Contingent Commodification: Brazilian Students and the Gentrification of Portuguese-English Dual Language Bilingual Education

• In Event: Overcoming the Gentrification of Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework
The purpose of this presentation is to explore the gentrification of Portuguese-English dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) in a community in the Northeastern U.S. We examined a community with a strong Brazilian presence and its multiple attempts to establish bilingual education programming in recent decades. We asked:
How do oral histories from bilingual education teachers shed light on a community’s past and present attempts to establish bilingual education in this community?
What similarities exist across past and present attempts to establish bilingual education within this community?

For our theoretical framework, we offer a theory of contingent commodification, a form of gentrification in which the language practices of minoritized students are positioned both as a resource and as a liability for more privileged groups (Authors, 2022). Rather than a one-time commodification that creates an elevated language status (Hornberger, 2006) for minoritized students, our research illustrates how valuation of a language and its speakers can go “too far” for privileged populations. We document how this contingent commodification manifests within our research site, both historically and presently, through the methods described below.

Methods
Based on three years of ethnographic data collection (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2010), our methods prioritized oral histories (Hajek, 2014; Liamputtong, 2014) of three Brazilian, Portuguese-English bilingual teachers. All of these teachers—Ms. Jacinto, Ms. Duarte, and Ms. Matos (pseudonyms)—were born in Brazil, migrated to the U.S. as children or young adults, and taught kindergarten or first grade at the time of the study. Our analysis of interviews combined inductive and deductive coding (Maxwell, 2013) through cross-case comparison, and an emphasis on recurring themes (LeCompte & Schensul, 2012).

Results/Findings
Our results demonstrated the linkages between the past and present iterations of DLBE in this community. In particular, there remained a recurrent anxiety that English-dominant, non-Brazilian parents would pull their kids out of the program, rendering the program unsustainable. This fear illustrated key patterns in the contingent nature of the dominant group’s satisfaction with the program as a prerequisite for the program’s existence. Participants understood these fears impacted their teaching. For example, participants often felt they were “teaching too much to the [English-dominant students],” (M. Matos). Participants reported continuing pressure to ensure that English-dominant students were “enjoying the program” (Ms. Duarte). Across the dataset, teachers offered examples ranging from lesson plans that downplayed the use of Portuguese, time spent speaking English during “Portuguese time”, and disproportionate time allocated to contacting English-dominant parents. Ms. Duarte summed up the phenomenon by stating, “So the focus [of our program] has really been on the English speakers.”

Scholarly Significance
These findings hold significance in demonstrating how contingent commodification links with gentrification to maintain linguistic and social privilege in DLBE programming. Interrupting these dynamics will require not only the elevation of a particular language or program model, but focusing on the unequal status afforded to students and families themselves. We argue that, if these dynamics are ignored, DLBE may do more to maintain the dominance of English and its speakers than to disrupt these patterns of inequity.

Authors

• Chris K. Chang-Bacon, University of Virginia

• Mariana Lima Becker, University of Georgia