Language Ideology Change Over Time: Lessons for Language Policy in the U.S. State of Arizona and Beyond

In the U.S. state of Arizona, language minority students who are English learners attend schools governed by a restrictive medium of instruction (MOI) language policy (LP). Educators and educational researchers widely agree that effective reforms of this policy are urgently needed (e.g., Arias & Faltis, ; Lawton, ; Lillie, ). Furthermore, several research studies (e.g., D. C. Johnson, ; Stritikus, ) have shown that the language ideologies held by policy‐influential individuals affect the development and implementation of such policies. Thus, Arizona MOI reforms need to be aligned with language ideologies of key stakeholders. To shed light on MOI reform processes in Arizona and internationally, this study resurveyed politically active voters, administrators, and teachers from Fitzsimmons‐Doolan ( ) to identify any shifts in their language ideologies between 2010 and 2016, to ascertain how these stakeholders perceive Arizona's educational LP, and to better understand how they relate their language ideologies to their policy perceptions. Results indicate some limited ideological change, key themes of equity, pro‐assimilation, and anti‐segregation across policy perceptions, and evidence supporting an LP model that moves toward stasis among LP components. The results suggest that efforts to facilitate ideological change grounded in stakeholder experience might be considered in contexts undergoing LP reform.