Grassroots resistance and activism to one-size-fits-all and separate-but-equal policies by 90:10 dual language schools en comunidades latinas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Bilingual education—chiefly the subcategory of dual language bilingual education—has been undergoing a pattern where the interests of language-minoritized communities have in several contexts been pushed out of the way. One aspect of this gentrification process has been the fiftyfication of dual language bilingual education policy, where privilege is placed on a 50:50 balance of language allocation between English and the partner language. Using thematic narrative analysis, we looked at the only two dual language bilingual education schools in the U.S. state of Utah with a 90:10 language allocation. Findings show that (a) the two charter schools were pressured in multiple ways to conform to the state’s fiftyfication policy, and (b) the schools and their Latina/o communities resisted the policy and associated pressures on behalf of their students through forms of grassroots language activism and bottom-up resistance. Although these actions ultimately resulted in the official revision of the state’s DLBE policy to be inclusive of multiple language allocation models, the schools had to continue their activism to benefit from the policy change as the state then moved to a separate-but-equal policy approach that continued the privileging of the 50:50 model. Implications for scholars and policymakers are discussed.