Abstract
This chapter reviews critical areas of research on issues of equity/equality in the highly proclaimed and exponentially growing model of bilingual education: two-way immersion (TWI). There is increasing evidence that TWI programs are not living up to their ideal to provide equal access to educational opportunity for transnational emergent bilingual students. Through a synthesis of research from related fields, we will offer guidelines for program design that attend to equality and a framework for future research to push the field of bilingual education toward creating more equitable and integrated multilingual learning spaces. Specifically, this review leads to a proposal for adding a fourth goal for TWI programs: to develop “critical consciousness” through using critical pedagogies and humanizing research.
This chapter critically examines issues of inequality in the highly proclaimed and exponentially growing model of bilingual education: two-way immersion (TWI). Despite the “rich promise” (Lindholm-Leary, 2005b) and “astounding effectiveness” (Collier & Thomas, 2004) of TWI programs to develop high academic achievement and bilingualism for integrated, culturally and linguistically diverse youth through content instruction in two languages, there is increasing concern that many TWI programs are not providing equal educational opportunities for transnational bilinguals, or “English Learners,” from immigrant families (Boyle, August, Tabaku, Cole, & Simpson-Baird, 2015; Christian, 2016)—the focal students for whom bilingual education was originally developed in the United States (Flores, 2016; Grinberg & Saavedra, 2000). This analysis of research demonstrates that TWI’s stated goals may be necessary but insufficient and unrealized, particularly for transnational emergent bilinguals whose journey to become biliterate, achieve academically, enact agency, and develop powerful academic/cultural identities may not be supported to the same degree as their White, English-speaking peers in TWI.
After a description of our methods and definition of TWI goals and history in the United States, this chapter examines how inequalities are manifested in three areas: (1) the larger sociopolitical context, including economic and ideological forces, state and school policies, and community participation; (2) TWI teachers’ orientations, preparation, and backgrounds; and (3) TWI classroom contexts, including pedagogy, language trends, and students’ identities and relations. Next, we summarize TWI-related discourses from a range of fields, in order to identify competing interests and orientations that permeate TWI education and, sometimes, compound issues of inequality. Finally, we offer recommendations for research and program design, to ensure that TWI programs equally and equitably fulfill their promise, meeting not only the stated goals of high academic achievement and bilingualism for all but also the original “race radical” goals of bilingual education for transnational bilinguals (Flores, 2016). Specifically, this analysis leads to a proposal for adding a fourth goal for TWI programs: to develop “critical consciousness” through using critical pedagogies and humanizing research.
Method and Terminology
The following research questions guided our analysis:
These questions led us to conduct two separate but simultaneous literature searches and respective analyses. Ultimately, our goal was to discern how research has recognized, explained, addressed, or ignored inequities/inequalities in TWI in order to imagine new directions.
Search 1: Analysis of Inequalities in TWI
The first question sought to examine manifestations of inequalities/inequities demonstrated in studies of TWI. Following an interpretive approach to research synthesis that incorporated elements of metaethnography (Noblit & Hare, 1988), we first searched for relevant papers using terms such as “two-way immersion,” “dual language,” “dual immersion,” and “bilingual immersion.” From this literature, which was not limited by any date range and informed by Valdés’s (1997) seminal cautionary note, we selected studies that revealed that students or communities from minoritized groups were experiencing marginalization or were not benefiting equally from programs as much as White English speakers/communities. While prior reviews on TWI education are widely cited and offer important insights (e.g., Howard, Sugarman, & Christian, 2003; Lindholm-Leary, 2005a; Parkes & Ruth, 2009), our selection of scholarship purposefully sought to identify empirical studies and conceptual papers that captured inequalities in TWI contexts that may go unrecognized when concentrating on conventional measures of success. This approach was necessary given that scholarly accounts of TWI’s benefits—rather than research that critically analyzes limitations—have been the cornerstone of TWI program proliferation.
Notably, while not excluding quantitative studies, most of the empirical work from this search used qualitative approaches. An examination of 80 papers and six books yielded five potential areas of inequality that served as initial thematic codes for analysis: (1) student access and experiences; (2) classroom pedagogy, curriculum, and linguistic choices; (3) teachers’ preparation, background, and orientations; (4) parents and community engagement; and (5) district- and state-level policies, economic contexts, and politics. We created a database with these categories where we classified meaningful units of data, including key metaphors, themes, or concepts from each study as well as descriptors for the type of paper/book, methodology, insights for equitable practices, and our own questions. After this initial coding, we reorganized and refined codes by looking for relationships and overlapping themes or concepts, examining contradictions, and building general interpretations. This led to our final identification of the three areas of inequality and respective subcategories presented in the analysis that follows.
