Dual Language Bilingual Education Research Articles

School leadership envisions sociocultural competence: a case study of one private dual language bilingual education school in Central America

ABSTRACT Multiple conceptualizations of sociocultural competence, coupled with the elevation of issues related to social justice and the promotion of equitable practices in DLBE programs has, unsurprisingly, raised urgent questions of practice for school leaders . School administrators in DLBE programs need guidance and examples of how to implement school-wide systems that support the development of sociocultural competence. In this case study, three social justice-oriented school leaders from the U.S. at one private international DLBE school in Central America talk about how they conceptualize and work to enact programs that support the development of sociocultural competence for students at their school. Qualitative analyses of interviews show that leaders’ notions of sociocultural competence are intricately linked with why they want their students to be socioculturally competent. Findings highlight specific ways leaders conceive of and organize sociocultural learning opportunities in order to nurture social and emotional selves and help students to use sociocultural competence they develop to operate in the world in peaceful, equitable, and socially responsible ways.

“(Not) the same as it was”: Parents’ and teachers’ perception of the impact of COVID-19 on a bilingual elementary program

This article examines teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote learning on the implementation of a Portuguese-English Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) program in an elementary school in the U.S. Drawing on the literature on language orientations and in/equity in DLBE, this study hones in on the results of two surveys, involving 66 parents and 18 teachers, conducted as part of a three-year mixed-methods project. Our analysis points to the contrasting perceptions of parents regarding the impact of COVID-19 on their children’s education. English-speaking parents believed that the benefits of DLBE such as foreign language learning diminished, leading some to withdraw their children from the program. In contrast, Portuguese-speaking parents expressed commitment to the program and vouched for its positive impact on their children’s learning of Portuguese and English during the pandemic. Teachers reported the negative impacts of remote learning on all students’ language learning, but Portuguese-speaking students were perceived as struggling more due to a lack of parental support. This study contributes to research on in/equity in DLBE by showcasing how varying perceptions of parents and teachers during a crisis can accentuate inequitable dynamics for racialized bilingual students and families.

Exploring Latinx and non-Latinx families’ experiences of dual language Catholic schools: A national survey of parent engagement and satisfaction

ABSTRACT Parent involvement is often cited as an essential component of effective dual language bilingual education (DLBE), yet we have limited understanding of the ways parents participate in DLBE or how parent experiences differ between Latinx and non-Latinx families, who often have different reasons for enrolling their children in bilingual programs. Addressing these gaps, this article presents findings from a national survey of parent engagement and satisfaction for Latinx and non-Latinx parents whose children attend DLBE programs in Catholic schools. Findings revealed that parents viewed their involvement as important, although they reported being more involved in participation-oriented activities (e.g. volunteering in the classroom) than engagement-oriented activities (e.g. co-developing academic initiatives). Latinx parents reported similar or higher levels of involvement than non-Latinx parents in all areas except for school leadership. Parent satisfaction was extremely high, with Latinx parents expressing slightly higher satisfaction than non-Latinx parents. While parents were largely satisfied with school communication, many reported that certain communication was only available in English. These findings led researchers to conclude that high levels of reported satisfaction, particularly from Latinx parents, might obscure equity issues and that DLBE schools must look beyond satisfaction to understand parent experiences and to cultivate more equitable parent engagement.

Missed opportunities and implementational spaces for developing critical consciousness: Three case studies in secondary Mandarin Chinese dual language bilingual education

ABSTRACT In response to the call for centering critical consciousness as a foundational goal in dual language bilingual education (DLBE), this article explores secondary Chinese teachers’ instructional practices in Utah Mandarin Chinese DLBE programs and how their instructional practices reflect the missed opportunities and implementational spaces for developing critical consciousness in the backdrop of anti-Asian sentiment. Drawing on theoretical constructs of critical consciousness and using a narrative inquiry approach with ethnographic methods, this study focused on three secondary Chinese DLBE teachers’ reported and observed classroom practices concerning the development of critical consciousness. Findings reveal the different ways in which three Chinese DLBE teachers addressed critical topics in classrooms shaped by their attitudes toward the importance of promoting critical consciousness. Their classroom practices demonstrate the missed opportunities as well as implementational spaces to cultivate critical consciousness within the Mandarin Chinese DLBE curriculum. This study provides examples for DLBE teachers to implement critical pedagogies toward the critical consciousness goal and has implications for teachers, educators, families, and communities to support critical consciousness actions in and out of the classroom.

