Modeling Intercultural Citizenship through Language Instruction

Abstract

Abstract How does Kichwa language instruction in schools extend and contest national policies and politics? Teachers may strategically encourage the use of greetings alongside other signifiers, such as forms of dress and songs, to mark students as intercultural citizens and avoid the foremost markers of inequality, including nonstandardized ways of speaking Kichwa. While research tends to emphasize teachers’ use of standardized language as instructing the “correct” way to speak, this chapter shows how Unified Kichwa is part of a larger-scale political project that makes Kichwa visible and demonstrates difference for funding yet also encourages student communication that parallels that of standardized office Spanish, norms that are relatively understandable to mestizo listeners. The use of Unified Kichwa is different from how students’ parents and other family members speak the language, which achieves political gains while shifting what Kichwa looks and sounds like.