Language Ideologies in a U.S. State-Funded International School: The Invisible Linguistic Repertoires of Bilingual Refugee Students

Abstract

In this study, I investigated language ideologies in a state-funded International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school in the United States. I conducted ethnographic observations, focus groups, and interviews in a fourth grade classroom in one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the country. Findings indicate that although the school positioned bilingualism as linguistic capital, the linguistic repertoires of multilingual refugee students were made invisible by three inter-related processes: linguistic tokenism, linguistic subordination, and linguistic compartmentalization. These results highlight the urgency for schools offering the IB PYP to implement language policy, curriculum, and instruction that explicitly support immigrant and refugee children’s multiple linguistic backgrounds.