Equity for Whom? Initial Findings on How Diverse Voices Conceptualize Inequity in Bilingual Education

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

The data presented are drawn from my on-going, larger, in-depth, qualitative comparative case study which investigates race talk in policy deliberation across three issues (disparities in behavior and discipline, language education for emergent bilinguals, and access to advanced courses) which engage different racialized groups and are embedded within a single school district and local context: Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is a medium-sized, multi-racial urban school district which confronts issues of poverty and achievement disparities, yet reflects professed commitment to equity, civic engagement and resources.

Through ethnographic observations of school board meetings, community input sessions, and advocacy group events; in-depth interviews with community advocates, parents, and elected officials; and analysis of documents and print media coverage, I examine how stakeholders across lines of race, class, and expertise make sense of and grapple with equity concerns in relation to bilingual education/emergent bilinguals’ education. I use a socio-cultural policy framework which foregrounds policy as the negotiation of meanings and relations within social contexts and critical studies of race which draw attention to the ways that racism operates through and discourse and social structures.

Preliminary findings indicate the multiplicity of views, including areas of dissonance and overlap, particularly around which racialized student groups benefit from bilingual education. Collectively, these diverse voices draw attention to three different equity considerations in relation to who is served by bilingual education programs: equity for targeted groups of students (in this case Latinx and Hmong ELs), distinctions within these groups (e.g., immigrant vs. native born youth), and equity effects on those student groups not served or targeted by the program (African American students and White children in special education).

In highlighting three different ways of conceptualizing “the who” in relation to inequity in bilingual education, this study puts a spotlight on the multiple stakeholders and stakes involved in bilingual education. For education leaders, the preliminary findings suggest the equity tensions and questions leaders must consider in efforts to establish or expand bilingual programs, even in relatively advantaged sites like Madison. This study also indicates the complex stakeholder groups and claims about “equity for whom?”, even in a best-case situation like Madison, of diverse groups working towards equity in multi-racial school systems.

Author

• Erica Owyang Turner, University of Wisconsin - Madison