Information or Implication? Understanding How Social-Equity Frameworks Reproduce Anti-Black Representations in Language Education Research

• In Event: “Descriptive Adequacy” and the Overdetermination of Blackness: A Dilemma and Meditation in Language Education Research

Abstract

Ever since Valdés’ (1997) cautionary note calling for proponents of dual language immersion (DLI) to consider the uniquely lived experiences of different social groups coming together in DLI educational settings, critical scholarship has investigated (in)equity in DLI contexts to call into question its outcomes for minoritized students and highlight ideologies explaining their underrepresentation (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017; Flores at al., 2021; Frieson, 2022; Palmer, 2010; Valdez ety al.,2016). However, this scholarship has not considered the ways in which reporting on or analyzing the lived experiences of Black people in DLI contexts might problematically depict them as drivers of the conditions or circumstances used to marginalize them. What’s more, the theories, methodologies, and analytical categories employed often presume the White speaking subject as the norm. Because the White speaking subject is predicated on the devaluation of Black speakers, these theories, methodologies, and analytical categories only produce anti-Black representations when applying them to Black speakers. In this presentation, I discuss the challenges I encountered in my dissertation with regard to applying a raciolinguisitc perspective to analyze interview data from nearly all Black participants about their concerns regarding DLI or towards the demographics of DLI schools and their surrounding communities. To highlight these challenges and discuss how they shape the ways that theories, methodologies, and analytical categories (re)produce anti-Black representations, I engage autoethnography (Chang, 2016) to reflect on my experiences interviewing my study participants and applying a raciolinguistic perspective to examine how ideas about race and language may influence the underrepresentation and displacement of Black communities in DLI contexts.

According to Flores et al., (2021), one component of a raciolinguistic perspective is perceptions of racial and linguistic differences. I use this component in my dissertation to indicate how responses from some of the 11 participants to questions about DLI concerns reproduce raciolinguistic ideologies and shape how racialized subjects’ (i.e. Black students’) language practices are (de)valued in DLI contexts. It’s possible that some of the participants are aware that they are internalizing and expressing perceptions of racial and linguistic differences as my analysis suggests that certain Black populations are not viewed as a good fit, per se, for DLI because they’re presumed English language deficient. Nevertheless, understanding that anti-Blackness can be implicated in actions that devalue Black people, my presentation reveals how examining perceptions of racial and linguistic differences from Black participants produces anti-Black representations that implicate our communities as main contributors of the racial inequities in DLI contexts. Thus, relying on frameworks that call attention to anti-Blackness to analyze interview data from Black participants becomes a slippery slope where anti-Blackness on part of those Black participants may be overemphasized. This only obscures deeply embedded ideologies that non-White individuals may be subconsciously adopting in a White supremacist society (Fanon, 2008) which reinforces White supremacy. My hope is that this presentation will catalyze researchers into grappling with the ways in which frameworks used to investigate equity may be in conflict with their purpose of addressing anti-Blackness in pursuit of equity.

Author

• Malik Stevenson, California State University - Dominguez Hills