Are African-American High School Students Less Motivated to Learn Spanish than Other Ethnic Groups?

Although there is some evidence in the vague literature available to indicate that African Americans are underrepresented in foreign language studies, this issue has never been investigated with a focus on Spanish. Six hundred and thirty-one students enrolled in high school Spanish in a racially diverse school district in West Texas were surveyed and the data for the 102 African-American participants were compared to those of the remaining participants. Findings revealed that the initial enrollment of African Americans was high. However, whereas enrollment figures for other ethnicities increased or decreased slightly as they advanced in their study of Spanish, the figures for African Americans experienced a rapid downward movement. The reasons for this trend seemed to emanate from demotivation in Spanish language learning due to lack of a parental support system, role models, appropriate career counseling, and opportunities to achieve communicative competence stemming from difficulties in the classroom environment.