When Arabic is the 'target' language: National security, Title VI, and Arabic language programs, 1958--1991.

摘要

This study is based on an interpretive policy analysis of Title VI of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (later of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended) and the higher education Arabic language programs it has funded. In light of a number of contemporary policies motivated by national security to fund instruction in "critical languages" such as Arabic, this study examines historical interpretations of the nexus of national security, education policy and language learning in an effort to help clarify the current debates. The study is based on analysis of Title VI-relevant documents and interviews with policy-relevant actors from three distinct interpretive communities, including policy elites, university actors, and Arab American actors. Findings from the study suggest that Title VI has played a complicated role in promoting Arabic instruction in the U.S. On the one hand, the funding that has been in place has been instrumental in the development of teaching materials and pedagogy, and in the formation of the cadre of Arabists that currently exists. On the other, the subordination of language education to national security concerns has limited the potential of such programs, especially with respect to heritage language education. Most consequentially, policy-relevant actors regularly employed and ascribed to others powerful assumptions about the nature of U.S. leadership in the world and the relationship of language education to that influence. These assumptions not only excluded consideration of actual U.S. foreign policy and intervention abroad, but also served to limit the terms of imagining and executing more effective language education advocacy.