"This Is My New Customer, This Is What They Need, This Is What I Need to Do": The Gentrification of a Two-Way Bilingual Education School in Central Texas

• In Event: 15.032 - Democratizing Evidence by Documenting the Gentrification of Dual-Language Education: Language Allocation, Metaphors, Images, and Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose. The gentrification of TWBE (two-way bilingual education) has become a major concern (Author, 2018; Author, 2017; Valdez et al., 2016) amongst bilingual education scholars. This gentrification of TWBE has not been documented ethnographically, and this critical ethnography examines how gentrification impacted a TWBE school (Plainview) and community in Central Texas. Specifically, the study highlights the perspectives of stakeholders and concrete responses that took root amidst gentrification processes.

Theoretical Framework. In the context of this study neoliberalism is conceptualized as (1) stretching beyond neoliberal ideology and doctrine to include its impact at the levels of ontology and epistemology (De Lissovoy, 2015; Foucault, 2008; Giroux, 2009); (2) a specific “path” (Peck et al., 2009) targeting urban contexts through specific forces such as gentrification that impact specific social actors and their identities, public lives and relationships (Birch & Siemiatycki, 2015; Peck & Tickell, 2007; Springer, 2015). De Lissovoy (2015) writes, “The terrain of neoliberalism should become more complex; neoliberalism is also a social and cultural formation, though it is not usually analyzed as such” (p. 49). This more complex conceptualization of neoliberalism has succinct connections to the TWBE “terrain,” as these spaces of “social” and “cultural” entanglement can be impacted by neoliberal processes such as gentrification. Hence, neoliberalism’s dangerous potential to reorient the public lives, relationships, and identities around neoliberal aims is a serious threat to the race radical vision of bilingual education that centers the interests of Latinx students (Flores, 2016).

Methods and Data Sources. Critical ethnography positions research as an activist endeavor with inherent ethical responsibilities to investigate inequitable conditions within a specific lived domain (Madison, 2012). The contested domain of TWBE, marked by distinct power asymmetries in its current neoliberal moment, reveals an urgency to map macro/micro relationships through critical ethnography (Means, 2013). This nine-month study offers this potential, as perspectives and responses at the local level provide insight into a national TWBE landscape marked by rapid gentrification. Field notes from schoolwide events/meetings and interviews with multiple stakeholders are the principal data sources for the study.

Results. Findings revealed school administration’s neoliberal common sense acceptance (Apple, 2006; Harvey, 2005) of gentrification processes at Plainview, coupled with resistance and activism that pushed back against this neoliberal logic. The veteran assistant principal described the changes: “As your population changes, it’s your customer that’s changing, and you have to change with the customer.” A fifth-grade teacher resisted these neoliberal processes through the centering of TWBE’s fourth goal around the development of critical consciousness (Author, 2017) and the interests and realities of Plainview’s Latinx students and families, for whom bilingual education was originally developed (Flores, 2016; Grinberg & Saavedra, 2000).

Scholarly Significance. This study adds to a growing line of critical inquiry in TWBE by documenting ethnographically the gentrification of a TWBE school, while also highlighting critical counter- “paths” of resistance. Implications for policy, practice, and TWBE teacher preparation will be discussed.

Author

• Dan Heiman, University of North Texas