Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Chapter 15
Language and Ethnicity
ANGELA REYES
Language and ethnicity research in education is motivated by several concerns.
Some sociolinguists are chiefl y interested in ethnic minority achievement
in the classroom, exploring the role of language in educational
success and failure. Others are primarily concerned with ethnic dialects
and ethnic minority languages, examining the role of schools in valuing
and supporting linguistic varieties with minimal institutional legitimacy.
Still others are mainly fascinated by youth interactional practices, using
educational sites to witness the constant doing and undoing of ethnic
groups and boundaries through language use. Oftentimes these various
concerns overlap, providing complex accounts of how linguistic, ethnic
and educational issues are elaborately intertwined. In this chapter, I discuss
defi nitions of ethnicity, sociolinguistic research methods in language
and ethnicity, and language and ethnicity research by ethnic group and by
educational site. I end with suggestions for future research as well as
implications for language educators.
Defi nitions of Ethnicity
The concept of ethnicity can be quite vexing. What is frustrating about
ethnicity and associated concepts (like race and culture) is that they refer
to nothing, that is, no thing, making these terms essentially – and existentially
– indefi nable. Unlike words like ‘apple’ that more straightforwardly
index objects, ethnicity is something you just can’t grab and bite into. This
intangible quality provides much variability in how ethnicity is understood,
valued and applied. Even though scientists generally agree that
there is no biological evidence to support their importance, ethnicity and
race are still commonly perceived as primordial and natural categories.
Since it is people – not genetics or nature – that insist on the signifi cance of
these categories in the classifi cation of human beings (Le Page & Tabouret-
Keller, 1985), several scholars argue that ethnicity and race are social constructs
with great political signifi cance. Because these constructs play a
398