Search 2: Cross-Disciplinary Discourse Analysis
Our second search specifically sought to identify prominent discourses framing TWI across disciplines: anthropology of language, bilingual education, foreign language/world education, immersion education, international multilingual education, teaching English to speakers of other languages, and child development. We selected one leading journal from each area, identified by its impact factor/number of citations and reputation, and conducted a search using the same terms previously noted. Recognizing that disciplines are not static and discourses evolve over time, we limited the article selection in this search to the most recent perspectives framing the expansion of TWI in the past decade (2005–present). This was not an exhaustive search but rather a purposeful one, to gain insight into common, current discursive trends defining TWI. We conducted an inductive, interpretative analysis similar to the process described above, coding 141 studies for their definitions of TWI/dual-language education, purpose of research, purpose of TWI/language education, and discourse on TWI/language students. Secondary analyses noted particularities within and across the disciplines.
Several papers went through a dual analysis as they were captured in both searches. Finally, while our analysis is based on an examination of all selected scholarship, due to space we limit our discussion to the studies that best reflected or illustrated the themes that emerged in the analysis.
Notes on Terminology
Because the literature on TWI uses various terms, defining our terminology is necessary. First, although “dual language” and “dual-language immersion” are commonly used, we prefer TWI because it specifies the integration of two languages (as in the case of all “dual-language” programs) and students from two different language backgrounds. Meanwhile, DL programs can encompass “one-way immersion” programs designed primarily for one language group, often the “dominant” one (e.g., English; Tedick & Wesely, 2015).
Second, in line with this volume, we usually use the term inequality but interchange this at times with inequity. We conceptualize inequalities in a way that includes a call to fairness, much like equity, with both concepts “advocating for equality and giving people who have been historically excluded, segregated, and discriminated against, what they need and deserve” by fully acknowledging their unequal histories (Horsford, 2015, p. 23).
Third, recognizing that labels problematically categorize individuals and deny their rich experiences and identities (Kibler & Valdés, 2016), we prefer using terms that highlight either people’s strengths/diversity or the power structures that frame their lives. For example, when writing about children from immigrant families in TWI programs, we refer to them as “transnational” or “emergent” bilinguals rather than “English Learners;” these terms indicate that they have traversed cultures, have one or more foreign-born parents, and speak language(s) other than, or in addition to, English at home. We use the term minoritized, to indicate racial, ethnic, or linguistic groups that may be labeled minority by whitestream society (Urrieta, 2010) but who are by no means “minor.”
Defining TWI Education and Goals
“Bilingual education” in the United States has strong historical roots in immigrant, traditionally marginalized communities (Flores, 2016). In conjunction with larger Civil Rights movements in the 1960s, the Bilingual Education Act was created explicitly to serve the needs of children who came to school speaking languages other than English, highlighting language rights and providing additional funding for schools with such students (de Jong, 2002). Over time, legal and political actions—including the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act No Child Left Behind (2002) and several state initiatives—dismantled the Bilingual Education Act’s original focus on bilingualism. Such moves increased funding and support for “English-only” and “English immersion” and enhanced English monolingualism and assimilationist ideologies (Flores, 2016).
Notwithstanding and almost simultaneously, a trend in language education with new constituencies was forming. With rapid economic globalization at the turn of the century, geopolitical events like 9/11, and research demonstrating the benefits of bilingualism, proficiency in languages other than English emerged as an important goal “for all.” Mainstream English-dominant families developed interest in language immersion education, which provided content-based instruction in English and another language (Dorner, 2011a). Consequently, advocates of bilingual education—those seeking to use home languages in the schooling of transnational children—as well as foreign/world language educators found hope in language immersion models.
These developments led to widespread expansion of TWI, often described in binary terms: TWI models in the United States provide academic instruction in English and an additional language (most commonly Spanish) to an integrated group of students from those two language groups. Core goals for TWI students—who may be dominant in either “target” language or already have some bilingual/multilingual capacities—include high academic achievement and linguistic fluency in the standardized registers of both languages, as well as cross-cultural or multicultural competence (Christian, 2016; de Jong, 2016). A handful of TWI programs started in the 1960s to 1980s, but scholars now estimate well over 1,000 (Wilson, 2011) across the country, including in areas with less recent history of bilingual education, for example, the District of Columbia (de Jong, 2016), North Carolina (Cervantes-Soon, 2014), and Utah (Valdez, Delavan, & Freire, 2014).
Importantly, TWI frames bilingual education as enrichment—rather than remediation—and uses students’ home languages as resources (Ruiz, 1984). TWI has admirably moved bilingual education beyond the aim of English monolingualism. TWI students’ academic achievement/growth (Lindholm-Leary, 2005a; Thomas & Collier, 2002) and metacognitive and metalinguistic development (Bialystok, Peets, & Moreno, 2014) are noteworthy. However, highlighting only such “rich promise” (Lindholm-Leary, 2005b) and “astounding” effects (Collier & Thomas, 2004) ignores the hegemonic forces and inequalities that continue to shape bilingual education and the experiences of transnational youth in this country (Flores, 2016).