Heritage language identity matters: Tracing the trajectory of a Chinese heritage mother and contested Chinese dual language bilingual education

This article presents a narrative inquiry of a Chinese heritage mother to theorize and explicate how historical, relational, and spatial processes impacted her negotiation with power and agency in relation to her own heritage language (HL) identity development. A narrative approach enables us to draw on participant counter-stories against master narratives that erase experiences of marginalization of Asians in Asian language education in the United States. We do this through a model of HL identity development (Zhou & Liu, 2022) supplemented by an AsianCrit lens (Iftikar & Museus, 2018). We show the importance of normalizing Chinese as a HL outside of the home in terms of language maintenance as well as the impact such normalization has on the development of an affirmative Chinese HL identity. We add that spaces for such identity development are deeply associated with language programs like dual language bilingual education (DLBE), especially as the number of DLBE opportunities grow in number and in popularity. Thus, language programs, including DLBE, have a responsibility to ensure that the language education they provide address the interests and investments of families with respect to their HL in order to decenter a primary focus on the interests of ethnolinguistic majoritized families.

“Puro English and a little bit of Spanish”: Bi/multilingual kindergarteners’ language ideologies in a dual language bilingual class during the COVID-19 pandemic

Aims: The goal of the study is to examine bi/multilingual children’s language beliefs and their contributions to school and family language policies in a two-way dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in the United States while participating in online schooling from home. Methodology: We report from a larger critical ethnographic study with a Title I K-8 school in Arizona. The data for this study are based on ethnographic fieldwork during the 2020–2021 academic year with a DLBE kindergarten cohort. Data and analysis: We conducted semi-weekly class observations and individual semi-structured interviews with 12 bi/multilingual kindergarten children. Data analysis entailed a multi-step thematic analysis through several rounds of focused coding. Findings: Our findings show that the children were deeply aware of the languages they spoke, their proficiency in each, how they chose to express those proficiencies, and the way they identified with each language. We identify ways that children agentively used language to transcend separative language policies by using language fluidly. Originality: The study contributes to the literature on young children’s language policymaking and their reproductive and resistive forms of agency. Our child participants were 5 and 6 years old, an underrepresented age in research that connects school and family language policies. Furthermore, this group’s linguistic, racial-ethnic, and cultural diversity allows for a deeper glimpse into how bi/multilingual children develop complex identities. Implications: The study has implications for the importance of pedagogical and linguistic flexibility with young children in DLBE programs. The study shows the importance of how young bi/multilingual children respond to the processes of implementing a program by highlighting the role and position of each language in their home and school environments.

Pedagogies of Resistance and Healing: Latinx Dual Language Bilingual Education Teachers Battling Racialized Ideologies of Languagelessness in Arizona

ABSTRACT Language ideologies of Latinx dual language bilingual education (DLBE) teachers have been increasingly examined, but few studies have chosen a race-based analytical approach. This study examines the language ideologies of six Latinx K-5 DLBE teachers in Arizona through the lens of “racialized ideologies of languagelessness.” At the time of the study, all six teachers considered themselves bilingual. Yet, they shared experiences with linguistic violence during their upbringing and K-12 schooling and identified areas of vulnerabilities that had undermined their self-perception of bilingualism. We report the complexities of these teachers’ racialized language ideologies, shaped by their experiences with linguistic violence as well as positive reinforcement during their upbringing and teaching careers. As DLBE teachers, our participants reflect on their complex experiences with language to stop the cycle of linguistic violence and racialized ideologies of languagelessness for the next generation of bi/multilingual children in their classrooms. We call their critically conscious practices “pedagogies of resistance and healing.”

The Conflation of Dual Language Bilingual Education With Gifted Programs in New York City Schools

As neighborhoods across New York City gentrify, Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) has become a big draw for gentrifier families. Our research contributes to growing literature on DLBE gentrification by examining how a racially diverse group of parents in two communities perceived DLBE as a school choice option. We found that schools with DLBE programs screened potential students via academic screening tests or school choice processes to determine admission into DLBE programs. This screening process has contributed to a) the conflation of DLBE with the city’s gifted programs, and b) a focus away from admitting and centering emergent bilinguals. While this screening served to further advantage gentrifier families, some parents resisted the opportunity hoarding behaviors of their peers through their alternative school choices and advocacy efforts. In this way, we show how all parents are constrained and impacted by the neoliberal logics of contemporary DLBE policy and school choice.

