“I’m here to teach Chinese…not race”: Chinese DLBE teachers’ raciolinguistic ideologies and literacy instruction

• In Event: Promoting Sociocultural Competence and Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs

Abstract

Influenced by neoliberalism and white supremacy (Author 2 et al., 2016), many dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs have shifted to serving more privileged white, middle-class, English-speaking students (Freire et al., 2022). Given this shift and heightened anti-Asian sentiment (Author 1, 2024), it is essential for DLBE teachers to develop critical consciousness (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017), examine raciolinguistic issues (Rosa & Flores, 2017), and interrogate power structures in DLBE classrooms (Dorner et al., 2022). This study focuses on Utah secondary Mandarin Chinese DLBE programs to explore Chinese teachers’ lived experiences and the raciolinguistic ideologies shaping their reported literacy instruction and critical consciousness efforts in the classroom.


We draw on raciolinguistic and critical consciousness perspectives in this study. A raciolinguistic perspective (Rosa & Flores, 2017) critically examines the intersections between race and language. A critical consciousness perspective (Freire, 1970) suggests implementing critical literacy approaches to support students in critically engaging with texts and becoming agents to transform society (Dorner et al., 2022). Using both perspectives we investigated Chinese teachers’ raciolinguistic ideologies shaping their attitudes toward challenging power in their instructional practices.


This qualitative study used in-depth interviewing (Seidman, 2019, vii) as the primary method to capture the stories of ten Chinese DLBE teachers recruited through snowball sampling (Tracy, 2019). Questions centered on teachers’ life history, professional experiences, raciolinguistic ideologies, perspectives toward developing critical consciousness, and their pedagogy. Other data included observation field notes and researcher journal entries. Thematic narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) was conducted using multiple cycles of data review, including a priori and open coding (Saldaña, 2021), to find patterns and themes across case narratives (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

Our study first found that secondary Chinese DLBE teachers’ divergent linguistic, cultural, educational, and transnational experiences influenced their raciolinguistic ideologies, attitudes toward language use, and their reported DLBE literacy instruction. Teachers perceived themselves as the ideal language models in the classroom and considered their primary role to be teaching Chinese language and culture to students they viewed as all being foreign language learners, even the few Chinese heritage speakers enrolled. Shaped by their experiences, teachers’ instruction ranged from adhering to standard language use and state-mandated policies on language separation to incorporating translanguaging and multimodality. Second, all the teachers engaged with students’ real-life experiences and created a culturally inclusive environment to facilitate bilingual and biliteracy learning. Third, teachers were reluctant to discuss controversial topics and teach issues of social justice in the classroom for nuanced reasons that varied from the personal to institutional.


This study showcases how secondary Chinese DLBE teachers’ reported literacy practices are shaped by their lived experiences and raciolinguistic ideologies. We argue that Mandarin Chinese DLBE programs need to invest in supporting in-service teachers to critically examine deficit ideologies and promote critical literacy pedagogies in the classroom to reach the DLBE critical consciousness goal. Implications for teachers, educators, school leaders, and families will be discussed.

Authors

• Nuo Xu, Bowling Green State University

• Veronica E. Valdez, University of Utah