Areas of Inequality in TWI
The following review demonstrates that as TWI initiatives expand, the interests of language-minoritized students may be overtaken by the interests of English speakers. Guadalupe Valdés (1997) described this risk in her seminal “cautionary note,” and more recently, scholars have written about the potential neoliberal assault (Cervantes-Soon, 2014; Petrovic, 2005) and reconfiguration of bilingual education by “hegemonic Whiteness” (Flores, 2016). That is, TWI programs often commodify and marginalize emergent bilingual speakers’ and their communities’ linguistic resources, which can lead to inequalities for transnational youth that are too often obscured by programs’ laudable goals of integration, bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural competence for all. This review presents the documented inequalities in TWI at three different levels: the larger sociopolitical, teacher-focused, and classroom/student contexts.
Inequalities in TWI’s Sociopolitical Context
In this section we review research documenting how borders of race, class, and social status and a neoliberal logic frame the sociopolitical context of TWI. We highlight how such borders and frameworks have resulted in inequalities in TWI implementation.
The Borders of Race and Class: Interest Convergence and Symbolic Integration in TWI
The theory of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) posits that policy changes for racial integration and equity will occur only insofar as the interests of dominant and minoritized groups converge, specifically, when White citizens perceive that such policies will benefit them. TWI, in fact, emerged when the goals of bilingualism for transnational students and those of White, wealthier, and English-speaking students appeared to converge, at a time when political hostility threatened bilingual education for minoritized children (Varghese & Park, 2010) and economic decline endangered foreign language programs for English speakers (Osborn, 2006). However, becoming bilingual means different things for each constituency, and inequalities have emerged as the interests of the dominant group took precedence in many contexts.
Research in California and the Midwest has made evident inequalities of access stemming from contexts characterized by interest convergence. In one California study, enrollment and admission policies, which existed at a TWI “strand” (one classroom/grade) within an elementary school, favored White English-speaking families; despite comprising 30% of the school population, African Americans made up only 5% of enrollment (Palmer, 2010). In the Midwestern case, mostly White English-speaking families dominated the public debate about the development of a TWI program (Dorner, 2011a). Ultimately, the district placed program strands across each of the district’s elementary schools, which reflected whitestream desires, rather than those of the transnational, Spanish-speaking, and bilingual families who preferred expanding TWI at schools that had traditionally served immigrant communities.
Research has also explored the privileging of dominant group interests in the framing and support of TWI from administrative (M. M. López, 2013; Paciotto & Delany-Barmann, 2011; Peña, 1998) and parent (Muro, 2016; Pearson, Wolgemuth, & Colomer, 2015) perspectives. In the Midwestern case described above, opportunities to learn about the new TWI program were more easily accessed by White, English-speaking families; the district made few efforts to recruit and explain the program to Spanish-speaking families (Dorner, 2011b). In another context, Pimentel, Diaz Soto, Pimentel, and Urrieta (2008) documented the use of screening tests in order to manage long waitlists of English speakers, while placing language-minoritized students in the program by default. Such policies of selecting high-scoring English speakers created academic disparities along the borders of race and class among TWI students.
Interest convergence is also evident in TWI’s distinction as “enrichment” for White/English-speaking families. In a Texas TWI program, the idea of enrichment aligned with the interests of mainly native English-speaking students, while Spanish-speaking parents resisted this label; one described the program instead as being about her family’s Mexican raíces (roots), central to her child’s personal and academic identity (López, 2013). In a rural Midwestern town experiencing a recent influx of Spanish-speaking immigrant students, a new TWI program was initially rejected by White English-speaking parents, until it was framed in enrichment terms, as “beneficial for future job opportunities” (Paciotto & Delany-Barmann, 2011, p. 234). Interest convergence also materialized in one Colorado district that implemented TWI to “save” a segregated school with steadily increasing low-income Spanish-speaking students and decreasing standardized test scores (Pearson et al., 2015). White parents, opting into TWI for language enrichment, delighted in being “part of a school community that benefits Latina/o students” (p. 18). The presence of White families was a major factor in framing the school as a “beacon of hope,” as opposed to a “school in decline” (p. 17).
Researchers also found that in TWI, as in other contexts, integration alone does not necessarily lead to equity. Muro (2016), for example, described TWI parents from dominant and language-minoritized groups in a rapidly gentrifying community as engaging in “symbolic integration,” the “polite, surface-level, interactions that are enjoyable, voluntary, and additive” (p. 2), while covert prejudice and racial stratification remained entrenched. Together, these studies demonstrate that the interest convergence inherent in TWI may result in advancing the goals of the dominant group, while benefits for minoritized students may be rendered only as a by-product of such efforts.
