Whose Bilingualism Counts? Juxtaposing the Sanctioned and Subaltern Languaging of Two Dual Language Teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACT As bilingual scholarship increasingly examines who counts in bilingual education, we join the conversation by exploring how two DLBE teachers’ languaging is often marginalized, even in bilingual education contexts. In this comparative case study, we draw from the testimonios of two differently racialized DLBE teachers (one of Mexican and one Persian heritage) in the U.S. to answer the research questions: (a) Which forms of languaging do the DLBE teachers employ across their lives? and (b) How is their languaging privileged or marginalized within official bilingual education spaces? Taking a raciolinguistic perspective, findings reveal both participants share a variety of complex, sophisticated languaging over various spaces of their lives, with only a fraction of one participant’s languaging being sanctioned in school. The other participant’s languaging is invisibilized significantly more. In turn, the researchers call for more expansive bilingual policies that affirm and extend whose languaging and what languaging counts in schools.