"Encuentren su bilingual partner porque eso va a ser en español!" Acompañamiento in Two-Way Bilingual Education Spaces

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Negotiating Home, School, and Community Multilingual Languaging Practices

Abstract

This study documents a fifth-grade Two-way Bilingual teacher’s (Michelle) centering of TWBE’s fourth goal around the development of critical consciousness through a “pedagogy of acompañmiento,” which centered the realities and reclaimed space for Latinx families impacted by gentrification. A key element of this reclamation was Michelle’s historicizing and interrogation of power at the school level through house meetings in her classroom with both parent groups, which engendered instances of critical listening and discomfort for all stakeholders. Findings reveal that amidst TWBE’s rapid growth and gentrification it is crucial that all stakeholders engage with TWBE’s third goal of sociocultural competence around issues of language and power, which we argue has greater potential when TWBE’s fourth goal is prioritized.

Authors

• Dan Heiman, University of North Texas

• Tetyana Kucher, University of North Texas