The Role of Leadership in Challenging White Supremacist Ideologies in Two-Way Dual-Language Education

• In Event: 16.029 - Pre-K–16 Latinx Education in the Context of White Supremacy

Abstract

Purpose of the Paper
This theoretical paper utilizing a narrative synthesis explored the role of school leadership in fostering schools where the practices of school communities are grounded in racial and linguistic equity for Latinx students in two-way dual language education.

Theoretical Framework
By utilizing critical bilingual leadership, liderazgo, (Wiemelt & Welton, 2015), a framework that combines LatCrit, transformative leadership theory, and bilingual education research, this paper highlighted equity-minded school leadership in serving bilingual Latinx students in the context of white supremacy. This paper also focused on the concept of interest convergence (Bell, 1980), to explore how the interest of racial equity for bilingual latinx students occured only when it converged with the interests of white supremacy. Thus this paper analyzed how equity-oriented school leadership challenged the systemic oppression that all too often keeps schools focusing on the interests of white students at the expense of the education Latinax students deserve.

Data Sources and Analyses
This paper provided a narrative synthesis (Popay et al., 2006; Scanlan & Lopez, 2012), an approach to systematically analyzing studies in order to tell a story of the findings across the literature reviewed. This narrative synthesis provided guidance to school leadership by synthesizing the literature related to LatCrit and interest convergence in education, transformative leadership, and critical reviews of two-way bilingual education programs. Thus, this paper highlighted the tensions and possibilities for school leadership and provided theoretical implications for school leaders in order to effectively lead two-way bilingual programs with equity in mind.

Findings
The findings demonstrated the inherent tensions and risks of this type of programming in context of white supremacy and interest convergence (Bell, 1980; Cervantes-Spoon, 2014; Flores, 2016; Palmer, 2010). One key finding associated with the potential commodification of the linguistic assets that bilingual Latina/o youth bring to school, which are often times viewed as deficits by monolingual norms outside the context of two-way dual language. Another key finding from the literature related to the the fact that dual language programs were predominantly found in middle class white neighborhoods with a smaller Latinx population and were less likely to be found in predominantly working class Latinx or African American neighborhoods. A third key finding related to the white supremacist ideologies in which educators, and educational policy, positioned emergent bilingual Latinx students as linguistically deficient while simultaneously viewing white bilingual students as linguistically talented. Lastly, this synthesis made clear the need for school leaders to be conscious and reflective of the tactics involved with interest convergence and white supremacy in order to lead schools towards truly equitable education for Latinx students.

Scholarly significance
This paper contributes to multiple disciplines that are not always interconnected: two way bilingual education programming, social justice leadership, and critical race theory. Moreover, as schools across the country seek to incorporate or strengthen their two-way bilingual education models, this paper provides a critical overview of the keys areas to be thoughtful of as schools operate in a system of white supremacy.

Author

• Joseph Wiemelt, Urbana School District 116