‘Somos bilingües’: translanguaging socialization of DLBE teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT After the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the disruption of in-person schooling has significantly affected many students including emergent bilingual students. Designed as an ethnographic study, this research study examines two Spanish-English dual language bilingual education teachers’ implementation of translanguaging pedagogies and language socialization during the pandemic through the following research questions: (1) What adjustments did the teachers make to their teaching and curriculum to support the students as they navigated the pandemic times? (2) How did the teachers and students use languages in their interaction in blended learning environments? Findings from the 2nd grade Spanish Language Arts and 4th grade Social Studies classes demonstrate that both teachers reported an increased awareness of the importance to integrate translanguaging pedagogies and reflected a translanguaging stance. They also intentionally integrated translanguaging strategies into their teaching through translanguaging design. The 2nd grade teacher invited the students to draw upon their full linguistic repertoires for Spanish literacy development, whereas the 4th grade teacher adopted translanguaging design to make content materials more accessible. Through translanguaging socialization, both teachers socialized the students into and through flexible language use and created a learning environment where students’ linguistic repertoires were valued as a resource for learning.

Following Indigeneity to unbuild inequities in teaching for multilingualism: restoring relationship with the Land

ABSTRACT This theoretical article explores how Land-based education could help decolonize language education, starting from the case of dual language bilingual education (DLBE) in the United States. We invoke other scholars’ metaphor of basements versus boutiques to understand how such programs have often either been colonially marginalized into basements or colonially gentrified by middle-class White students. We extend this DLBE problematic beyond and beneath the human-made buildings implied in the basements and boutiques metaphor toward the decolonizing potential Land offers. We analyzed relevant literature on Indigenous language and culture revitalization programs in North America, calling on their expertise and leadership in how to center Land-based thinking and ways of knowing across DLBE. We argue that Land-based pedagogy’s critiques of settler colonialism and Mother Earth’s destruction by humans can help DLBE expand its equity focus toward societal transformation that goes beyond human-centered and language-centered thinking. We theorize what it would mean to bring Land to the heart of non-Indigenous DLBE programs, including six actionable recommendations for a Land-based reframing of DLBE that can further unbuild the coloniality of basements and boutiques.

Pre-service Teachers' Language Ideologies of Dual Language Bilingual Education Program : A Discourse in Language Education Policy

Dual language bilingual education programs have been applied in Indonesia for a long time, especially in Islamic boarding schools. Drawing to classroom language policy, this paper aims to explore language ideologies of pre-service English teachers in implementation of dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in the classroom and to what extent do their language ideologies affect their DLBE implementation before and after-class reflection. This article uses an ethnography case study in describing and exploring individual phenomena to find out the natural data from individual daily activity. Interview and observation will be used as a data collection. The participants of this study are four pre-service English teachers represented in different race, native-language and gender categories. The focus use in this study on DLBE when students learn more than one language. Languages are separate and distinct when bilingual speakers are compared to monolingual speakers. Therefore, different language ideologies of pre-service teachers which are influenced by race, gender, and native language will affect the implementation of DLBE itself.

Co-learning about translanguaging and testing in dual language bilingual education: examining ideological and implementational spaces

Co-learning about translanguaging and testing in dual language bilingual education: examining ideological and implementational spaces

Beyond the Land of Thorns: Epistemic Authorship in Dual Language Bilingual Education

Beyond the Land of Thorns: Epistemic Authorship in Dual Language Bilingual Education

Cultivating a critical translanguaging space in dual language bilingual education

ABSTRACT An area of ongoing debate among bilingual scholars and practitioners is the extent to which instructional languages should be separated in dual language bilingual education (DLBE). This article contributes to and extends this effort by proposing critical translanguaging space as a conceptual lens to guide the design of translanguaging pedagogies in DLBE programs. This concept is grounded in spatial understandings of languaging and learning and comprised of three interrelated dimensions: (1) dynamic languaging, (2) heteroglossic ideologies, and (3) critical consciousness. After outlining these central tenets, I concretize this approach through a case study of a researcher-practitioner collaboration aimed at fostering a dynamic languaging space in a DLBE classroom that had previously enforced strict language separation. Findings reveal the ways in which this project reflected the aims of a critical translanguaging space, including by affirming students’ dynamic bilingual repertoires and identities, reframing linguistic expertise, fostering practice-based understandings of bilingualism, and creating opportunities for interrogating issues of equity. At the same time, the project fell short of cultivating students’ critical consciousness, as critical inquiry was largely relegated to students’ small group conversations. I conclude with a discussion of findings and implications for future efforts at fostering critical and flexible bilingual learning spaces.

Teaching as poetry: outlaw emotions and embodied knowledge of injustice

ABSTRACT This paper explores the emotional experiences of three first-year Latinx teachers in Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs. Drawing on interviews completed over the course of a year-long critical ethnography with collaborative elements, I created a series of transcription poems highlighting salient emotions. Applying feminist theories of emotion as knowledge to the teachers’ expressions in the poems, I argue that the poems indicate the teachers’ embodied awareness of (in)justice and creative means of resistance. Through the presentation of the poems and the invitation to ‘critically listen,’ this article offers an opportunity for readers to feel the impact of Latinx teachers’ voices and experiences in white supremacist systems.

