Americanization and its Critics

Resistance and Conflict

In schools, the nature of the relationship between subordinated bicultural children and families, on one hand, and the educational system, on the other, sometimes involves resistance and conflict and, at other times, submission and acceptance. This reflects the dynamic and dialectic nature of education. Antonia Darder argues that to achieve a full understanding of the role of education, we need to regard schools as sites of both conflict and empowerment. That is, the plight of bicultural children and families within the education system is not one that is doomed to complete despair or failure. Particular school policies and practices, as well as individual and collective actions on the part of the agents (parents, students, administrators, and teachers) can promote more democratic schools in which the process of acculturation is far less traumatic.

Throughout the public education experience of immigrant and language minority youngsters, there [Page 29]are assumptions on the part of educators that explain the lack of success of students whose home language is not English as being rooted in an inability to assimilate into the mainstream culture, which is evidenced by their failure to learn English. Often, the relationship between bicultural families and the school system is a microreflection of societal tensions and conflicts in the areas of economic and social inequality. Issues of cultural dominance appear to take place at four levels: societal, institutional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. To examine how education functions as a mechanism for legitimating social inequality, it is necessary to understand how these four levels of interaction create pressures to assimilate to the cultural and social norms of the majority. This occurs because an asymmetrical relationship often exists in terms of power and status between diverse families and, in the case of the public school system, a structure and tradition of dominance. The formal process of schooling is the gateway to entering the “American dream,” and the price it exacts of new immigrants is often high.

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