Description:
It is common for scholarly and mainstream discourses on dual language education in the US to frame these programs as inherently socially transformative and to see their proliferation in recent years as a natural means of developing more anti-racist spaces in public schools. In contrast, this book adopts a raciolinguistic perspective that points to the contradictory role that these programs play in both reproducing and challenging racial hierarchies. The book includes 11 chapters that adopt a range of methodological techniques (qualitative, quantitative and textual), disciplinary perspectives (linguistics, sociology and anthropology) and language foci (Spanish, Hebrew and Korean) to examine the ways that dual language education programs in the US often reinforce the racial inequities that they purport to challenge.
Brief description:
Amelia Tseng is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Spanish in World Languages and Cultures at American University, USA and holds a Research Associate appointment at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Her research centers on multilingual repertoires, race and ethnicity, and identity construction in immigrant and diasporic communities.
Review Quotes:
In this volume, Flores and colleagues challenge the uncritical, celebratory framing of dual language programs in the United States through a raciolinguistic perspective. The contributors offer a timely and incisive analysis of the discourses around the intersections of race, class, language, ability, and power that perpetuate colonial ideologies and practices in these programs, and offer transformative proposals for moving us forward. A must-read tour de force for anyone interested in equity in schooling and bilingual education.