The Neoliberal Logic: Issues of Accountability and Commodification
Neoliberal discourses in education, such as an imperative to prioritize economic markets/exchanges in all interactions (Cervantes-Soon, 2014), have fostered a punitive and largely monolingual accountability system that undermines schools’ abilities to meet TWI’s bilingual and biliteracy goals. For example, the demands of standardized testing contributed to one TWI program’s decision to abandon its biliteracy goals for several months in order to prepare students for tests only in students’ stronger language (Palmer, Henderson, Wall, Zúñiga, & Berthelsen, 2015). This decision was especially damaging to language-minoritized students. Despite their bilingualism, they experienced primarily monolingual instruction in whichever language a practice test determined was currently “stronger” (for most students, in fact, English), rather than drawing on their full linguistic repertoire and continuing to develop their bilingualism. Meanwhile, Peña (1998) documented a TWI program that aimed for transformational change as the school worked with immigrant parents’ desires “to preserve and protect their values and ways of knowing;” however, this aim was undermined, as parents felt like “material objects” in a system focused on outcomes and evidence (pp. 254–255). These technical attributes and goals, as framed by administrators, deterred generative opportunities with minoritized parents and were more in line with neoliberal norms of efficiency and individualism. Across programs, state accountability and promotion requirements have often emphasized and considered only English-medium tests (Freeman, 2000; McCollum, 1999; Warhol & Mayer, 2012).
Finally, mounting research has documented the commodification of language skills and erasure of transitional/emergent bilinguals’ experiences in TWI policies and discourse. A critical discourse analysis of five newspapers’ framing of TWI in Utah uncovered how a global human capital framework, which focused on commerce and future employment, overshadowed an equity/heritage framework on language maintenance and community (Valdez et al., 2014). Similarly, the Spanish language was commodified in a California school, as native English-speaking parents talked about it as a “useful tool” for their children to communicate with “workers” (Muro, 2016). Opportunity for their children to learn from “live specimens” (Petrovic, 2005, p. 406) while practicing their Spanish was positioned by the dominant group as an added bonus that should be commodified in striving to increase one’s human capital. In this process, “white bilingualism is interpreted as an achievement to be acknowledged, and Latino bilingualism one to be anticipated” (Muro, 2016, p. 11). These studies have revealed the reconfiguration of TWI through hegemonic Whiteness (Flores, 2016).
Inequalities Related to Teachers’ Backgrounds, Orientations, and Preparation
As “policymakers” in the classroom, teachers are crucial agents with the most power to directly influence students’ relationships, experiences, and learning (Menken & García, 2010). Our review reinforces a growing understanding that teachers’ linguistic backgrounds, training, ideologies, and orientations influence TWI classroom dynamics, often resulting in an exacerbation of inequalities between student groups in the classroom.
On the one hand, TWI programs often rely on monolingual English-speaking teachers for English-medium instruction (Amrein & Peña, 2000), as well as filling positions as librarians, coaches, substitute teachers, counselors, “specials” teachers (art, PE) and leaders of extracurricular activities (Fitts, 2006). This leads to linguistic imbalance across a student’s school day and, in turn, to inequalities in communication norms and language status: English is the only nonnegotiable language. Furthermore, while bilingual teachers can allow students access to their entire linguistic repertoire, monolingual English teachers can only build on English skills (Amrein & Peña, 2000). With training that focuses on mainstream students, teachers often lack the preparation to support language-minoritized students’ access to the English curriculum (Fitts, 2006). This dynamic opens up greater opportunities for the centering of English-dominant children. For example, Palmer (2009) reported that while the bilingual TWI teacher worked to balance students’ status and power, monolingual English-speaking teachers tended to allow White English-dominant children to interrupt, delay lessons, and dominate learning processes.
However, recruiting bilingual teachers is a challenge, particularly in contexts lacking bilingual teacher certification. Only 25 states and DC have bilingual education certificates, and only seven states require TWI teachers to have such certification (Boyle et al., 2015). Even as more states develop credentials, there remain questions about who is considered bilingual. Guerrero (1997) argued that in the case of Spanish, most locally grown bilingual teachers themselves experienced a “subtractive schooling” (Valenzuela, 1999), significantly hindering the development of their academic Spanish skills. Five TWI principals in Ramos, Dwyer, and Pérez-Prado’s (2013) study indicated that their teachers’ command of Spanish was adequate for informal conversations but not for teaching academic content in upper elementary grades; they also lacked the cultural knowledge to apply in their lessons. Korean parents in Lee and Jeong’s study (2013) similarly complained that their bilingual Korean teachers’ proficiency levels were appropriate to teach English speakers but not Korean-dominant children.
