Review of Inequalities in Two-Way Language Immersion Programs: A Cross-Disciplinary Analysis

• In Event: 32.052 - More Than White Interests: Dual-Language Immersion and Subverting Whiteness

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
This literature review critically examines issues of inequality in two-way immersion (TWI) manifested in three areas: 1) the larger sociopolitical context, including economic and ideological forces, policies, and community participation; 2) TWI teachers’ orientations, preparation, and backgrounds; and 3) TWI classroom contexts, including pedagogy, language trends, and students’ identities and relations. The paper also analyzes TWI-related discourses from a range of fields, in order to identify competing interests and orientations that permeate TWI education and, sometimes, compound issues of inequality.

Perspective(s)
Our review sought to analyze literature that captured inequalities in TWI contexts that may go unrecognized when concentrating on conventional measures of success. This approach was necessary given that scholarly accounts of TWI’s benefits -- rather than research that critically analyzes limitations -- have been the cornerstone of TWI program proliferation. In our analysis of inequality, we include a call to fairness much like equity by fully acknowledging people’s unequal histories of discrimination (Horsford, 2015). Our review builds on Guadalupe Valdés (1997) seminal “cautionary note” and on more recent perspectives on the potential neoliberal assault (Cervantes-Soon, 2014; Petrovic, 2005), interest convergence (Bell, 1980) and reconfiguration of bilingual education by “hegemonic Whiteness” (Flores, 2016) in TWI. That is, TWI programs often commodify and marginalize emergent bilingual speakers’ and their communities’ linguistic resources, leading to inequalities/inequities that are too often obscured by programs’ laudable goals of bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural competence for all.

Methods and Data Sources
In order to examine manifestations of inequalities/inequities we identified 80 papers and six books that revealed—intentionally or not—issues of inequality/inequity. We then followed an interpretive approach to research synthesis that incorporated elements of meta ethnography (Noblit & Hare, 1988). This led to our final identification of the three areas of inequality and respective subcategories presented in our analysis. Simultaneously, we conducted a second search to identify prominent discourses across disciplines with interest in TWI: anthropology of language, bilingual education, foreign language/world education, immersion education, international multilingual education, teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), and child development. We reviewed articles on TWI from 2005 to the present from one leading journal in each area leading to an inductive, interpretative analysis of 141 studies.

Substantiated conclusions
This analysis demonstrates that TWI’s currently stated goals may may be unrealized for transnational emergent bilinguals and that symbolic -rather than authentic- integration, the hegemony of English and whitestream curriculum continue to characterize many TWI spaces. The cross-disciplinary analysis also indicates that discourses of globalization, neoliberalism, accountability, monolingualism and standardization have structured inequalities in TWI.

Significance of the work
This review is a call to researchers and practitioners to critically attend to the documented inequalities and recall the original “race radical” goal of bilingual education (Flores, 2016).
The analysis may help social justice/equity oriented TWI supporters evaluate the goals and ideologies that frame TWI and design programs that can more intentionally center the interests, knowledges, and needs of traditionally marginalized learners.

Authors

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

• Lisa M. Dorner, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Deborah K. Palmer, University of Colorado Boulder

• Dan Heiman, University of North Texas