Beyond the Crisis: Tools for Analyzing Historical Enrollments in Languages Other Than English

This short chapter analyzes fall undergraduate enrollments in languages other than English in postsecondary institutions from 1974 to 2016 on the basis of the MLA Historical Enrollment Database 1958–2016 and data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The main contention is that the distribution of these enrollments has historically been unequal from a variety of perspectives and that, for this reason, specific assessment tools looking at data beyond absolute trends must be devised to anchor the analysis to diverse contexts. The analysis will start with a general overview of enrollment trends and will then introduce different parameters, such as geographical location, enrollment size by institution, and institution type to contextualize and better understand absolute findings. The analysis will end with a focus on less commonly taught languages. The chapter hopes to stimulate further analysis in the field and to contribute to a discussion on the current state of affairs in the sphere of languages other than English beyond the often-repeated narrative of crisis.