In response, some TWI programs recruit teachers from Latin America, Spain and other places, particularly in regions of the country where bilingual teachers are scarce (Cervantes-Soon, 2014). These international teachers might be deemed more authentic, cosmopolitan, and proficient speakers of the minority language. However, they may be underprepared to work with children from different class, race, and ethnic backgrounds, with little understanding about the United States’ complex race relations and challenges (Valdés, 2002). Moreover, as highly educated, elite bilinguals, they might not identify with students from marginalized groups (de Mejía, 2002; Smith, 2001). This emphasis on prestige may privilege rigid ideologies of linguistic purism and elite cosmopolitanism that devalues language-minoritized students’ everyday language practices, experiences, identities, and knowledges (Martínez, Hikida, & Durán, 2015). Moreover, as Flores and Rosa (2015) posit, racialized subjects’ standardized language practices are perpetually constructed and perceived as deficient regardless of how closely they follow “standardized” norms precisely because these norms are determined by the White English-speaking subjects (Martín-Beltrán, 2010). Thus, students and teachers from marginalized groups are often viewed as insufficiently bilingual and biliterate.
Importantly, we should consider how teachers’ ideologies and orientations shape program implementation and their views and treatment of students (Martínez et al., 2015; Menken & García, 2010). For example, while teachers in one study endorsed a color-blind orientation toward social differences, some used language as a proxy for race, articulating students’ linguistic differences as an obstacle for learning (Juárez & McKay, 2008). In another study, teachers believed Latino children were raised to be quiet and submissive, an assumption that naturalized English speakers’ dominance in classroom discourse (Cervantes-Soon & Turner, 2017).
Guerrero (1997) noted that many bilingual teachers face tension as their own instructional practices collide with the effects of assimilationist language ideologies that they experienced growing up. For example, Puerto Rican teachers in Freeman’s (2000) study at a Philadelphia middle school used code-switching practices in the classroom that implicitly sanctioned students’ local language practices, yet they also expressed fears that Spanish instruction might be detrimental for their Puerto Rican students. Similarly, Korean teachers in California were uncertain about the meaning of Korean American biculturalism (Lee & Jeong, 2013).
In conclusion, TWI teachers experience wide-ranging challenges given their linguistic backgrounds, training, and ideologies, as well as the realities they face in maintaining classrooms in minoritized languages (Amrein & Peña, 2000; Lee & Jeong, 2013). To combat inequalities, TWI teachers should possess the necessary pedagogical skills, be bilingual, and have critical understandings of what it means to serve students within TWI’s inherent diversity and complexity (Palmer & Martínez, 2013).
Inequalities in TWI Classrooms
TWI classrooms are figured worlds where people are positioned in relation to each other through culturally constituted activities (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). Specifically, encounters between students from minoritized and dominant groups—mediated by pedagogical practices and larger ideologies—frame students’ sense of self and agency. The research reviewed in this section demonstrates how curriculum, instruction, and classroom discourse/identities in TWI often privilege English-dominant students (Fitts, 2009).
The Hegemony of English in the Classroom
A widely recognized challenge in TWI is to battle the hegemony of English and the devaluing of the program’s other language, the home language of transnational bilingual students (Martínez et al., 2015). Many TWI programs do not offer sufficient instruction in the minority language (Torres-Guzmán, Kleyn, Morales-Rodríguez, & Han, 2005), even though the goal is to do so at least 50% of the time (Tedick & Wesely, 2015). Research has found that as students move up grade levels, English content instruction and use increase substantially, resulting in negligible amounts of instruction in the non-English language at the secondary level (Bearse & de Jong, 2008; Freeman, 2000).
While English speakers tend to naturally favor English, the hegemony of English is often also embedded in minoritized families’ and students’ beliefs about which language counts for their access to opportunities and status (Dorner, 2010; Freeman, 2000; Lee & Jeong, 2013; Lucero, 2015; McCollum, 1999). Therefore, even when teachers encourage and use the minoritized language during instruction, English tends to prevail when students interact independently (DeNicolo, 2010; DePalma, 2010; Potowski, 2004).
In the case of Spanish, de Jong and Howard (2009) posit that diminishing its role results in unequal learning opportunities with potentially harmful consequences for Latino students. Students who prefer to use Spanish or are Spanish monolingual may become socially marginalized (McCollum, 1999). A number of studies have noted how the overuse of English in TWI contexts gives English speakers an academic advantage (Amrein & Peña, 2000; Muro, 2016; Palmer, 2008, 2009), increasing their ability to dominate classroom discourse and develop confidence (Palmer, 2008, 2009), particularly as they move up in grades. Meanwhile, minoritized students’ opportunities to build on their linguistic repertories, and particularly oral abilities, in content-area classes decline (Bearse & de Jong, 2008).
Valdés (1997) reminded us that the acquisition of English is expected for language-minoritized children, while learning a new language tends to be enthusiastically celebrated for English-dominant White students (McCollum, 1999; Muro, 2016). Therefore, while Latino students in TWI may experience heritage language loss as they grow older, White English-speaking children maintain their linguistic privilege, all while adding just enough bilingualism to distinguish themselves as gifted or competitive for college and the job market (Bearse & de Jong, 2008; L. M. López & Tápanes, 2011; Muro, 2016).
