A Field of Resistance and Play: Notes Toward a Critical History of Bilingual Teacher Education in the United States.

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Innovating Curricular Designs for Bilingual Teacher Education in the US: Programs, Policies and Partnerships

Abstract

Although bilingual teacher education in the United States is a well-established and consolidated field in terms of policy, theory, research-scholarship, and practice (Author et al., 2022; Amos, 2018; Flores, Hernández Sheets, & Riojas Clark, 2011; García & Kleyn, 2013; Martínez-Alvarez, 2021; Palmer, 2018; Ramírez & Faltis, 2020; Ramírez-Verdugo, 2024; Tian & King, 2023; Valenzuela, 2016), to-date, and to the best of our knowledge, there is no available documented history of the field. Given the complex trajectory of permissive and restrictive language education policy in the U.S. (Gándara & Hopkins, 2010; Ovando, 2003), engaging in such a timely endeavor requires an understanding of bilingual teacher education not only in terms of its programmatic and institutional development at state and/or national levels. It must also be seen as an effort connected to broader socio-political and socio-historical conditions—where dominant ideations of the purpose/s of public education in ethnically-racially and linguistically diverse societies, persistent neo-colonial cultural and linguistic hierarchies, and the imperatives of a stratifying capitalist system of economic production continue to exert significant influence. These forces shape the cultural logics of a sub-field of research and practice that has historically unfolded between the need for cultural resistance and the exigencies of a democratic approach to education and pedagogical and linguistic justice for bi-/multilingual learners.

In this study, we use document analysis (e.g., policy documents, peer-review journal articles, books, government reports, national and state bilingual teacher education standards) and oral histories (open-ended interviews with influential bilingual teacher education scholars) to trace the historical development of bilingual teacher education in the U.S. We draw on theories of language policy and planning (Gazolla et al., 2024; Ricento, 2006; Ruiz, 1984; Spolsky, 2007) to understand the influence of policy dynamics in the historical development of the field. Furthermore, we employ critical and socio-cultural theories of curriculum and pedagogy (Apple, 2004; Freire, 2000; Pinar, 2012) to examine how the curriculum of bilingual teacher education has reflected changing political, pedagogical, and ideological aims over time.

Initial analyses evidence how the historical development of field has been propelled by the design and implementation of permissive language education policies at national and State levels, and how the field has wrestled between the need to continue to serve critical social ends and that of meeting the technicist exigencies to prepare bilingual teachers to prepare students to succeed in a multilingual global economy—where the development of bilingualism and biliteracy across named languages, for example, is often understood to be tension with heteroglossic and dynamic approaches (i.e., translanguaging/code-switching). Most recently, through the work of Howard & Simpson (2024) and others, the field has started to challenge “either/or” perspectives and to promote the value of ‘both/and’ approaches for meeting the educational needs of bi-/multilingual learners.

The scholarly significance of this pioneering work lies in how it shows that, throughout its relatively brief history, the field of bilingual teacher education in the U.S. has offered diverse perspectives on “[…] how best to prepare and support bilingual-biliterate teachers in addressing the ongoing challenges faced by racialized bilingual children, their families, communities, and schools.”

Authors

• Cristian R. Aquino-Sterling, Texas Tech University

• Lauren Tenneson, Texas Tech University