A Heteroglossic Lens on Washington State's Growing Dual Language for Multilingual Learners

Abstract

This article examines Washington State's growing dual language program through the lens of heteroglossia. A heteroglosic lens is significant to understanding the contemporary linguistic landscape and framing language policies that will equitably serve multilingual learners and communities. With the increasing multilingual complexities of today's classrooms and the history of academic achievement gaps between monolingual and multilingual learners, heteroglossia illuminates the contextual ways in which language practices and policies hegemonize certain groups and create educational and social inequities. The article argues that unless the state's language policy is structurally revised and informed with a heteroglossic ideology and theorization of language education, its aspirational goals of equitable education for its multilingual learners may never be attained. It offers an overview of the theoretical lens of heteroglossia that must guide the planning of an equitable language policy/program that reflects multilingual learners' authentic fluid language practices.