The Discourse of Transition: Teachers' Language Ideologies Within Transitional Bilingual Education Programs

Abstract

Transitional bilingual education (TBE), the most common form of bilingual education in the United States, is too often entrenched in a subtractive, English-dominant ideology. This article explores the conflicting language ideologies of teachers in TBE programs, posing the question, “In what way do TBE teachers' discourses reflect/reinforce and simultaneously confront/counter the ideology of the program model within which they operate?” The article draws on two datasets: interviews with 16 TBE teachers at 6 schools in a large, urban school district in Texas and participant observations; and interviews of 2 TBE teachers as they struggled to move their classrooms away from English dominance and toward a more balanced, additive bilingual space. Based on Bourdieu's conception of legitimate language and Bakhtin's conception of dialogue, the article argues that TBE teachers demonstrate a tension between their stated positive orientations toward bilingualism and the restrictive influences of what is termed the “discourse of transition” as they talk about their students, about their classrooms, and about their own decision-making in TBE programs. Essentially, teachers practicing under the structures of a TBE program struggle to simultaneously offer children a “transitional” and a “bilingual” education.