Critical Reflections on Filling a Dual-Language Bilingual Education Teacher Pipeline in an English-Only Context

• In Event: Grow-Your-Own Programming in Bilingual Contexts: Engaging Stakeholders to Address Inequality in the Educational Pipeline

Abstract

Purpose
Through a federal grant application co-written by three white academic women to fill the pipeline of dual language bilingual education (DLBE) teachers, we recognize the undercurrents of maintaining cultural identity during our recruiting efforts despite hegemonic pressures of embracing whiteness and neoliberal ethos (Author; Flores, 2013; Flores, 2015). Coming from a state with strong white ideologies which has seen a 65% increase in DLBE programs from 2015 to 2018 (Georgia Department of Education, 2019) and a higher educational institution with zero Latinx faculty in the department, we attempted to follow appropriate models of growing critically conscious teachers (Valenzuela, 2016) and transgressing schooling spaces and dominant knowledge (Cervantes-Soon, 2018).

Our research team, comprised of four white women and one woman of color project coordinator, recruited high school students, undergraduates enrolled in a teacher education program, and undergraduates and graduates for a dual language immersion (DLI) endorsement. Our recruiting efforts included, field trips with high schoolers from DLI schools, making presentations in high schools, universities, and statewide Department of Education events, organizing outreach with Latinx families, meeting regularly with school district partners, and implementing a university dual enrollment program with metro-area high schools.

Framework & Methods
Our framework attempts to be decolonial (Mohanty, 2003; Perez, 1999; Smith,2012)--shifting from oppressive histories toward liberatory ones (Freire, 2008). We engage critical reflexivity (Pillow, 2003; Marx & Saavedra, 2013) to examine our experiences through a critical lens, offering humble and problemated understandings of our work.

Conclusions/Themes
We discuss four major themes based on our critical reflexivity. First, we recognize the colonial result of the hesitations of potential Latinx participants’ idea of what Spanish “counts” toward their becoming DLI teachers and how this colonized idea of a pure and/or academic form of Spanish being the only what that matters. Second, we recognize how we deeply need Latinx leadership in these efforts. We also have unexpected circumstances in our work, our third theme. We recognize we have taken advantage of guerilla-style community advocacy that does not fit the scope of the grant, and we see the work as being important nonetheless. Our fourth theme is one of the most compelling--the sense of urgency of having to be political when recruiting. We lean into discourses of language as a right (Ruiz, 1984) and how to agitate toward supporting fragile communities in racist school contexts. This overt use of language is a challenge to systems we hope to transgress in our work.

Scholarly Significance
The scholarly significance of our work recommends that districts and universities recruit critical Latinx leadership to support and expand the efforts to fill the DLI pipeline (Valenzuela, 2015). We also call for continued transgression of the racist education system (Camarrota, 2011) in all possible ways. Further, leadership engaged in growing DLI programs should be prepared to collect data within their universities and local contexts to encourage applicable policy change. There is continual policy work needed at the local, state and national levels. Finally, we recommend continued public scholarship, dialogue and sharing of information.

Authors

• G. Sue Kasun, Georgia State University

• Carla A. McNelly, Purdue University

• Jyoti H. Kaneria, Georgia Institute of Technology