Paper short abstract:

This narrative and analysis of the everyday experiences of young indigenous language speakers in central highland Mexico helps inform current debate on education policy and indigenous language maintenance.

Paper long abstract:

'This sociolinguistic paper explores the experiences of young indigenous language speakers in central highland Mexico as a contribution to current debate on education policy and indigenous language maintenance. It moves from the empirical and particular to the theoretical and general, in order to discuss how notions of pluriculturalism and inter-cultural encounter should be understood and processed in discussions of Mexican national life and public policy. Indeed, in a context where most indigenous language speakers still suffer material and political discrimination, it questions the extent to which such terms can be regarded as euphemistic and coercive. The on-going doctoral study centres on a group of older teenagers in a hitherto isolated Totonaco-speaking rural community now undergoing very rapid infrastructural change. The young people have risen through (so-called) bilingual primary and Spanish-monolingual state-run secondary schools to now attend an independent and ideologically-driven high school, set up by local Totonaca Elders as an alternative to state provision, and drawing on Freirean principles of critical pedagogy and socio-political action. Some of the students will go on to study vocational courses at the very newest state-sponsored Universidad Íntercultural, while others migrate to the Spanish-speaking provincial capital to study at more prestigious traditional universities. Through their daily routines, unfolding life-stories, experiences, actions and beliefs, the young people provide a unique perspective on life at the inter-cultural educational chalk face, literally and metaphorically embodying cross-linguistic and cross-cultural consciousness, capacity and change'.