The politics of language enrollment in US higher education

Bibliographic Data

ID8935696
AuthorsMichael Gradoville (0000-0002-8462-0009, School of International Letters and Cultures Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume58
Issue2
Pages367-391
Publication date2025-03-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueForeign Language Annals (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-718X • E-ISSN: 1944-9720
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/flan.12798
OpenAlexW4408241749
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited32

This article examines enrollments in languages other than English in United States higher education from the perspective of geographical distribution. While the overall decline in language enrollments is well known, enrollments are also very unequal across states when accounting for population. By cross‐referencing MLA language enrollment data with demographic data, numerous predictors were tested for their efficacy in explaining inequality in Fall 2021 language enrollments. The only predictor found to affect language enrollments in a state was the state's political leanings as defined by voting in the 2020 U.S. presidential election: the more strongly a state voted for the Republican candidate, the lower its rate of language enrollment. An analysis of the changes in enrollment between 2016 and 2021 also showed a non‐significant trend whereby states that voted more strongly for the Republican candidate tended to have more enrollment decline than those that voted for the Democratic candidate

Democracy · Demographic economics · Economics · Higher education · Inequality · Political science · Politics · Population · Presidential election · Presidential system · Sociology · State (computer science · Voting · Demography · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Political Systems and Governance · Psychology

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