Challenging Normalized Conceptions of Bilingual Identity in Multilingual U.S. K–12 Education

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 15

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

While Spanish-English bilingual educational spaces offer important opportunities for the academic and linguistic development of emergent bilinguals, recent scholarship on raciolinguistics has highlighted important questions concerning the relationship between race and language within such spaces (Alim, Rickford, & Ball, 2016; Flores & Rosa, 2015). This session brings together raciolinguistic scholarship and theories of identity development in language learning (Darvin & Norton, 2015) to highlight the complex relationships that race, class, and ethnicity have within multilingual U.S. K-12 educational contexts. Drawing on qualitative inquiry conducted within Two-Way Immersion, Dual-Language Immersion, and traditional English as a Second Language classrooms, this panel problematizes normalized notions of Spanish-English bilingual identity to engage researchers and practitioners in conversations on improving bilingual education for all learners.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 3: Languages, Literacies, and Representations

Chair

• Bailey B. Smolarek, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Papers

• "El Güerito...¡Mira Que No Tiene Acento!" The Possibilities and Challenges With Becoming Bilingual in Two-Way Immersion - Laura Hamman-Ortiz, University of Northern Colorado

• Power and Possibilities for Equity and Change in Dual-Language Immersion: Making the Case for a Collaborative Examination of the (In)Visible Complexity of Language and Identity - Giselle Del Carmen Martinez Negrette, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• "They Still Have Very Thick Accents": A Raciolinguistic Analysis of the "Long-Term English Learner" Classification - Bailey B. Smolarek, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• "Teacher, You Have an Accent in English!" Bilingual Teachers' Racialized Linguistic Identities and Positioning in a Dual-Language Second-Grade Classroom - Patricia E. Venegas-Weber, University of Washington - Seattle

Discussant

• Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania