When Head Start and State Policy Collide: Language Policy in the Borderlands

• In Event: Language, Head Start, and Culturally Sustaining Approaches in the Borderlands

Abstract

US Head Start policy stipulates that programs must: 1) support children in the acquisition of their home language and English; 2) provide comprehensive Head Start services to families in culturally appropriate and respectful ways; and 3) improve outreach and increase enrollment and quality of services to children and their families (Miller, 2016). What is less well understood is how this directive plays out in different programs in the borderlands. In this paper, we provide analysis of interview transcripts from 24 Latin@ preschool teachers in Arizona, California and New Mexico to examine the ways that Latin@ teachers make sense of federal Head Start language policy and what it means for families in these states.

We used a video-cued multivocal (VCM) ethnographic approach (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1991) and conducted 13 focus groups with 24 teachers. We used a two-tiered coding system to analyze transcripts and field notes. We analyze the responses of Latin@ teachers through a vertical case study analysis, “which pays attention across levels or scales, from the local through the regional, state, federal, and global” as well and a horizontal case study, “which examines how similar phenomena or policies unfold in distinct locations that are socially produced.”examine “policy as practice” (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2019) , which is a “deeply political process of cultural production engaged in and shaped by political actors with varying degrees and amounts of influence (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2014 p. 133). Our central focus is the teachers’, director’s, and instructional leaders’ understandings of policy, their responses, and the ways they altered curriculum and instruction in practice.

While all teachers were bilingual, how language was used in practice was significantly impacted by their geographic location and their status as a first or second generation Latin@ teacher. In each focus group, teachers discussed the importance of the connection of language to culture and used translation and translanguaging as practice. Local policies impacted teachers in different geographic locations to varying degrees; those in Arizona were acutely aware of the pressures of an English-only state (K-12), and while they facilitated translanguaging as a practice, they were hesitant to provide instruction in Spanish in the second half of the children’s preschool year. This belief was most potent in second generation teachers. It contrasted significantly teachers in New Mexico, particularly those who had a bilingual education background, which supported children and teacher’s use of Spanish to a higher degree.

Our research makes clear how well-intentioned federal policy is mediated and in some cases, mitigated by local cultural beliefs and doctrines. It also indicates that the intentions present in language policies to honor and enhance children’s home language and use it as an instructional practice falls short in some contexts. Implications for policy will be discussed.

Authors

• Allison Sterling Henward, The Pennsylvania State University

• Yeojoo Yoon, Pennsylvania State University