From Personal to Political: Proposition 227, Literacy Instruction, and the Individual Qualities of Teachers

Abstract

Passed by the California electorate in June of 1998, Proposition 227, the voter initiative mandating English-immersion instruction for a majority of the state's language minority students, represents a weighty experiment in the legislation of educational and linguistic policy. The proposition has created new conditions for the schooling of many of the state's 1.5 million English learners. This ethnographic study examines the local enactment of literacy practice in the new policy context created by Proposition 227. The research considers the influence of the law on two elementary schools in a rural district that allowed schools to choose how they would implement Proposition 227. The schools implemented Proposition 227 in very different ways. One school pursued parental waivers and continued its bilingual programme, while the second school fully implemented the English-only provisions outlined in Proposition 227. The analysis explores the connection between the individual qualities of three teachers – their entry into the field of teaching, educational history, and political ideology – and their mediation of the mandates of Proposition 227.