Abstract
Creole-dominant speakers have been shown to perform academically lower than their Standard English-dominant peers resulting from issues with language acquisition. Colonially constructed ideologies that are attached to creole languages have greatly influenced the ways in which they are used, the attitudes towards such languages, and as a result, attitudes about speakers of such languages. This has hindered their development as tools for education despite recommendations by researchers in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) who have argued that bilingual and bidialectal students benefit from teaching strategies which employ explicit compare/contrast strategies between students’ L1 and L2 improving metalinguistic skills, acquisition, and comfort of use in both languages. Therefore, this study seeks to discover whether these ideologies and attitudes exist and whether they influence academic, social-emotional, and curriculum development within a public high school in St. Croix U.S.V.I. Twenty-two ethnographic interviews were conducted with students, English teachers, and administrators, which were analyzed using qualitative methods. Historical, social, and cultural factors were taken into account in the analysis, and the findings reveal what many researchers have recognized as a bipolar attitude towards the creole form, as many participants both embraced it as the language of the people, while also denigrating it as being inappropriate for use in formal settings. Issues of identity, self-esteem, and academic success were tied to language attitudes and ideologies, leaving one to postulate that the treatment of language is one of great importance for academic success.