Applying an intersectionality lens to education policy and practice for emergent bilinguals

Each of us is a container of some kind. The label signals to the world what is presumed to be inside and what is to be done with it. The label tells you which shelf your container supposedly belongs on. In a caste system, the label is frequently out of sync with the contents, mistakenly put on the wrong shelf and this hurts people and institutions in ways we may not always know (Wilkerson, 2020, p. 59).

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) requires that state and local education agencies report on students’ progress toward meeting rigorous language proficiency and achievement standards. Fiscal resources are provided to support school programs and services for named student subgroups (i.e., the “containers”), including members of racial/ethnic groups, emergent bilinguals (referred to as English Learners in ESSA), students with disabilities, migrant, homeless, and rural youth. Although well intentioned, ESSA’s accountability mandates reflect a “single axis” approach (Cunningham, 1989). Students qualify for specific programs and services based on the label they are assigned. For example, emergent bilingual students receive bilingual education and English as a second language programs, while those identified as having disabilities receive special education services. This “single-axis” approach to program eligibility fails to consider that students are members of multiple groups at once. For example, an emergent bilingual student may also identify as Latinx, have a disability and come from a migrant family that lives in a rural community. Emergent bilinguals do not leave their other identities at the door when they enter the bilingual education classroom. Success is unlikely if educational programs address one student identity marker at a time. This may explain why decades after the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of (2001), emergent bilinguals continue to experience high rates of retention and school attrition and are disproportionately represented in remedial and special education programs.

Student identities are influenced by contextual factors such as school climate, educators’ perceptions, racism, power, privilege, and oppressive structures. For example, speaking a language other than English can be framed as a language deficit or as linguistic capital which, in turn, determines whether schools adopt a subtractive (i.e., eliminate the use of the native language) or additive approach (enhance native language skills while teaching English) in educating emergent bilinguals. Educators must examine laws, policies, school organization, and professional practices that advantage some students and disadvantage others. For example, ESSA requires that instructional practices be research-based, but the law itself does not reflect research-based policies for emergent bilinguals. The progress of these students must be reported annually to the federal government, but progress is measured by the results of oral language and literacy assessments, in English. Yet, proficiency is the sum total of students’ knowledge and skills in the native language, in English, and in translanguaging practices, cumulatively. Gaps between the achievement of emergent bilinguals and their native English-speaking peers are an artifact of inappropriate assessment practices, not differences in ability. This may well explain why education reform initiatives for emergent bilinguals often fail to eliminate the very issues they are trying to resolve (e.g., academic underachievement, high rates of school attrition, and disproportionate representation in remedial and special education programs). Of greater concern is that they also serve to maintain the hegemony of English and discriminatory practices in the education of bilingual students.

Applying an intersectional lens to educator preparation

Higher education programs also use a single-axis approach to the preparation of prospective teachers. Teacher education candidates complete licensure requirements for particular roles (i.e., general education, bilingual education, English as a second language, special education teachers, etc.). Consequently, bilingual education teachers lack the knowledge and skills to effectively serve emergent bilinguals with disabilities and, conversely, special education teachers have difficulty meeting the needs of emergent bilinguals. Although most university programs now incorporate multicultural education and/or social justice topics into programs of study, this content is treated cursorily, taught in a single course or unevenly “infused” across the curricula. What prospective teachers learn about themselves, about student diversity, and about culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy and materials is not “sufficiently potent to disrupt deficit theorizing about students, particularly in schools under pressure to raise student test scores” (Sleeter, 2017, p. 57). Educators say they are color-blind and have high expectations for all students, but are quick to attribute poor academic performance to within-student characteristics such as lack of motivation, speaking a language other than English, or poverty. They do not consider that factors like the school climate, teacher bias, and curricula and instruction that are not culturally and linguistically responsive may explain students’ difficulties. The less teachers know about the intersecting identities of their students and the contextual factors that shape these identities, the more likely their professional practices will be “out of sync with the contents” and the more likely their students will be “mistakenly put on the wrong shelf.”

