Resistance to the minority language in dual-language immersion

• In Event: Early learning and literacy

Proposal

Objectives or purposes
This study examines a two-way bilingual (Spanish/English) K-5 school in a large city in the Midwest that was, and continues to be, one of the most racially and economically segregated cities in the U.S. The school was founded in the late 1980’s after a prolonged political struggle by teachers, parents, and civil rights activists. We researched the school first during 2008-2009, and again during 2017-2021, documenting its curricula and pedagogy, focusing on its bilingual, anti-racist social justice agenda as it developed and changed over the years, and the challenges involved in reaching this agenda. This paper is devoted to changes in the school’s bilingual model and the resulting consequences.
Unhappy with the language proficiency in Spanish, during the last decade the school hired more bilingual staff and switched to 90:10 immersion model. Our findings reveal the growing resistance to learning and speaking Spanish presented by older English-dominant students in the school (especially 4th and 5th grades).

We came to in-depth knowledge of the school over the course of approximately 15 years. During 2008-2009 we used a case study research approach to document school establishment, curricula, and pedagogy, and we revisited the school again using an ethnographic research approach during 2017-2021. Various data were collected including the following: observations in and out of classrooms including school and community events; approximately 150 interviews were conducted by one of us over two years—2017-2018 and 2018-2019—with graduating 5th grade students in collaboration with teachers at the school. Both authors together conducted 40 formal interviews with a combination of current or former teachers, administrators, parents, and graduates of the school. Participants were chosen based on their perceived deep knowledge of the school from their many years of working within the school, studying at the school, and/or parenting a student at the school. Interviews were also chosen to reflect the diverse demographics of the school. These interviews lasted between one and two hours, depending on the level of detail offered by the interviewee. The study we are reporting here focuses on one of the emerging themes which we have named “resistance to learning Spanish among older students.”
Preliminary findings:
While the school has accomplished many of its original goals, an on-going challenge is the level of Spanish. The school used to use a 50:50 model, where students spent time with a teacher that spoke entirely in Spanish for either one or two weeks, then with a teacher that spoke entirely in English for an equal portion of time. Later model used a daily rotation, and they grouped students by what they considered "Spanish dominant" and "English dominant" believing that students should learn to read in their native language. This was the model for most of the history of the school. However, school staff noticed two negative aspects of this model: (a) it was segregated by race, which did not feel right; (b) they were putting Latinx students in the "Spanish dominant" group, but many of them were actually English dominant. There were far more English dominant students at the school overall. Already in 2008-2009 teachers expressed concern in interviews that English was dominating the school. During the last decade two major changes were made. First, the school moved to the 90:10 model, implementing it for the youngest grades (90% Spanish instruction, 10% English instruction), transitioning to 50:50 starting in 4th grade. Second, the school hired many more native Spanish-speaking teachers, so that most staff are now native Spanish-speaking. Interviewees noted that staff members speak more Spanish in the classrooms, within the corridors and on the playground, than did the staff in the earlier years of the school.
Yet, in recent interviews, the central concern of staff interviewees seems to be a resistance to speaking and working in Spanish among many of the students, increasing as students advance in grade level. Teachers’ reasons as to why students resisted Spanish at the school were frequently contradictory and several teachers suggested that these contradictions led to sometimes high tensions among the staff. Many staff members, while acknowledging this phenomenon, expressed confusion as to why this phenomenon was taking place.
A different explanation for this resistance related to school demographics. The actual demographics of the school are approximately 70% English dominant (even though 60% of the students are Latinx). In other words, about 70% of the students speak English at home, even though some may have Spanish-speaking parents or relatives. This has been understood by some staff members to pose a problem for the school’s language model.
Other teachers spoke about policy pressures, such as high-stakes standardized testing in the older grades. One teacher explained that some African American parents expressed concerns regarding their young children inability to read unlike middle-class white parents whose children came to school already reading in English.

Scholarly significance of the study:
We believe that the school under focus, and educators concerned with similar issues in other locations, can benefit from a reflection on the findings of this research. The school was created to provide anti-deficit education that builds on the funds of knowledge of students (González, Moll & Amanti, 2005). Educators in two-language primary schools play a critical role in developing students’ positive academic skills and cultural identity and motivating them to create culturally-affirming knowledge, skills, and dispositions (Barbian, Cornell Gonzales, and Mejía 2017). Significantly, García-Mateus and Palmer (2017) found language and identity to be powerfully intertwined, underscoring the imperativeness, in bilingual schools, of empowering the minoritized language for developing native speakers’ positive identity. Many of the teaching practices of the founding and current staff members reflected this commitment. Yet, responding to the needs of this school diverse body of students has proven to be a very challenging task.

Authors

• Matthew Knoester, Ripon College

• Assaf Meshulam, Ben Gurion University of The Negev