.26 5.42
2.23
The Finnish students’ Finnish
• The Finnish students’ Finnish was, after 9 years of
•
Finnish-medium education in Sweden, at almost the
same level as that of Finnish control groups in
Finland…
whereas Finnish children in Swedish-medium
education show extremely poor results in Finnish,
and often in Swedish too….
All these studies show both
the positive results of additive
mother tongue medium
maintenance education, and the
mostly negative results of
subtractive dominant-language
medium education.
Dominant-language-only
submersion programmes “are
widely attested as
the least effective educationally
for minority language students”
(May & Hill 2003: 14, study commisioned by
the Maori Section of the Aotearoa/New
Zealand Ministry of Education).
“Dominant-language-only submersion
programmes “are widely attested as
the least effective educationally for
minority language students”
This is the model mostly used with children
representing endangered language
communities all over the world (provided
that the children attend formal education
in the first place)
Today research results are
NOT being implemented.
States do NOT act in a
rational way.
There are very large gaps
between
• theory and practice,
• research and
implementation, and
• rhetoric and realities.
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
Poverty is capability deprivation (Sen)
Economics Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen conceptualises poverty as
"capability deprivation" "Capability" refers to
“the alternative combinations of functionings from which a person can
choose … freedom - the range of options a person has in deciding
what kind of life to lead. Poverty … lies not merely in the
impoverished state in which the person actually lives, but also in the
lack of real opportunity - given by social constraints as well as
personal circumstances - to choose other types of living. Even the
relevance of low incomes, meagre possessions, and other aspects of
what are standardly seen as economic poverty relates ultimately to
their role in curtailing capabilities (that is, their role in severely
restricting the choices people have…). Poverty is, thus, ultimately a
matter of 'capability deprivation'.”
(Dreze & Sen 1996: 10-11, quoted from Misra & Mohanty 2000a: 262-263)
Poverty is not mainly economic
“Poverty is no longer to be viewed simply in terms of
generating economic growth; expansion of human
capabilities can be viewed as a more basic objective of
development" (Misra & Mohanty 2000a: 263). The loci of
poverty, and of intervention, are in Amartya Sen's view,
economic, social and psychological; this implies that
measures have to be taken in each of these areas.
"Psychological processes, such as cognition, motivation,
values and other characteristics of the poor and the
disadvantaged are to be viewed both as consequences as
well as antecedent conditions which are ultimately related to
human capabilities" (Misra & Mohanty 2000a: 264).
Education is the most crucial input
The question, if we are interested in more equity in the world,
in reducing the gaps, is, in Misra & Mohanty's view: "What
is the most critical (and cost effective) input to change the
conditions of poverty, or rather, to expand human
capabilities?" There is "a general consensus among the
economists, psychologists and other social scientists that
education is perhaps the most crucial input" (ibid., 265).
This is what leads me to the roles of the mother tongues/first
languages, and of English (or other dominant languages),
respectively, in education.
•
Subtractive teaching curtails children’s
capabilities and perpetuates poverty
If poverty is understood as "both a set of contextual conditions as well as
certain processes which together give rise to typical performance of
the poor and the disadvantaged" in school, and if of "all different
aspects of such performance, cognitive and intellectual functions have
been held in high priority as these happen to be closely associated
with upward socio-economic mobility of the poor" (Misra & Mohanty
2000b: 135-136), we have to look for the type of division of labour
between languages in education that guarantees the best possible
development of these "cognitive and intellectual functions" which
enhance children's "human capabilities", rather than curtailing them
and depriving children of the choices and freedom that are, according
to Sen and others, associated with the necessary capabilities.
Political science conclusion on the
economic argument on poverty
eradication
Do states try to achieve
common aggregate welfare with
sensible means, also economically?
Do they try to eradicate poverty
through their
educational language policies? NO!
States follow emotional common sense
and harm the children - and themselves
• To under-educate or mis-educate children,
•
to prevent them from reaching the potential
that they have, is economically enormously
costly both for the individuals concerned
and for the states
Quite apart from moral and ethical human
rights arguments (which are compelling),
this wastage is what states should be
concerned about if they want to follow any
kind of economic rationality.
Linguicism
• LINGUICISM: 'ideologies, structures and practices
•
which are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and
reproduce an unequal division of power and
resources (both material and immaterial) between
groups which are defined on the basis of language'
(Skutnabb-Kangas 1988: 13).
Most education systems worldwide reflect
linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000).
List of contents
• 7. Discussion of criteria and evidence for genocide
 Intention? Has the intention to destroy the group as a
group through enforced assimilation been expressed
openly? Free choice?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Has the knowledge about negative results existed?
 Intention to transfer members of the group and harm
them? Have research results been adhered to?
 Intention to inflict negative conditions of life on the
group - poverty? Economic rationality of enforced
assimilation?
• 8. Why no discussion?
Indigenous and minority children
and children from dominated
groups are taught
SUBTRACTIVELY.
Subtractive versus additive
• SUBTRACTIVE teaching: minority children are
taught through the medium of a dominant language
which replaces their mother tongue.
They learn the dominant language at the cost of the
mother tongue.
ADDITIVE teaching: minority children are taught
mainly through the medium of the mother tongue,
with good teaching of the dominant language as a
second language.
It can make them HIGH LEVEL BILINGUAL OR
MULTILINGUAL. They learn other languages in
addition to their own language and learn them all
well.
•
•
The subtractive dominant-languageonly-medium submersion education
has clearly caused serious mental
harm to the indigenous, minority
and/or dominated group students,
and has attempted to forcibly
transfer them to another group
linguistically.
This is linguistic genocide.
Most indigenous and minority
education in the world
participates in committing
linguistic and cultural genocide,
according to the genocide
definitions in the UN Genocide
Convention
Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
• Too often, policies of national integration,
of national cultural development, actually
imply a policy of ethnocide, that is, the
wilful destruction of cultural groups.
Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
• The cultural development of peoples,
whether minorities or majorities, must be
considered within the framework of the
right of peoples to self-determination,
which by accepted international standards
is the fundamental human right, in the
absence of which all other human rights
cannot really be enjoyed.
Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
• Governments fear that if minority peoples
hold the right to self-determination in the
sense of a right to full political
independence, then existing States might
break up.
Guidelines for USA foreign policy from 1948 Bret-ton
Woods, to World Bank & IMF to WTO. George
Kennan, main USA BW negotiator in 1948
’We have 50% of the world’s wealth, but only
6,3% of its population. In this situation, our
real job in the coming period is to devise a
pattern of relationships which permit us to
maintain this position of disparity. To do so,
we have to dispense with all sentimentality ...
we should cease thinking about human rights,
the raising of living standards, and
democratisation’
Neo-imperialist ideas spreading again
“The rest of the world is best
served by the USA pursuing its own
interests because
American values are universal”.
Condoleezza Rice, 2000
EU also follows a US agenda
(Robert Phillipson, 2005).
Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen
• State interests
thus are still more
powerful at the present time than
the human rights of peoples.
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
University of Roskilde, Denmark, and
Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland
http://akira.ruc.dk/~tovesk/
SkutnabbKangas@gmail.com