Language, Pedagogy, and Power
While TWI programs attempt to balance the status of two languages, these attempts have not consistently produced more equality. Language separation is perhaps the most widely used approach to protect the minority language for a determined amount of instructional time, by segmenting the school day or week or by assigning specific teachers or classrooms to individual languages (Howard & Sugarman, 2006). However, teachers might find this separation artificial and difficult to enact (Lee & Jeong, 2013; Palmer, Martínez, Mateus, & Henderson, 2014). Strict practices of language separation may also promote monoglossic views of bilingualism and language purism (García, 2014; M. M. López & Fránquiz, 2009; Martínez et al., 2015; McCollum, 1999) resulting in the restriction and stigmatization of “nonstandard” and everyday language practices and bicultural identities, such as those of bilingual Latino (García, 2014) and African American students (Valdés, 2002).
McCollum’s (1999) study, for example, described the Spanish language arts class of a TWI secondary program as the battleground for political confrontations about the value of a “vernacular” versus a “high” academic variety of Spanish. Here, the teacher’s overcorrection of students’ Spanish pushed them into more English use. At the same time, the English teacher stigmatized students’ developing English skills by also focusing on error correction. In this way, “many of the Mexican-background students in this study were in a regrettable double bind, in which both their Spanish and their English were devalued” (McCollum, 1999, p. 123). Latino/a students did not understand the criticism of their everyday language practices, while their peers were being praised for simple production of Spanish vocabulary words.
Language separation policies may not deter students from reverting to English. In one study, many English-dominant students switched frequently into English when they did not know a word in Spanish and openly corrected Spanish-dominant classmates’ developing English (Palmer, 2008). In contrast, Spanish speakers rarely switched to Spanish during English-focused interactions and did not tend to correct their peers’ Spanish. Thus, the enforcement of language separation may actually increase English speakers’ opportunities to assert their power, as the “Spanish-only” times are more often disrupted by English use and the support that English-dominant students demand (Palmer et al., 2014).
A strategy used in some TWI classrooms to counter students’ preference for English is the initiation-response-evaluation model (teachers leading question-and–known answer sessions; Cazden, 2001). Unfortunately, while initiation-response-evaluation gives teachers more control over discourse dynamics and language of instruction, this practice can still privilege English-dominant students as it tends to align with middle-class, Euro-American parent–child discourse styles (Fitts, 2006; Martín-Beltrán, 2010). It also positions students to compete for the floor, disadvantaging students from marginalized groups. Therefore, current language separation approaches appear inadequate, even when they aim to resist the hegemony of English.
A more child-centered pedagogical practice in TWI is language brokering: the practice of interpreting, translating, and mediating across cultural and linguistic differences that leads to a range of literacies for transnational bilinguals who broker for their immigrant families and communities (Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Meza, 2003). In TWI contexts, language brokering might facilitate comprehension, participation, mutual peer support, and renegotiation of academic identities (Coyoca & Lee, 2009; Lee, Hill-Bonnet, & Raley, 2011). However, like other circumstances in TWI classrooms, brokering is subtly shaped by asymmetrical power relations. Lee et al. (2011) found that language brokering publicly positioned the student receiving the services negatively. While sometimes this power was renegotiated, language-minoritized students’ attempts to position themselves as brokers were hindered by the lower status of their language and stigmatized position as “English learners.” Meanwhile, students perceived as proficient English speakers were more often positioned as brokers and thus “able” students (Coyoca & Lee, 2009). The potential of bilingual status and brokering to create elite groups in the classroom also became evident when students with stronger bilingual and biliterate skills were not equally accessible for brokering services; they preferred to associate with English monolinguals or students of similar bilingual proficiency, rather than Spanish monolingual peers (Amrein & Peña, 2000).
On another note, brokers might become overburdened. In Palmer et al. (2014), Spanish-dominant bilinguals were regularly required to translate for struggling English speakers in Spanish-medium instruction, a service that was rarely reciprocated during English instruction. In this case, the unequal distribution of services placed Spanish-dominant bilinguals in a subservient position catering to English speakers. An imbalanced dynamic was also evident in DeNicolo (2010), who highlighted how Spanish-dominant bilingual students not only supported English-speaking peers’ learning of Spanish but also advocated for their marginalized monolingual Spanish-dominant peers. This “language warrior” role revealed problem solving, mediating skills, and advocacy, but such attributes are rarely recognized by academic assessments (p. 234).
That students from the dominant group often outperform their peers on standardized tests and control classroom discourse may be a reflection of cultural capital (Fitts, 2009), mainstream norms (de Jong & Howard, 2009), and dominant perspectives on literacies (Rubinstein-Ávila, 2003). Wiese (2004) demonstrated how dominant views of literacy as limited to academic reading and writing established instructional priorities in a TWI classroom, ultimately leading to unequal access to biliteracy instruction. Fears that English speakers would not succeed in TWI if they did not read and write in Spanish compelled the teacher to focus literacy instruction on English-dominant students. Meanwhile, African American children received little access to Spanish literacy instruction because of educators’ concern about their English literacy, and Latino children believed to have strong Spanish literacy skills received the least instructional priority.
