More Than Meets the Eyes: Unpacking the Dynamic Bilingualism of a Segregated Charter School

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Complicating Superdiversity Through Children and Youths’ Communicative Repertoires

Abstract

This paper situates the rise of superdiversity within the rise of neoliberalism. It argues that while neoliberalism has made possible “super-diverse” spaces in many European societies, it has also facilitated the rise of hyper-segregation in many US cities. It uses this framing to analyze the language practices of kindergarten students in a hyper-segregated dual language charter school in the city of Philadelphia--a city that has been considered a pioneer in neoliberal educational reforms (Hill et al, 2009).
Neoliberalism entails the merging of the state and the market in a new corporate governance (Klein, 2007). In the US context, neoliberalism has resulted in hyper-segregated cities and neighborhoods (Melamed, 2011). Neoliberal educational policies, most notably charter schools, have exacerbated this hyper-segregation in schools (Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, & Wang, 2010). Therefore, the same forces that are shaping the “super-diverse” contexts of European society are also shaping the hyper-segregated contexts of many American cities. This study examines the language practices of Latino kindergarten students in a hyper-segregated dual language charter school in Philadelphia. The study follows 12 focal kindergarten students that represent different points on the continuum of bilingualism from English dominant to Spanish dominant. These students were observed weekly with a particular focus on their language practices and the language ideologies that they and their teachers use to position them as language learners. This observation data was used to create case studies that situate these focal students within the larger neoliberal political economy of education reform.
The results indicate that despite being a hyper-segregated charter school within a neoliberal educational policy regime, there is a great deal of language diversity in this school. Though almost all of the students are Latino with some background in both English and Spanish, the ways of using both languages differ based on prior experience with the languages, positioning by their peers and teachers, and their own identity development. The continuum of bilingualism that exists in this school community and the fluid language practices that emerge from it parallel many of the characteristics of language practices associated with superdiversity.
This study complicates the idea of superdiversity by examining a context shaped by the same political and economic forces that is hyper-segregated. It also raises questions as to the validity of claims that super-diversity is unique to extremely multilingual contexts or whether it is describing a specific circumstance of linguistic fluidity that exists in some form in all communities.

Author

• Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania