Restrictive English-Only Policies in a Globalizing World: The Conflictive Case of Arizona Orchestrated by a Conservative Politic

The term globalization is never far from the front pages of newspapers. It evokes strong positive or negative feelings depending on whether it is being praised by the business community for opening up world markets to more extensive trade, or condemned by those who associate the term with the dramatically widening gap between rich and poor nations and people. One aspect of globalization that has important implications for educators is the increasing movement of people from one country to another. Population migration is caused by many factors: desire for better economic conditions, the need for labor in many countries that are experiencing low birthrates, a constant flow of refugees resulting from conflict between groups, oppression of one group by another or ecological disasters. One obvious consequence of population mobility is increased linguistic, cultural, racial and religious diversity within schools (Cummins, 2006, p. xxix). In this chapter we look at language policy in education in Arizona and its relationship to broader national and global trends regarding issues of diversity, assimilation and nativist politics.