ABSTRACT
Bilingual education holds promise for attaining the kind of society that Inuit communities aspire to. Bilingual programs are pursued as vehicles for revitalizing Inuit and Yup’ik languages and providing quality first and second language education. Across the Inuit homeland—in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia—Inuit children have, at different times and following different methods, attended schools where they were taught in both a national language (Danish, English, French, or Russian) and their community’s language. Over the past 50 years, land-claims agreements, self-government provisions, legislation, and policies in Greenland, Canada, and Alaska have acknowledged Inuit’s rights to protect their languages and control their school systems. Teacher training programs, curricula, and materials have been developed to support stronger bilingual programs in Inuit communities. However, gaps between policy and implementation persist. This chapter presents a meta-narrative of how parents, community members, teachers, educational leaders, and policymakers have worked to deliver bilingual education that responds to community needs and goals. Although Inuit living in different regions and nations have faced different journeys, this chapter presents some commonalities of Inuit experiences with bilingual education.
