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“Now it’s all upper-class parents who are checking out schools”: gentrification as coloniality in the enactment of two-way bilingual education policies

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Abstract

Bilingual education as a whole has been gentrifying, as more privileged students replace Transnational Language Learners (TLLs) in bilingual education spaces and policies (Valdez et al. in Educ Policy 30(6):849–883, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904814556750). We argue this is an extension of coloniality (Mignolo in Local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000/2012): as two-way bilingual education (TWBE) policies are enacted, they are shaped by globalizing, neoliberal, and monoglossic discourses that have a history of dispossessing and erasing minoritized peoples and languages. Taking a critical constructivist grounded theory approach, this study brings together three unique data sets from the US Midwest, Southeast, and Texas to question: How does gentrification manifest in TWBE across policy scales and contexts? And how are stakeholders responding to or resisting gentrification and its underlying coloniality? Regardless of the varying state policy and local contexts, each TWBE program in our study experienced gentrification. Specifically, TLLs and their Spanish language(s) were replaced or diminished as TWBE policy enactment intersected with district and state policies, particularly those sha** enrollment, transportation, course scheduling, and teacher and student recruitment. While the analysis focuses on gentrification processes through policy enactment, we also detail spaces of consciousness where stakeholders recognized and resisted them and conclude with a discussion on how coloniality is both manifested and can be challenged in language policy enactment.

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Notes

  1. Labels are limiting and consequential (Kibler and Valdes 2016), so we try to choose ones that center people’s assets and socio-political-historical conditions. Transnational language learner (TLL) is someone who has crossed borders (or their family did) and who is learning languages as a result (Cervantes-Soon and Kasun 2018). This contrasts with more commonly-used terms like English learner (EL), which neglects students’ bi/multilingualism and border-crossing, and emerging bilingual, which neglects multilingualism and could refer to English-dominant language learners. We also use designated ELs to refer to students receiving a school’s “EL” services, adding “designated” to highlight that EL is an ascribed label. Meanwhile, two-way bilingual education (TWBE) highlights a program’s integration of at least two language groups; we retain “bilingual education” to foreground the original political phrase used for programs designed to support TLLs. Meanwhile, we use dual language (DL) education as a larger umbrella term, denoting any program that teaches at least 50% of content in a language other than English, no matter the student population (Boyle et al. 2015).

  2. While we name Texas—which is an important backdrop, given Texas’s bilingual education history—we do not name the other states in order to protect participants’ identities.

  3. Reference and citation are not included to maintain the site’s anonymity.

  4. While we acknowledge that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, and Sra. Andrea is technically not international, she still shared many commonalities with international teachers. She lived her whole life in Puerto Rico where she received her bachelor’s degree, worked as a librarian and special education teacher for several years there, and started a master’s program before she relocated to the U.S. southeast due to her husband’s job. She sought to teach at Carlton for the opportunity to teach in Spanish to a self-contained class for the first time in her career.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank our research participants for their contributions to this work, as well as our blind peer reviewers and editors for their thoughtful and helpful feedback. Portions of the Midwest data collection were supported by a grant from the University of Missouri Research Board (2015–2016). Portions of the Southeastern data collection were supported by a grant from the Research Triangle Schools Partnership (2011–2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, USA

    Lisa M. Dorner

  2. Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon

  3. Department of Teacher Education and Administration, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

    Daniel Heiman

  4. Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy, School of Education, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Deborah Palmer

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  1. Lisa M. Dorner
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  2. Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon
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  3. Daniel Heiman
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  4. Deborah Palmer
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All authors collaborated on the study conception and design. While the initial draft was written by Lisa Dorner, each author wrote a portion of the framework, methods, findings, and/or discussion, and each edited versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lisa M. Dorner.

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Dorner, L.M., Cervantes-Soon, C.G., Heiman, D. et al. “Now it’s all upper-class parents who are checking out schools”: gentrification as coloniality in the enactment of two-way bilingual education policies. Lang Policy 20, 1–27 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-021-09580-6

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