TWI Classrooms as the Crossroads of Difference
Integrating diverse students in the same classroom is one of TWI’s greatest challenges. The often unacknowledged diversity within TWI programs’ “two” linguistic groups—that is, TWI students include African American multilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals, and asylees escaping persecution—further complicates the academic and social dynamics in the classroom. Tensions emerge related to legacies of colonization, imperialism, and assimilation, as power dynamics and sociopolitical histories shape students’ and teachers’ interactions. For example, Freeman’s (2000) study of a TWI program serving mainly Puerto Rican students noted their resistance to Spanish due to the stigma associated with it. Smith (2001) documented the influence of “elite bilinguals”—those from more privileged social class and educational backgrounds in their country of origin—in the decision making and curriculum of a TWI program near the U.S.–Mexico border. Amrein and Peña (2000) found that elite bilinguals preferred to associate with English-speaking monolingual peers, such that “success in school came more readily for those willing to understate, separate from or deny their Mexican culture” (Peña, 1998, p. 13). Furthermore, research has yet to explore how children from undocumented families might experience TWI when their lives are restricted in ways rarely experienced by White, English-speaking peers.
There is also a common assumption that English-speaking children in TWI always come from the dominant White group. Valdés (2002) critiqued the lack of consideration of African Americans in TWI, particularly those who are speakers of a variety of Englishes. Considering the historical exclusion of African Americans and other minoritized groups from foreign language education (Hubbard, 1980) and deficit ideas about their everyday language practices, there is a danger of positioning Black students from working-class backgrounds as incapable of learning a second language unless they attain oral and reading/writing proficiency in standardized English first (Kubota, Austin, & Saito-Abbott, 2003), as Wiese (2004) revealed.
The socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic disparities and wide range of cultural identities between and within ethnic/linguistic groups have important implications for social relations in TWI classrooms, often leading to segregation along linguistic, racial, ethnic, and class lines (Amrein & Peña, 2000; Feinauer & Whiting, 2014; Fitts, 2006; Hernández, 2015; Muro, 2016). Despite teachers’ deliberate efforts to integrate language groups, separation still occurred during instructional and informal interactions as soon as students had some degree of choice about peer associations (Feinauer & Whiting, 2014).
Considering the often-overlooked goal of TWI to foster cross-cultural relations and competencies (Feinauer & Howard, 2014), diverse TWI classrooms could help disrupt power asymmetries. However, the whitestream curriculum as well as hegemony of English and exclusive focus on standardized languages may undo such efforts, reproducing dominant discourses and social hierarchies. In Palmer’s (2008) study, despite the teacher’s deliberate attempts to balance the distribution of power and build agentic academic identities among marginalized students through alternative discourses, the durability of the identities ascribed by the dominant discourses and larger social structures tended to prevail. In sum, given the tendency to center students from the dominant group and promote whitestream curriculum, there is still work to be done in TWI.
TWI-Related Discourses Across the Disciplines
Pulling from our second search across disciplines, this section now presents salient discourses that inform TWI practice and research and structure its inequalities: specifically, discourses of globalization, neoliberalism, accountability, and monolingualism. The conclusion then argues that we can combat such discourses and inequalities by adding a fourth goal to TWI: the development of critical consciousness.
The Rationale for TWI: Discourses of Globalization and Neoliberalism
The rationale for TWI programs often starts with a declaration that increased transnational flows and global commerce mean that students need bilingualism for instrumental reasons: to compete for future jobs and be “globally competitive students in the 21st century” (Rhodes, 2014, p. 116). While many scholars, parents, and children have also mentioned “integrative” reasons for bilingualism and bilingual education—to build identities and multicultural competencies—such notes are usually placed alongside, or secondary to, the instrumental focus (Boyle et al., 2015; Dorner, 2015; Tedick & Wesely, 2015).
This privileging of an instrumental rationale flows from globalization and neoliberal discourses (Cervantes-Soon, 2014). In turn, such rationales position diverse TWI students quite differently. Global migrants or transnational bilinguals, who are moving across borders to the United States, are viewed as needing a new language (English) in order to survive, whereas middle-class English-dominant youth are positioned to become “cosmopolitan” as they prepare to join global businesses (Collins, 2012; Kibler & Valdés, 2016; Morales & Razfar, 2016). Most poignantly, these discourses neglect the knowledges and experiences that transnational youth already have, positioning them as empty vessels rather than as individuals with rich linguistic repertoires and unique literacies rooted in the navigation of at least two cultures (Skerrett, 2012). They also depoliticize and ignore the original goals of bilingual education (Flores, 2016).
