Intercultural-bilingual Education for an Interethnic-plurilingual Society? The Case of Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to an emerging literature which treats multilingualism as more than, and distinct from, 'bilingualism plus'. It considers some paradoxes and tensions which arise when current Latin American models of 'intercultural-bilingual' education are applied to plurilingual and interethnic regions, such as Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast region. Here, three indigenous and two Afro-Caribbean minorities interact in common or overlapping territories, in ways which often entail the development of multilingual repertoires and dynamic, multifaceted identities. The paper focuses on intercultural-bilingual education programmes initiated in 1985, in two indigenous languages and in English/English-Creole, each with Spanish. It explores some complexities of Coast people's linguistic and cultural practices through autobiographical accounts, by workers in the programmes, of the development of their multilingual repertoires and allegiances. Finally, it suggests that the programmes' efficacy for the maintenance and revitalisation of cultures and languages and for the development of 'interculturality' is limited by their binary conception and design (vernacular+dominant language), and offers some pointers for further research towards their modification.