Multilingual Educators Making Sense of Theory, Research, and Controversy in a Bilingual Endorsement Program

• In Event: Identifying and Supporting Multilingual Learners Across Systems and Classrooms

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
The purpose of the current study was to explore how a group of 30 multilingual educators enrolled in a university-based bilingual education endorsement (BEE) program made sense of bilingual theory, research, and controversies after 17 years of prohibition of bilingual education in Massachusetts.
Theoretical Framework
The BEE consisted of 3 online courses that were grounded in “critical metalinguistic engagement” (CME; Authors, 2024, 2025), an instructional theory that takes critical perspectives on language via translanguaging (García & Wei, 2015) and raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2014), which are intended to foster metalinguistics, or the analysis and manipulation of language for the purposes of developing critical language awareness (Alim, 2005). In service of this effort, engagement is fostered through a multimodal perspective on text (Rymes, 2015) that is infused with dialogic teaching to support comprehension of content and language (Author, 2016, 2020).
Methods
Participants
Thirty BEE-enrolled educators from across the K-12 spectrum consented to participate. Participants possessed a range of teaching and administrative experience, ranging from less than 5 years to greater than 15 years. Half currently worked in bilingual programs, and 87 percent identified a bi- or multilingual.
Data sources
We collected written, audio, and video recordings of the first assignment for each of the three courses (n = 57). Each assignment was designed to elicit sensemaking from BEE participants. In Assignment 1, participants reflected on the historical and political contexts of bilingual education. In Assignment 2, participants described what bilingualism meant to them. In Assignment 3, participants recalled a literacy memory that related to their identity.
Analyses
We used sensemaking theory – the interpretive process by which individuals absorb new information into an existing framework that guides their ideas (Weick, 1995) – to guide a grounded, six–phase thematic coding framework: 1) familiarization with the data; 2) initial coding; 3) preliminary theme generation; 4) reviewing themes; 5) finalizing themes; and 6) producing findings (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In finalizing the themes and producing the findings, we explored whether and how participants’ sensemaking reflected CME.

Results
Four sensemaking themes were identified: 1) Background and Identity; 2) Bilingualism in Education; 3) Teaching Practices; and 4) Professional Goals. Within these sensemaking themes, participants drew strongly from their own lived experiences, as children, adolescents, adults, and language learners. These experiences spanned home, school, and community as well as transnational and sociopolitical contexts. Themes also included participants' critical reflections on their own daily classroom experiences, both in terms of instructional approaches as well as advocacy for the linguistic rights of their students. Finally, all four themes reflected dimensions of CME, suggesting the framework’s utility for fostering bilingual educators' sensemaking.
Significance
In the wake of renewed English-only policies in the U.S., professional development for multilingual teacher educators must be designed to foster critical reflection on lived experiences and daily instruction around language education, This study suggests that a CME instructional framework may be a productive approach to supporting multilingual educators in their teaching during fraught times.

Authors

• Patrick Proctor, Boston College

• Qinghua Liu, Boston College

• Brenda Luo, Boston College

• Aaron Talbot Kennedy Coleman, Bridgewater State University