Resisting Gentrification: Libraries as Sites for Cultural Sustenance in Bilingual Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Cultural Resilience and Bilingual Literacies: Supporting Multilingual Learners (Table 2)

Abstract

This autoethnography aimed to describe a possible process to engage bilingual children and adolescents in school and public library contexts to resist the gentrification of models of bilingual education such as two-way dual language education. The research contexts included an early childhood program in a public library, a program for older children in a public library, and various library programming in high school libraries. Data included researcher-created presentations for students, field notes, and conversations with librarians and students. Through the lens of community cultural wealth (CCW), qualitative analysis revealed the themes of (1) resistance capital as noticing gentrification, (2) aspirational capital as upward social mobility, (3) resistance capital as English hegemony, and (4) social capital for culturally sustaining possibilities.

Author

• Victor Antonio Lozada, University of North Texas - Dallas