Bilingual Education and Quechua Language Maintenance in Highland Puno, Peru

Abstract The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between bilingual education and language maintenance for a particular case—highland Puno, Peru—in order to inform language and education policy decisions both for that case and for other similar cases. The study explored the relationship between statements at the policy level and patterns of Quechua/Spanish language use in two communities, one in which that policy was implemented and the other in which it was not. By means of a two-year ethnographic and sociolinguistic investigation in the two communities and their schools, the study found evidence that: (1) the bilingual education project (Proyecto Experimental de Educación Bilingüe-Puno) experienced classroom success but is nevertheless an instance of policy failure; and (2) the use of a minority language in school is not in itself sufficient to promote maintenance of that language, but in certain specified circumstances may contribute to it.