Planning micro-level language education reform in new diaspora sites: two-way immersion education in the rural Midwest

Abstract

Discontinuities are often found between top-down language education policies and local language policy enactments, as de facto language policymaking results from stakeholders’ negotiation and interpretation of policy mandates. Teachers occupy a particular role in the execution of language education policies, as they are the “final arbiters” of what takes place in the classroom. Due to the spreading of the Latino Diaspora to non-metropolitan areas, US rural school districts experiencing a flow of English language learners represent salient new contexts for language policy implementation. Since 1973, the state of Illinois has mandated a top-down K-12 Transitional Bilingual Education policy for English language learners, which some school districts have contested by creating two-way immersion programs. Drawing on teacher and administrator personal narratives, this study describes a case of primarily White teachers’ reintepretation and “correction” of macrolevel language policies and development of a two-way immersion program in rural Illinois. It traces the processes educators experienced when enacting state language policies with limited educational resources and no professional expertise. It also unveils how the implementation of subtractive bilingual education and professional development opportunities shaped teachers’ language ideologies and transformed them into resisters of top-down mandates and enactors of a bottom-up dual language policy. While the interplay of macrolevel language policies, teachers’ individual professional experiences and evolving language ideologies generated imple- mentational and ideological spaces challenging remedial educational approaches, programmatic choices were also constrained by social forces, as community members challenged the teachers’ choice of bilingual teaching for all children.