The Shadow Presence of U.S. Models of Parental Involvement in Postcolonial Multilingual Language and Literacy Reforms in Western Highland Mayan Rural School Districts in Guatemala

ABSTRACT This study offers a critique of imperialist relations implicit in U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) pedagogical texts and capacity‐building resources designed to support decolonial Indigenous Mayan language and literacy instruction. Storybook reading and other literate practices in Mayan ancestral languages were something that Indigenous linguist‐activists supported as part of long‐term efforts to realize bilingual and intercultural educational reforms. Nonetheless, a U.S. middle‐class model of parental involvement, deeply embedded within USAID evaluative protocols, was used to regiment emerging forms of racialized class differences. Data are drawn from Video‐cued Multivocal Ethnographic (VCME) interviews, observations in schools, and USAID capacity‐building materials promoting parental involvement. Findings illuminate how particular stakeholders within Mam‐speaking school districts, experiencing outmigration at times, blamed Indigenous, migrant parents for policy failures.