Critical Professional Development: Fostering Anti-Oppressive Inertia in Teacher Solidarity, Activism, and Ideological and Pedagogical Transformation

• In Event: Trenzas para un Nuevo Sol: Critical Bilingual Professional Development for Solidarity, Transformation, and Equity

Abstract

Objective:
The popularity of Dual Language (DL) through Two-Way Immersion (TWI) programs is related directly to their value to English speaking, primarily White and middle-class families as a result of an interest convergence (Morales & Maravilla, 2019; Palmer, 2010): said interest convergence has served to further silence the needs of minoritized students (Freire, Valdez, & Delavan, 2017). This paper examines how six years of El Instituto’s counter-hegemonic bilingual teacher critical professional development challenged systemic institutional oppression (resulting from interest convergence) and transformed ideologies of bilingual teachers who were once students harmed by these often racist academic spaces.

Theoretical Frameworks:
Bilingual educators must be supported to advocate for multilingual students while they navigate the harm they’ve experienced as a result of ineffectiveness of English-only pedagogies, as well as the current terrain that aims to gentrify TWI spaces in order to transform and cultivate more equitable TWI programs (Alfaro, 2018, Authors, 2020). By centering teacher knowledges (Delgado Bernal, 2002) and linguistic capital (Yosso, 2005), bilingual teachers interrogate dominant oppressive ideologies they have assimilated and develop new pedagogical frameworks to advocate for multilingual students. Furthermore, intentionally designed CPD for homegrown teachers of color that aims to foster solidarity and teacher networks to dismantle the oppression that exists in TWI and thus cultivate teachers’ critical praxis must include a critical reflection on the world in order to change it (Freire, 1972; Kohli et al., 2015; Valdez et.al 2018).

Methodology
Mixed-methods data collection included quantitative end-of-institute survey data and qualitative daily feedback, formal and informal interviews, and observations of online and in-person sessions during a six year span. Beginning the first year with roughly 10 teachers, over 100 bilingual teachers attended El Instituto the last two years. Data were coded and analyzed thematically (Emerson, et al., 2011; Spradley, 1979) and interpreted through a LatCrit (Delgado Bernal, 2002) lens to analyze ideological transformation and to capture the development of bilingual teacher activist networks (Valdez et.al 2018; Martínez-Álvarez, 2020).

Findings
Through CPD that centered bilingual teachers of color knowledges, linguistic capital and their racialized experiences as language minority students, teachers interrogated the harmful ideologies they had assimilated and upon which their pedagogies had been centered. This transformed them into advocates/activists resisting the oppressive institutional processes and deficit minded pedagogies. Through their often yearly experiences in El Instituto, they were empowered to disrupt the silencing of multilingual students in TWI classes resulting from interest convergence. As their ideologies shifted and their critical lens developed during this counter-hegemonic CPD, they were provided space to engage in critical and dialogical learning with other teachers with similar experiences, and consequently formed networks of teachers resisting the gentrification of TWI, who continue to come back to El instituto and expand and deepen scholarship development and transform into teacher leader activists.

Significance
Professional development for bilingual teachers in Spanish is virtually nonexistent. El Instituto fills that gap and provides CPD that centers critical pedagogy to upend the harm of decades of hegemonic English-only practices necessary to truly cultivate equity in TWI programs.

Author

• Yesenia Fernandez, California State University - Dominguez Hills