In multilingual societies, language choice for education may contribute to changes in the way a society views and uses language. This paper investigates these matters in the context of the Peruvian Amazon. Oral surveys were administered to 237 Shipibo people in 13 communities along the Ucayali River of eastern Peru where a transition-type bilingual education programme was introduced several decades ago. Participants were asked to rate their language use and ability. Numerical indices were created, and scores were used as dependent variables in analyses of variance and regressions. Quantitative results were combined with qualitative analysis to create a picture of language use in the Shipibo context. Transition bilingual education, generally purported to be assimilationist in ideology, has as one of its goals a shift away from the minority language to the majority language (Baker, 1996; Rippberger, 1993; Spener, 1988). Thus, a shift away from Shipibo might be expected. However, the results of this investigation suggest that the Shipibo have maintained spoken Shipibo and acquired some biliteracy ability. An explanation is found in the unique history of the Shipibo and the influence of the contrasting ideologies of the institutions that implemented the programme.