Confronting Oppressive Language Policy and Practice in Spanish Language Arts Programs in the United States

• In Event: Interrogating Othering Processes and the Hidden Racialization of Minoritized Students Through Good Intentions

Abstract

The U.S. education system has historically adopted a colonial approach, one by which whiteness destroys and replaces the cultural, linguistic, and otherwise representation of minoritized communities (Iyengar, 2014). The racializing, Othering, and erasure of student identity based on their language practices continue to be present in education policy and practice today (Rosa & Flores, 2017; García et al., 2021). This is most evident in services provided to bi/multilingual learners, specifically students formally identified as English learners (ELs). In response to combat monolingual practices, linguistic oppression, and the Othering promulgated by EL services, there has been an increase in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs (American Councils for International Education, 2021).

In the belief that education research should directly inform policy and practice, and promote equity, this paper sheds light on truths of Spanish-English DLBE programs and challenges the traditional norms of educating students towards standardized language practices that Other bi/multilingual learners (Rosa & Flores, 2017). This paper analyzes the California Common Core State Standards in Spanish Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2012) - commonly used in DLBE programs - and questions the ways by which teaching a standard form of Spanish continues to perpetuate colonial practices. Utilizing a document analysis approach that allows for the discernment of narratives (Babbie, 2020) in conjunction with a raciolinguistic ideologies lens (Flores & Rosa, 2015), I analyzed the standards document on how it creates and perpetuates the racializing, Othering, and erasure of Spanish speakers in the U.S.

The teaching of Spanish in the U.S. is complex. Spanish, in specific, holds a contradictory status as both a minoritized language in the U.S. and a colonial language in the Americas (Román et al., forthcoming). To address this, I propose Mignolo’s (2012) epistemological stance of bilanguaging love as a response to a colonial education system that informs Spanish-English DLBE programs. Bilanguaging love is “a move toward the decolonization of languages as first enacted by colonial expansion and then by nation builders and their institutionalization of national languages” (Mignolo, 2012, p. 274). To put this stance into educational practice and inform truths that guide educators and policymakers in the bilingual education arena, I draw on Marco de Referencia de las Artes del Lenguaje del Español de WIDA (Marco ALE), a Spanish language arts framework. Marco ALE promotes a critical approach to teaching Spanish in the context of the U.S., where students are empowered with skills for self-advocacy to develop critically-informed voices (WIDA, 2021). This paper concludes with future opportunities for the use of Marco ALE as a tool to interrogate consequential education research in pursuit of truths that inform the liberation of minoritized students in DLBE Spanish-English programs.

Author

• Samuel A. Aguirre Puga, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author