Listening to Latina/o Children's Silence: A Challenge for Dual Language Education in the New South

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: Bilingual Voices: Learning From Our Community

Abstract

This study unpacks the self-silencing of Latina/o children’s language and participation in the classroom despite their enrollment in a two-way, dual language immersion program in a U.S. southern state currently experiencing a rapid growth in the Latina/o population. The article sheds light on how the unique sociocultural and political contexts of this new Latina/o diaspora and the hidden curriculum of the school merge to culturally produce this silence. It also offers three possible interpretations of this silence: 1) a reflection of lack of belonging, 2) as a form of protection against deficit thinking and labeling and 3) as a reflection of buena educación.

Author

• Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon, The University of Texas at Austin