To meet the needs of today’s students, educator preparation programs must integrate in-depth content about student and contextual factors that facilitate or hinder student success. This foundational knowledge prepares school personnel to work toward the creation of positive school climates that reflect the philosophy that ensuring the success of all students is a joint responsibility of educators, families, communities, and the students themselves.

A conceptual framework, intersectionality, offers a scaffold for considering contextual factors that facilitate planning for student success. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), intersectionality describes how raced, classed, and gendered perspectives plus individual characteristics such as religion, language, (dis)ability, (non)citizenship, sexuality and physical appearance can intersect and overlap to create privileged and not so privileged identity markers. Accordingly, intersectionality shapes and is shaped by social identities that mark advantage and disadvantage.

Because few educators have the depth of knowledge and skills from an intersectional lens it is challenging to serve the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. As a result, educators must learn from models of consultation and collaboration so they can serve effectively as members of professional learning communities (PLCs). PLCs plan how educators will address the needs of students’ multiple and intersecting identities and coordinate instructional goals, approaches, and strategies to ensure that the needs of the whole child are met across settings.

In summary, the success of emergent bilingual students depends on programs and services that simultaneously address the intersection of the identities of individual students and subgroups of students and the societal and educational factors that shape these identities. Programs and services must reflect an understanding that the sum of the identities forged by the intersection of a student’s membership in multiple groups, in the context of lived experiences, is greater than the sum of each identity marker, independently. Thus, educators must reject single-axis approaches to the education of emergent bilinguals and other minoritized groups and, instead, create a coherent, coordinated service delivery system based on an intersectional analysis of students’ identities, strengths, and needs.

The articles in Issue 43(4) of the Bilingual Research Journal highlight contextual factors that influence educational outcomes, positively and negatively, for emergent bilinguals. These include how power structures influence family views of bilingualism resulting in a shift from preserving heritage languages to a preference for English consistent because of English-only policies. In contrast, one-way dual-language Mandarin immersion programs supported Asian families’ efforts to maintain their children’s language and heritage. Research found that executive functions are a mechanism that supports an academic advantage for two-way dual-language education students over their peers in mainstream education.

The articles and book reviews in Volume 43, Issue 4 of the Bilingual Research Journal will help readers better understand how student identities are shaped through membership in a variety of groups and by societal and contextual factors. Contributors speak to the importance of bridging home and school funds of knowledge and supporting the maintenance of heritage languages while adding English as a way of promoting academic achievement. They also describe how progressive school leadership and engaged educators can create an inclusive learning environment for emergent bilinguals through shared leadership, capacity building, optimal learning conditions, and school–community partnerships.

Research articles

Yalda Kaveh and Jorge Sandoval examine the links between language policies in eight immigrant families in relation to the language policies of two public elementary schools operating under Massachusetts’ English-only policy. The heritage languages of participating families were Cape Verdean Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese, or Spanish. The authors used “family language policy” to define language decisions in families. In “No! I’m Going to School, I Need to Speak English!”: Who Makes Family Language Policies?, data analysis using a language ideology lens unveils power structures that influence family language beliefs and practices. Findings showed that the participants’ spoken beliefs positioned bilingualism and heritage language maintenance as valuable. However, family language decisions showed an increasing preference for English that inherently aligned with the English-only educational policies and alienated heritage languages. The study contributes to the existing body of literature on family language policy by adding nuance to the contextual and fluid nature of language decisions in bilingual families.

In Parent Satisfaction and One-Way Mandarin Chinese Dual Language Programs in Utah, Ko-Yin Sung analyzes responses to an online survey completed by 580 parents whose children participated in 21 one-way Mandarin Chinese dual immersion programs in Utah. The objectives of the survey study were to learn the parents’ reasons for enrollment, their program satisfaction, and whether there was a group difference based on the following parental demographic factors: ethnicity, income, and education. In general, the majority of the parents were satisfied with the program; however, more Asian parents chose the program so their children could better relate to their heritage. There was an interaction effect between education level and ethnicity on program satisfaction. Mean scores for survey items, suggested that Asian parents without a higher education degree were more satisfied with the program’s language learning environment and the native and academic language skills of teachers, while parents who were not white or Asian and had graduate degree(s) were the least satisfied groups.

In Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Two-Way Immersion Classrooms, Jillian LaSerna uses Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) as the theoretical framework to examine the degree to which CRP is utilized by Two Way Immersion (TWI) teachers. Semi-structured interviews, class observations, and documents such as lesson plans were used as primary sources and collected from nine teacher participants. Findings show that building a culture of academic success was prevalent across all classrooms studied. While there was some evidence of instructional strategies promoting cultural competence, culturally relevant literature and topics were limited. Across all classrooms, a focus on socio-political awareness was absent.

Executive Functions in a Two-Way Dual Language Education: A Mechanism for Academic Performance, by Alena Esposito, proposes that two-way dual-language education fosters a bilingual advantage in executive functions that, in turn, provides support for an academic advantage. This proposal is examined in a cross-sectional study of two-way dual-language education students and mainstream English education students in primary or intermediate elementary education. Academic performance, executive functions, and a number of variables that could contribute to the performance of either were measured. Intermediate two-way dual-language students showed an academic advantage and two-way dual-language students at the primary and intermediate level showed an executive functions advantage in a teacher rating. Executive functions did mediate the relation between education model and academic performance. The results provide support for executive functions as a mechanism that supports an academic advantage for two-way dual-language education students over their peers in mainstream education.

Adult English Learners and the Bilingual Reading Process: Retrospective Miscue Analysis presents a qualitative case study of Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) that investigated the reading process of three Chinese-Mandarin-speaking college English learners (ELs) of varied English language proficiency. Yang Wang explored students’ perceptions about reading and their use of reading strategies in two languages by analyzing the conversations that occurred during the oral reading of selected texts. Regardless of their language proficiency, the participants deepened their understanding of reading through RMA. In addition, their reading conception and language proficiency influenced their strategy use. Moreover, readers took more ownership of their reading, read with purpose, acted strategically, and valued their reading. This study provides educational implications for bilingual teachers and English language teachers.

Book reviews

Two book reviews are included in this issue of the Bilingual Research Journal. The first, Language and cultural practices in communities and schools: Bridging learning for students from non-dominant groups, edited by Immaculada M. García-Sánchez and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, is reviewed by Kenya Vargas. The book review examines how the cultural and linguistic practices from non-dominant communities can contribute to learning in school settings. These include cultural approaches in the classroom, cultural practices outside the classroom context, knowledge learned through religious practices, involvement in opportunities that share personal experiences and create an identity, translanguaging pedagogy, and unique approaches from cultural models. Each chapter of the book presents different research examining implications in bridging school and home funds of knowledge.

Anita Caduff reviews Transforming Sanchez School: Shared Leadership, Equity, and Evidence by Raymond R. Isola and Jim Cummins. The authors describe their experiences in a school serving a majority English Language learner (ELL) population and students from low-income homes, through two program pathways, biliteracy and English-only. They describe how progressive school leadership and engaged educators created an inclusive learning environment for these students through shared leadership, capacity building, optimal learning conditions, and school–community partnerships.

Exploring Critical Digital Literacy Practices: Everyday Video in a Dual Language Context, written by Jessica Zacher Pandya, is reviewed by Holland Kowalkowski. The book reports an investigation of how empowering historically marginalized populations, such as bi-multilingual students, students with special needs, and students of color, with video projects can be a form of redistributive social justice. In the context of a dual language Southern California charter school, Pandya analyzes how video composition projects encourage student agency to express identity, share what is important in their lives, and advocate for their school community. Results demonstrate how video projects can promote critical digital literacy. The book appeals to those interested in social justice, new literacies, and student-centered pedagogies.

Together the research articles and reviews of books in Volume 43, Issue 4, suggest that educators must work to eliminate laws, policies, personal biases, and professional practices that impede student success. Researchers must continue to explore and affirm students’ intersectional identities and the contextual variables that influence their social and academic outcomes. Both educators and researchers must then collaborate to link practices and research so as to provide equitable, culturally and linguistically responsive programs and services so that all students achieve their maximum potential.