Testing the Untestable in Language Education

This volume proposes solutions to the gentrification of dual language, bilingual and immersion education by examining how it operates across diverse school and community contexts. It brings together studies in a number of areas including instruction, curriculum development, classroom interaction, school leadership, parent and community engagement, ideological discourse and language policy. Through academic and reader-friendly summaries of research, this book makes a strong theory-to-practice impact towards equitable integration in education programs and their surrounding neighborhoods. It draws attention to how understanding and responding to gentrification of language programs is part of the broader fight for racial and educational justice for immigrant communities in US schools, and offers practical recommendations with action steps for educators, families, school administrators, activists and other key stakeholders in language education.

The four stakeholder resource chapters in Part 2 have been made Open Access under a CC BY NC ND licence to allow all teachers and administrators to benefit from the research, with freely available practical guidance on working towards equity in language education. 

To access the chapters please see the following links:

Chapter 11: Ivana Espinet, Kate Menken and Imee Hernandez: Nice-White-Parent Gentrification of a New York City Middle School: The French Dual Language Program at the School for International Studies
https://zenodo.org/records/10519199
Chapter 12: Nelson Flores: Nice White Parents and Dual Language Education
https://zenodo.org/records/10519269
Chapter 13: Deb Palmer, Emily Crawford-Rossi, Lisa Dorner, Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon and Dan Heiman: Countering Gentrification through Critical Consciousness: Recommendations and Success Stories for DLBE Educators
https://zenodo.org/records/10519319
Chapter 14: Katie A. Bernstein, Kathryn I. Henderson, Sofía Chaparro and Adriana Alvarez: Creating DLBE Programs that Center Equity in the Face of School Choice Policies
https://zenodo.org/records/10519390

This edited book showcases the lessons, successes and challenges of starting and growing a fully bilingual school. Reflecting on the first 10 years of Dos Puentes Elementary School in New York City, it explores the evolution of the school through its four founding pillars: (1) bilingüismo, biliteracidad y multiculturalismo, (2) las familias son partners, leaders and advocates, (3) investigaciones and hands-on learning, and (4) partnerships with universities, organizations y la comunidad. The chapter authors include families, teachers, school administrators and university partners, centering the voices of those directly involved in the school community and highlighting key moments in the life of the school. At the end of each chapter, researcher commentary contextualizes these experiences within the wider literature and discusses implications and next steps for the field of bilingual education. This book will be of interest to pre- and in-service teachers and school administrators, particularly those looking to develop bilingual programs in their own context.

This book explores the framework of Intercultural Citizenship within a variety of US teaching and learning contexts. The chapters, which comprise both conceptual pieces and empirical research studies, represent a wide variety of languages at levels ranging from beginner to advanced, from early elementary through higher education contexts. They urge us to look carefully at how Intercultural Citizenship enhances and expands the work of world language educators by bringing in additional focus on social justice and critical cultural awareness. The book addresses curricular issues, professional development models, language immersion, study abroad, virtual exchanges and teacher education in relation to Intercultural Citizenship. Through its focus on how Intercultural Citizenship is being enacted in a wide variety of learning contexts in the United States, and its theoretical and conceptual investigations of social justice and Intercultural Citizenship, the book will be an invaluable resource for teachers, teacher educators and researchers working on Intercultural Citizenship.

This book employs a narrative policy portraiture approach to recenter the stories of the Chinese community involved in the Lau v. Nichols court case of 1974. This seminal Supreme Court case ruled that the failure to provide adequate and accessible instruction to approximately 1800 students of Chinese ancestry denied them the opportunity to participate in public education and constituted a discrimination on the basis of national origin. While much has been written on language education policy changes for emergent bilinguals in the US, the perspectives of the key actors involved in the case are rarely heard. This book brings Chinese and Chinese American voices to the forefront, placing the participants within the retrospective social context as they reach their own conclusions about the process and outcomes of the case. It draws upon research in language policy and Asian American studies and invites readers to imagine the social futures and possibilities for what Lau v. Nichols means for the 21st century and beyond. The volume fills a significant gap in narration, representation and retrospective research and will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in Asian American studies, bilingual education, educational policy and leadership, as well as teachers, school administrators and policymakers.

This book uncovers the social and educational experiences of an increasing yet understudied population of young immigrants in the US, focusing on multilingual students who speak one of three Indigenous languages: Zapotec, Mixtec and P’urhépecha. It explores students’ ethnoracial identities, Indigenous language use and transnational practices and the influence of these factors on school adjustment, academic achievement and educational pathways. This three-year mixed-methods study in semi-urban, urban and rural contexts assesses student interviews, teacher interviews and survey data to provide an account of how Indigenous students develop their social identities and examines the influence of their non-Indigenous Mexican peers and teachers. It highlights new developments in Latinx cultural and linguistic heterogeneity and intragroup race/ethnic relations, informing policymakers and educators about Indigenous immigrant students and how to effectively support their multilingualism, ethnic identity development and educational success. It will be of interest to researchers working in related fields such as education, Latin American studies and immigration studies.

This book details a three-year, multi-stranded study of teacher education programs that prepare future teachers to work with multilingual learners. The book examines how racism and linguicism collaborate to shape the conditions under which teacher candidates learn how to teach. The analysis traces dynamic shifts in thinking and practice as participants reflected on their personal, professional and academic experiences in relation to formal curriculum and assessment policies to interpret what it means to work with multilingual learners in the classroom. The book offers guiding principles – above all, learning from multilingual learners, not only about them – and presents a suite of teacher-education practices to disrupt the interplay of language and race that so deeply shapes teacher-candidate learning about multilingual learners.