“Who are we serving?”: Dual Language Programs and the Sustainability of Equitable Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: UREAG Round-Table

Proposal

Over the years, the education of linguistically diverse students has been a controversial subject in American schools. Amid this debate, however, bilingual educational alternatives, such as dual language immersion (DLI) programs, are emerging as effective ways to support the academic and linguistic development of emergent bilinguals* in school settings. These programs bring together majority and minority language speakers with the aim of bilingualism and bi-literacy for both groups of students (Howard, Sugarman, Christian, Lindholm-Leary, & Rogers, 2007). Nevertheless, the proliferation of these programs has prompted warnings from prominent researchers in the field, who have cautioned against issues of inequity and dissimilar power dynamics in these learning environments (Cervantes-Soon, 2014; Flores, 2016; Valdes, 1997). With this in mind, this ethnographic case study uses multiple data sources (interviews, participant observations, and video-recorded lessons) to examine the creation and implementation of a DLI program at Springville School District (SSD), a Midwestern school district in the United States. While initially conceived as a way to create learning environments to support linguistically diverse students and provide quality instruction, the focal DLI program became a contested space where minoritized students were relegated to the last priority.

Two overarching questions guide this research:
1. How was the DLI program conceived and implemented at Springville school district, and how did this change over time?

2. What is the role of the DLI program in Springville school district’s response to issues of diversity and inequality?

This qualitative inquiry engages sociological studies of social (re)production in schools (Anyon, 1997; Noguera, 2003; Valenzuela, 1999), social constructionist studies of bilingual education (Zentella, 1997; Palmer, 2009), and the emerging field of raciolinguistics (Alim & Smitherman, 2012; Alim, Rickford & Ball, 2016; Flores & Rosa, 2015) to explore the ways in which education, as both a public and private good, has local implications connected to global conceptions.
The exploration of these ideas holds potential to illuminate the role educational actors play in the creation and implementation of educational responses, such as DLI programs, that seek to address demographic trends, but may also work as (re) producers of existing paradigms and ideologies of inequality. This research will contribute to understandings of social perceptions and relations in multilingual/multicultural/multiethnic spaces, enhancing possibilities for equitable and sustainable design of policies, programs and practices in contemporary American schools.

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*I use the term emergent bilinguals to refer to students learning two languages following Ofelia Garcia’s line of argument, which explains that “calling these children emergent bilinguals makes reference to a positive characteristic—not one of being limited or being learners, as LEP and ELLs suggest” (Garcia, 2009, p. 322). By using the term emergent bilinguals, I have chosen to focus on the potential of these students rather than any suggested problems or limitations.

Author

• Giselle D Martinez Negrette, University of Wisconsin-Madison