Racist and Raciolinguistic Teacher Ideologies: When Bilingual Education Is "Inherently Culturally Relevant" for Latinxs

• In Event: Race, Language, and Resistance: Ideologies That Shape, (Re)Define, and Disrupt the Field of Teaching

Abstract

Many schools offer dual-language (DL) bilingual education to address the needs of “English-language learners,” who usually are Spanish-dominant Latinxs. I examined how dual-language teachers understood a DL program as equitable for Latinxs. Teachers believed DL met Latinxs’ needs by providing Spanish-language/biliteracy schooling, which deemphasized the need for explicitly enhancing youths’ critical consciousness. This teacher ideology of assuming DL is “inherently culturally relevant” led to significant issues. For example, teachers believed DL would improve Latinxs’ academic achievement, but when teachers perceived Latinx achievement was not on par with White dual-language students’ outcomes, teachers made sense of Latinxs’ underperformance through racist explanations and did not interrogate the program’s cultural relevance. Teachers overlooked critical-racial consciousness as an important component of an equitable education.

Author

• Laura Carolina Chavez-Moreno, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author