Reimaginando Professional Development: Centering Dual Language Mathematics Teachers’ Cultural-Linguistic Repertoires

• In Event: Navigating Community Relations in Mathematics Education Equity Research: Insights from Early Career Scholars

Abstract

Teachers who lead the Spanish component of Dual Language (DL) programs often navigate institutional expectations shaped by English hegemony and monocultural models of education, which marginalize and devalue bilingual teachers’ linguistic practices (Ibarra Johnson & García, 2023). Professional development (PD) programs that center DL teachers are critical, given that the language of professional discourse is shaped by dominant ideologies (Bourdieu, 1977) and Raciolinguistic hierarchies (Babino & Stewart, 2025). As an early career bilingual Mexicana scholar from the U.S.-Mexico border, I explore the possibilities of conducting PD and research in, with, and for a community that shares my cultural-linguistic background, focusing on the question: What characteristics of a mathematics PD experience support DL teachers who teach in Spanish to correspond to their language experiences, classrooms, and mathematical histories?

This study is informed by Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) (Paris & Alim, 2017) and Translanguaging theory (García & Wei, 2014). These frameworks were useful for understanding how DL mathematics teachers came to view their linguistic practices as central to their professional identities.

For my EMERG project, I designed and conducted a six-month series of six PD sessions for DL educators teaching mathematics in Spanish. In these sessions, participants and I used all our linguistic repertoires (e.g., English, Spanish, Translanguaging), and shared moments that honored participants’ cultural backgrounds. This project focused on supporting teachers in using mistakes as learning tools in their classrooms and encouraged reflection on their own experiences as math learners and former English language learners (ELLs). I recruited six elementary teachers (4-6 grades) in a school district located along the U.S.–Mexico border. Data collected for this study consisted of audio recordings from one PD session and a 97-minute focus group. I used Braun and Clarke’s (2012, 2024) six-phase approach to thematic analysis.

Preliminary findings illustrate that flexibility for PD participants to utilize all their linguistic repertoires (e.g., Spanish, English, and Translanguaging) supported multilingualism and multiculturalism in practice by encouraging participants to express themselves in ways that felt natural and meaningful. As a teacher said, “I love that in this PD, you can say something in English, Spanish, or translanguaging depending on how you feel it.” I also found that promoting conversations around mathematics in Spanish allowed teachers to validate themselves as Spanish mathematics teachers, as a teacher shared, “I trust myself more. I trust what I am doing because I teach mathematics in Spanish.” Besides, PD in which teachers felt that their linguistic repertoires were valued encouraged them to reflect on their mathematical histories in ways that sustain ways of knowing mathematics that honor their and their students’ linguistic backgrounds, as a teacher stated, “I was also an ELL and I wanted to be seen as someone who did know math. So, I want my students to feel that knowing mathematics in Spanish means knowing mathematics.”

These findings are significant because they show how culturally sustained approaches in PD can create affirming spaces and open up possibilities for co-constructing mutual cultural-linguistic affirmation for educators who teach mathematics in Spanish.

Author

• Mariana Alvidrez, New Mexico State University