What’s the Linguistic Variety of Audit Culture? Administering an Indigenous Language Proficiency Exam in Ecuador’s Intercultural Bilingual Education

Abstract

In Ecuador directors of Indigenous education administer a Kichwa proficiency exam as a requirement for employment. This article considers promises and challenges of the exam, such as how standardized language ideologies manifest in it, and what it says about how institutional knowledge is classed, racialized, and urbanized. Furthermore, though research often describes audit culture as hegemonic, almost everyone associated with the intercultural bilingual school system, including examiners, expressed concerns, yielding a pathway to alter or contest such initiatives.