“Two schools within a school”: Elitism, divisiveness, and intra-racial gentrification in a dual language strand

ABSTRACT

With most elementary dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs being implemented as strands within schools, tensions related to inequities, unequal distribution of resources, and academic quality and demographic differences often arise. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study and two interview phases with DLBE and mainstream teachers, this study analyzes teachers’ perceptions and discourses regarding tensions related to the Spanish-English two-way bilingual education program at their urban elementary school. Findings from a thematic analysis approach pointed to teachers’ discourses of elitism and divisiveness in relation to the DLBE strand based on racial tensions and school inequities, including what we call intra-racial DLBE gentrification. These findings are based on how educators experienced tensions regarding this bilingual program related to (a) the composition of the student body in terms of perceived quality and quantity, (b) cognitive and academic benefits, (c) resources provided by a university partnership, and (d) parental involvement. Implications for administrators and teacher preparation programs toward equity and school integration with DLBE strands are discussed.

Notes

1. With two-way bilingual education, we refer to what has been traditionally called two-way immersion. With TWBE, we question for whom “immersion” is, since for U.S. language-minoritized youth immersion in the two languages already occurs on a daily basis. We also use TWBE to reclaim the bilingual education that was lost with bans and rebranding of bilingual education (Katznelson & Bernstein, 2017).

2. The term designated English learner emphasizes an imposed label in the sometimes negative (Umansky, 2016) and erroneous classification (Umansky et al., 2017) of students who are learning or have learned English in the school system.

3. With the term racialized, we draw on raciolinguistics work to highlight how issues, individuals, language, certain societies, etc. have traditionally been “othered” based on the race construct associated to them.