Using Critical Policy Analysis in Collaborative Professional Learning Communities to Enhance Dual-Language Bilingual Educators' Critical Consciousness

• In Event: Enacting Critically Conscious Policies in Practice: Four Cases From Dual-Language Bilingual Education Contexts

Abstract

Objectives
To achieve more equity for historically marginalized communities, dual language bilingual education (DLBE) researchers have argued for the need for educators to develop critical consciousness (Authors, 2019) and speak back to (in)equitable top-down policies (Menken & García, 2010). Professional learning communities (PLCs), groups of educators who organize to make on-going improvements in student learning through collaboration, reflection, and fine-tuning of their practices, are one way in which educators can be supported to undertake this challenging work. This paper examines the critical policy analysis activities carried out by teachers in their analysis of local DLBE state policies, gain insights, and take actions together to transform their local two-way Spanish-English DLBE context.

Theoretical Framework
Situating ourselves with a critical language policy lens (Tollefson 2006), we drew on critical policy analysis (Diem et al., 2014) as a tool for educators to enact critical consciousness that focuses on educators interrogating power, historicizing schools, critically listening, and embracing discomfort. Specifically, critical policy analysis was used to have educators focus on exposing the (in)equity of particular DLBE policies, their consequences on historically marginalized students in their local context, and the actions educators committed to take to respond to DLBE policies identified as inequitable.

Methods and Data Sources
This paper is based on a composite case narrative (Reissman, 2008; Willis, 2019) that fictionalized the experiences of DLBE educators in the U.S. intermountain west. The data sources on which the composite case narrative were drawn included three teacher educators’ group reflection on their experiences using the critical policy analysis process with DLBE educators, and interview and observation data from a larger study of a PLC of DLBE teachers.

Findings
As a critical DLBE teacher, Andrea saw the development of critical consciousness in herself and her colleagues as central to their work. With administration approval and support, she started a PLC with the teachers in her school’s DLBE strand. Through this learning process, teachers reflected critically on the state and district DLBE policies, their positionalities, students, and practices. A 4-step PLC-oriented critical policy analysis process emerged: Identify, Dialogue, Envision, and Act & Reflect. The composite case narrative presents the PLC-oriented policy analysis process and how it was applied to the DLBE topics of recruitment and enrollment demographics, promotional materials and media coverage, teacher credentialing requirements, and language separation policies. Portrayed are practitioners’ thinking through DLBE equity implications for students designated as English Learners and acting together to address (in)equity in their DLBE context.
Scholarly Significance
This paper pushes the field to experiment with composite case narratives (Reissman, 2008; Willis, 2019) to stretch practitioners’ imagination toward critical consciousness development and activism by allowing teachers to see how marginalized students and communities are served in their local contexts and facilitating the planning and action steps needed to transform the educational system for social justice.

Authors

• Veronica E. Valdez, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Garrett Delavan, Georgia State University
  Presenting Author

• Juan A. Freire, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author