Language Ideological Multiplicity and Tension within Dual Language Bilingual Education Teachers

ABSTRACT

Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs are critical sites for exploring language ideologies given the policy goals of student bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism. Drawing on a larger study of language ideological inquiry, this article used predominantly interview data to explore the articulated language ideological stances of teachers implementing a district-wide DLBE program in central Texas. The article builds from the assimilationist/pluralist distinction and contributes to an understanding of how language ideologies interact and are articulated at the individual level and reflect these broader societal discourses in multiple and contradictory ways. To disrupt the binary of ideological orientations I drew on the concept of a continuum to present and make sense of the educators’ ideological stances. Analysis revealed language ideologies articulated across three dimensions: language status, variation, and participation. Implications for DLBE policy and implementation are discussed including the need for ideological consistency and reflection at the program level.

KEYWORDS:

• Assimilationist discourse
• bilingual education
• dual language
• language ideologies
• pluralist discourse
• teacher language beliefs

Notes

1. Code-switching and Spanglish were the terms used in this study rather than translanguaging because they were the terms familiar to the participants. One way to conceive of the relationship between code-switching and translanguaging is translanguaging as an umbrella term and code-switching as one type of language practice (MacSwan, 2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Henderson

Kathryn I. Henderson is an associate professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, College of Education and Human Development at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She completed her Ph.D. (2015) at The University of Texas at Austin in the Bilingual/Bicultural Program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.