"Teacher, You Have an Accent in English!" Bilingual Teachers' Racialized Linguistic Identities and Positioning in a Dual-Language Second-Grade Classroom

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Challenging Normalized Conceptions of Bilingual Identity in Multilingual U.S. K–12 Education

Abstract

Abstract
Following the urgent call of scholars in the field of bilingual education to pay closer attention to developing critical consciousness as an important pillar within dual language programs, this paper documents the racialized identities of a linguistically and culturally diverse teacher and how she enacted critical consciousness within a context that positioned her as being "the bilingual teacher with an accent.”

Objectives
Previous studies suggest that bilingual teachers bring rich and varied histories to their work, yet also need opportunities to challenge dominant language ideologies and hegemonic linguistic practices in schools (Ek & Domínguez-Chávez, 2015; Palmer, 2018, Author, 2018).
This study explores the life history of Sofía, a dual language bilingual teacher who came to the U.S. through a foreign government sponsored teacher exchange program from Spain. By examining Sofía’s racialized identity and positioning within the context of a “gentrified” (Valdez, Freire, & Delavan, 2016) dual language educational program, I explore her identities but also her development of critical consciousness as part of her professional becoming as a bilingual teacher.

Theoretical Framework
I draw on both, a raciolinguistic framework ((Alim, Rickford, & Ball, 2016; Flores & Rosa, 2015), and Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990; Harre, 2012). Together these lenses offered a more critically inclined entrance into how this teacher navigated both a celebratory and, at the same time, a deficit view of her bilingualism, and developed critical consciousness as part of a counter path that integrated critical pedagogy as a transformative vehicle within dual language programs (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017). The main research question is: How does a linguistically and culturally diverse bilingual teacher negotiate and orchestrate her professional identities within the context of a gentrified dual language program?

Methods and Data Sources
This qualitative study draws on the linguistic and cultural life histories of a dual-language immersion teacher in the Midwest. I conducted three life history interviews (Goodson, 2013) over four months and analyzed this teachers’ experiences as key for informing her professional identities.

Results
Findings suggest that this teacher negotiated multiple positions especially that of being a “Spanish only” bilingual teacher but also that of being a bilingual teacher with an accent. Her professional bilingual teaching was influenced mostly by a language policy environment that included the marginalization she experienced through language allocation, but also views her linguistic and cultural competencies within a gentrified dual language context. These experiences led her to develop critical consciousness and to develop professional identities that revealed a pluriliterate and pedagogically sound dual language teachers’ professional becoming.

Scholarly significance.
By reflecting on her linguistic identities and professional becoming, Sofia represented a successful model of more robust enactments and embodiments of a fuller, holistic bi/multilingual and bi/multicultural professional identity. This representation, in turn, allowed for the development of critical consciousness that demonstrates ideological clarity (Bartolomé, 2008). Further, this teachers’ practices re-shaped emergent bilinguals’ (Garcia, 2009) learning contexts based on new interactions and relationships.

Author

• Patricia E. Venegas-Weber, University of Washington - Seattle