Slicing the Onion Ethnographically: Layers and Spaces in Multilingual Language Education Policy and Practice

Abstract

In this article, we take up the call for more multilayered and ethnographic approaches to language policy and planning (LPP) research by sharing two examples of how ethnography can illuminate local interpretation and implementation. We offer ethnographic data collected in two very different institutions—the School District of Philadelphia and the Andean regional graduate program in bilingual intercultural education in Cochabamba, Bolivia—both of which act as intermediary agencies between national language policies and local educational initiatives. Drawing from long‐term ethnographic work in each context, we present excerpts from spoken and written discourse that shed light on the opening up or closing down of ideological and implementational spaces for multilingual language education policy and practice. We illustrate through our examples that ethnographic research can, metaphorically speaking, slice through the layers of the LPP onion (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996) to reveal agentive spaces in which local actors implement, interpret, and perhaps resist policy initiatives in varying and unique ways.