School Trajectories and Sociolinguistic Changes of Chinantec Children Through Local School History

Abstract

In this article I analyze the history of schooling in. the community of San Isidro Laguna in the state of Oaxaca, reconstructed through narratives of the school trajectories of Chinantec children through their primary school years. Within a timeline from 1978 to 2011 and in the diverse school settings, I show the consequences the choices of schooling had on family life as well as on the use of the Chinantec language and the acquisition of Spanish. This article focuses on the sociolinguistic experiences of Chinantec children of the community resulting from family decisions to enroll their children in one or another elementary school during different historical periods. The opportunities that successive generations had for their children’s schooling changed over time, expanding, and diversifying the educational experiences. Some consequences observed in this study were a distancing of family members, a linguistic displacement of the Chinantec language and a loss in the intergenerational transmission of local socio-cultural knowledge in the case of children who studied in schools far from the community. The effects were different when opportunities for schooling became available in or near San Isidro. I reconstructed the school trajectories of these children through discourse analysis interviews and through observations made in community spaces, family interactions, in the local school and in the boarding schools
attended by the children.