Flexible co-construction of meaning: facilitating emergent bi/multilingual children’s emergent exploratory talk in Spanish literature discussions

ABSTRACT Emergent bi/multilingual children have historically been afforded few opportunities to engage dialogically with peers and teachers in posing authentic questions and co- constructing interpretations of texts as their reading instruction has traditionally been skills driven. Additionally, more recent scholarship has identified increased opportunities for participation and meaning-making when bi/multilingual children discuss literature within linguistically flexible discussion spaces. This case study examines teacher discourse and discussion facilitation that foreground children’s emerging exploratory talk and validate their bi/multilingual practices during literature discussions conducted in Spanish in a second-grade maintenance dual language bilingual education classroom within a public school in the Midwest United States. Analysis focuses on teacher and child interactions, including the teacher’s uptake of children’s ideas and authentic questions, shared authority among teacher and children, and the teacher’s use and modeling of bilingual practices, such as external code-switching when recounting brief stories, within the discussion space. Findings demonstrate how teacher facilitation and discourse patterns interact in ways that promote children’s emerging exploratory talk within a dialogically organized linguistically flexible discussion space.

Not for us: Chinese immigrant parents’ perspectives on Mandarin Chinese dual language bilingual education programs

ABSTRACT Drawing on a raciolinguistic and AsianCrit lens, we analyze the voices of first-generation Chinese immigrant parents regarding their decisions on whether to enroll their children in Mandarin Chinese dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs. Our findings reveal Chinese immigrant parents’ lack of confidence in DLBE programs as a space created for them or a program that can effectively serve their children’s English learning and academic needs. Also evident was Chinese immigrant parents’ agency in promoting Chinese as a heritage language outside DLBE spaces for their children. This study highlights the marginalization of heritage language-speaking children’s interests in DLBE programs and the need to incorporate language-minoritized families’ needs and voices in DLBE spaces.

A Raciolinguistic and Racial Realist Critique of Dual Language’s Racial Integration

ABSTRACT Offering a raciolinguistic and racial realist perspective, this theoretical article critiques using dual-language bilingual education (DL) as a strategy to provide youth, particularly “English-language learners,” the elusive goal of a bilingual and racially integrated education. The author argues this racial desegregation approach – through its assumption that White students will be the English-language models – impedes DL’s potential to provide equity to Latinxs and other students. The author contends this integration strategy inadvertently perpetuates racist ideologies about racialized youths’ bilingualism, White mainstream English’s superiority, and majority-Latinx bilingual education. Furthermore, the strategy tethers justice for Latinxs to Whites’ interest in DL, consequently perpetuating material inequities.

What is visible and invisible: the portrayal of dual language programs on school websites

Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs have expanded rapidly in a large Northeastern urban school district in the United States in recent years, but multilingual families, particularly those from immigrant backgrounds, receive limited information about program offerings from school websites. In this qualitative study, utilizing critical discourse analysis, 21 websites of district schools with DLBE programs were reviewed. Findings suggest there was limited information overall about DLBE offerings such as the program model, principles, and values on school websites, even in programs recognized as ‘district model programs’. More professionally done websites with vibrant photos, videos, and detailed information about bilingual education, in multiple languages, were most often found in gentrified communities, but the information was not tailored to the needs of low-income and immigrant communities and did not actively promote multilingualism. Most of the websites that did provide information about DLBE focused on cognitive, academic, and sociocultural goals rather than economic benefits and family and heritage connections which have been found to be attractive to immigrant parents. Using an equity lens, implications and recommendations for schools and policymakers are discussed.

Over-framing: interrogating sentence frames as pedagogical support vs. language restriction

ABSTRACT Sentence frames are a frequently used form of pedagogical scaffolding in language education. Yet there is debate around whether sentence frames offer the opportunity for analysis and internalisation of authentic language use, or simply facilitate rote, ‘plug and play’ language use. This paper takes a linguistic ethnography approach informed by case study methodology to explore the use of sentence frames in a dual language bilingual education (DLBE) setting. Data were collected across 78 h of field observations and 15 h of interviews conducted over one school year. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted in both Spanish and English. Findings point to the frequency with which the use of sentence frames can perpetuate a phenomenon we describe as over-framing. Specifically, our findings demonstrate tensions between a teacher’s introduction of sentence frames as a ‘fill in the blank’ format, as opposed to an opportunity to develop language awareness through breaking down and exploring frames with students collaboratively. We provide recommendations for shifting the field’s approach to the use of sentence frames in future research and practice.