English as a Second Dialect Policy and Achievement of Aboriginal Students in British Columbia

Abstract

Depuis les années 1980, le ministère de l'É ducation de la Colombie-Britannique investit pour soutenir le développement d'élèves parlant des dialectes plutô t que l'anglais standard. En pratique, les élèves qui profitent de ce soutien financier sont presque tous des Autochtones, et les fonds obtenus dans le cade du programme English as a Second Dialect (ESD, en français Enseignement de l'anglais dialecte second) sont devenus une importante source du financement consacré à des élèves autochtones dans plusieurs districts scolaires. Dans cet article, nous examinons l'utilisation que font les districts scolaires des fonds de l'ESD et quels sont les effets de ce financement sur la réussite scolaire. Nos résultats indiquent qu'il y a un effet positif assez important de l'ESD sur les résultats en lecture chez les élèves autochtones de septième année.Mots clés : éducation autochtone, dialectes, alphabétisme, financement de l'éducation, tests standardisés Since the 1980s, the BC Ministry of Education has offered funding to support the language development of students who speak non-standard dialects of English. In practice, the students who are supported by this funding are almost exclusively Aboriginal, and English as a Second Dialect (ESD) funding has grown to be an important source of supplemental funding for Aboriginal students in many school districts. We exploit the staggered uptake of ESD funding by school districts to identify its effect on academic achievement. We find a sizable positive effect of ESD on grade seven reading achievement among Aboriginal students.

Perceptual identification of talker ethnicity in Vancouver English

“…Educating health professionals and the public about ethnically indexed accents and dialects may mitigate these issues and promote the development of children from all ethnolinguistic backgrounds. For example, encouraging the use of second dialect resources in British Columbia schools has been shown to improve reading outcomes (Battisti, Friesen and Krauth ).…”

The Intergenerational Effects of Residential Schools on Children’s Educational Experiences in Ontario and Canada’s Western Provinces

“…If the child's first language was an Aboriginal one, or the family speaks an Aboriginal language at home, the child is less likely to win awards, but they are more likely to win awards if they can speak an Aboriginal language. This may suggest Aboriginal language knowledge encourages good outcomes in school, as long as it is not correlated with lack of full fluency in Standard English (Battisti et al, 2014;O'Gorman & Pandey, 2015). The correlations of Aboriginal language knowledge with the likelihood of repeating a grade seem inverted to what one would expect given the signs in the other models.…”

“…15 Previous work has shown that cultural connectedness can support resilience (Berry, 1999), but other work has shown cultural divides between families and the education system (such as language barriers) can result in worse child school performance (Barnes et al, 2005;Battisti, Friesen, & Krauth, 2014) so the impact of aspects of a child's environment on the educational outcomes is not clear. Note.…”

English as a Second Dialect & Indigenous Educational Attainment in Canada: A Call to Action

“…The point here is not to make a grand claim of societal injustice, but rather to isolate a problem. There is significant evidence many Indigenous children in Canada are speakers of a non-standard English dialect (Ball and Bernhardt 2008;Battisti, Friesen and Krauth 2014;Eriks-Brophy 2014;Heit and Blair 1993;Kay-Raining Bird 2014;Wiltse 2011). Further, language variation scholars broadly agree that children who speak nonstandard dialects are at an educational disadvantage in schools (E.g.…”