Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

108 Language Diversity in the Classroomintervention initiatives early programs or later ones have interestedthemselves in language matters and, to that extent, have remained‘remedial’ in nature. Indeed, as I have already hinted (and as we shall seein more detail later on), an adherence to a ‘difference’ perspective doesnot rule out concern for children’s linguistic repertoires or educationalintervention per se. It does rule out, however, interventions built uponfalse footings. Thus, Bridget Plowden herself cautioned against programspredicated upon the idea that all should think ‘the same way as we doourselves’; she went on:education for the deprived child [should be] complementary to hishome... rather than compensatory, which really means that the homehas no merit. (Plowden, 1970: 12)This view may not be fully within the approved ‘difference’ camp ondisadvantage, but the words here suggest a considerable advance fromthe hard-line deficit approach that was still common when they werewritten. 3Although I shall shortly turn to some detailed criticisms of the deficitview of language, we know already from the more general discussion ofdisadvantage that deficit perspectives are flawed. So, just as we haverejected labels like ‘cultural deprivation’, as inaccurate and, indeed,nonsensical, we can also reject the more specific notion of ‘verbaldeprivation’. By extension, the philosophical underpinnings of ‘compensatory’education are equally shaky: if the language of disadvantagedchildren is not deficient, then there is nothing to compensate for. We may,for practical purposes, wish to increase or broaden children’s linguisticrepertoires, but this is another matter (see below), and any attempt to doso is not likely to succeed if it is founded on deep misunderstanding ofexisting linguistic capabilities.The ignorance of the importance of cultural relativism, and the blindimposition of middle-class standards to which this ignorance leads, havealways been the major issues in critical discussions of compensatoryeducation and verbal deprivation. Investigations of lower-class beliefs,attitudes and values by middle-class interviewers, using instrumentsstandardized (if at all) with middle-class populations, often taking placein middle-class settings (the university clinic, the social-scientificlaboratory) are likely to produce dubious results. 4 Recall, for example,that Hess and Shipman’s studies in the 1960s led them to advocate the‘resocialization’ of the disadvantaged child this to involve strong andprolonged intervention in the family and, in some cases, actual removal