Fostering Critical Consciousness With Chinese Immigrant Families in a Mandarin-English Dual-Language Program (Poster 2)

• In Event: Case Studies of Critically Conscious Practice in Dual-Language Bilingual Education Schools, Classrooms, and Communities

Abstract

Purposes and Perspectives. Among all the linguistic-minoritized groups, Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to heritage language erasure (Pew Research Center, 2012). Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs have the potential to meet language minoritized children’s heritage learning needs. However, these needs are often overlooked in DLBE spaces, whereas other non-heritage-related rationales are celebrated, such as future employment advancement and cognitive advantage (Authors et al., 2021; Author & Redacted, 2021a). To make DLBE programs more equitable and socially transformative, scholars argued for the fostering of critical consciousness, which is an “awareness of self and others as cultural beings embedded in the power structures of society” (Author et al., 2019, p. 6). DLBE stakeholders who proactively promote critical consciousness interrogate power, historicize schools, critically listen, and embrace discomfort as a means to reveal and counter the structural oppressions and dominant ideologies (Author et al., 2019; Freire, 1993). Building on the theoretical construct of critical consciousness, this case study focuses on the story of a Fujianese-speaking first-generation Chinese immigrant parent striving for her children’s heritage language maintenance in a Mandarin-English DLBE program in the Southeastern US. Through the focal parent’s stories, this study illustrates how a Chinese immigrant parent engages in the cultivation of critical consciousness and highlights the implications for other stakeholders for fostering critical consciousness in DLBE spaces.
Methods and Data. This study employs a case study design (Stake, 1995) to understand an immigrant mother’s challenges and resistances in a two-way Mandarin-English DLBE program. Data are drawn from the interview, observation, archival, and survey data of one first-generation Chinese immigrant parent, Aimei (pseudonym), whose children are enrolled in a public Mandarin-English DLBE program. Aimei immigrated from China to the US 12 years ago. After finishing one year of high school in New York City, she moved to the Southeast and became a homemaker raising four children. This study takes place in a suburban college town located in the Southeastern U.S. with approximately 60,000 population, including 70% White, 10% Black, 6% Latinx, and 13% Asian.
Results and Scholarly Significance. Findings show that through Aimei’s children’s schooling experience in a predominantly White and middle-class school, as well as her own racialized experience as a first-generation Chinese immigrant with limited English proficiency, she is aware of the importance of English. Despite this awareness of English hegemony, she purposefully implemented family language policies that promote Fujianese and Mandarin to preserve her children’s cultural and ethnic identities, and intentionally enrolled her children into a Mandarin-English DLBE program. Although she appreciates the program’s efforts in sustaining her children’s cultural pride, she also recognizes the power imbalance and the prioritization of White students’ interests in the program, and encounters questioning and opposition from non-DLBE parents. This case underscores the importance of incorporating the counterstories of immigrant families in the DLBE curriculum, highlighting the heritage aspect of promoting DL programs, and critically examining race, ethnicity, class, and English hegemony in DLBE spaces, so as to foster critical consciousness and engage language-minoritized families in meaningful ways.

Author

• Wenyang Sun, University of Utah
  Presenting Author