Brazilian Teachers' Interactions With (Neo)Nationalism in a Bilingual Education Program in the United States

• In Event: Language, Policy, and Resistance: Negotiating Linguistic Preservation and Integration in U.S. and Canadian Schools

Abstract

This presentation explores how Brazilian classroom teachers in a bilingual education program (Portuguese-English) in the U.S. interacted with (neo-)nationalist discourses tied to immigration. Drawing on the notion of liberal multicultural nationalism (Abu El-Haj, 2015), this ethnographic study uses interview and observational data to examine educators’ perspectives and classroom practices. We found that teachers were aware that their elementary-aged students were making sense of their experiences of immigration inside their classrooms, but the teachers often evaded conversations about the theme. Educators expressed willingness to include a narrow range of “positive” images of immigration in their lessons and curricula. Silence and ambiguity around issues of immigration were compounded with practices that reproduced nationalist ideals of homogeneity and compliance.

Authors

• Mariana Lima Becker, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Gabrielle Oliveira, Harvard University
  Presenting Author