TWI Students as Outcomes: Discourses of Accountability
While many studies reviewed earlier used critical and ethnographic approaches to understand the experiences and perspectives of youth in TWI programs, the larger discourses around education and policymaking still view students primarily as outcomes. Due to accountability pressures, educators and policymakers must study and report students’ performances on academic assessments. While such research importantly has found that TWI students typically outperform their peers over time (e.g., Lindholm-Leary & Hernández, 2011), outcome-based studies often use imperfect categorizations and the monolingual English speaker as the standard against whom bilingual learners are measured. For example, in child development, studies almost exclusively examine students’ growth and achievement (e.g., Han, 2012). Meanwhile, across the fields of language education, researchers compare groups, using such classifications as English/Spanish speakers, language majority/minority groups, or L1/L2 (first and second language), even while noting that such terms do not reflect the complexity of individuals’ sociolinguistic realities (Cook, 2002; de Jong, 2016; Hopewell & Escamilla, 2014). In comparing groups using cross-sectional models, they also often neglect selection bias (Steele, Slater, Li, Zamarro, & Miller, 2013). Large-scale funding agencies have encouraged these foci, as they push researchers to categorize children for the purpose of experimental designs that aim to prove causality (Kibler & Valdés, 2016).
Outcome-oriented, problem-focused questions and categorizations are inevitable in education research. However, we assert that these frames fail to account for the knowledge that children actually have, the ways they experience the world, and the ways in which policies, curriculum, instruction, and schools could change. In turn, we still need more research on the everyday interactions that occur in dynamic bilingual contexts (Martín-Beltrán, 2010), so we could better describe students as “users” of languages or active transnational learners, rather than merely “outcomes.” Such perspectives better highlight youths’ complex, negotiated movements (Skerrett, 2012) and the micro-level foundations of political structures that they encounter.
Languages in TWI: Discourses of Monolingualism and Standardization
Related discourses about bilingualism as two separate monolingual systems and a focus on a “monoglot” society also undergird the inequalities found in TWI programs (Gort, 2015; Morales & Razfar, 2016). That is, monolingualism has long been the ideological “standard” in the United States, situated within the history of the nation state (Flores & García, 2013). In turn, discourses of monolingualism have defined how individuals imagine, define, and design educational programs toward bilingualism as the development of two separate and standardized monolingual systems. Such discourses have likely shaped the strict separation of instructional languages in TWI and the study of distinct language development in particular categories of students (e.g., L1 vs. L2).
The notion of “bilingual hegemonic Whiteness” (Flores, 2016, p. 2) brings attention to the historically racialized processes embedded in institutionalized forms of “additive” bilingual education like TWI. Insisting that students become bilingual only in standardized forms of English and another language reinforces hegemonic Whiteness—or the commonsense ideal of the White subject in opposition to racialized others—and continues to construct students from low-status minoritized groups in deficit terms by marginalizing their everyday bilingual practices. Despite current conceptions of plurilingualism that reframe humanity’s linguistic experiences as dynamic, situated, and ever-changing (García & Sylvan, 2011; Hornberger & Link, 2012; May, 2013), our institutions and policies are still shaped in mostly White, monolingual, standardized terms (Kibler, Valdés, & Walqui, 2014). We must interrogate these discourses to confront the inequalities found in TWI education.
Addressing Inequalities Through Critical Consciousness
In line with the goals of this volume, we now propose a way forward to confront the persistent inequalities in TWI. Building on scholarship that draws from critical pedagogies and theories, we conceptualize a fourth goal: to develop critical consciousness, in addition to TWI’s oft-stated goals of bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, and multicultural competence. Critical consciousness can be developed through expanding politically oriented curriculum and instruction that originate in the very knowledges and ways that students from marginalized communities experience language. In turn, as will be discussed below, humanizing research projects that explicitly interrogate TWI’s sociopolitical and historical circumstances can support such pedagogies.
The Fourth Pillar for TWI: Critical Consciousness
To define critical consciousness as a foundational pillar of TWI, we turn to critical pedagogies (Bartolomé, 2004; Darder, 2015; P. Freire, 1970; Ladson-Billings & Tate IV, 1995), border pedagogies (Cervantes-Soon & Carrillo, 2016; Giroux, 1988), and critical bilingual/language studies (Crump, 2014; McCarty, Collins, & Hopson, 2011). Critical consciousness involves the process of overcoming pervasive myths through an understanding of the role of power in the formation of oppressive conditions (P. Freire, 2007). TWI teachers, students, and parents can take part and take action only to the extent that they problematize the history, culture, and societal configurations that brought them together. TWI children, parents, teachers, and school leaders must work toward critical consciousness in order for the programs’ integrated groups to result in cross-cultural understanding and greater equality; each stakeholder must interrogate his or her own position, privilege, and power. By reframing TWI spaces as problem-posing (P. Freire, 2007), we can raise critical consciousness around the discourses, macro-level inequalities, and power relations that shape TWI practice, pedagogy, and policies.
We use the word “position” purposefully here, as it draws attention to interactive relationships in which TWI participants are positioned relative to others; it goes beyond the self and one’s current moment in time. As Reyes and Vallone (2007) argued, TWI’s third goal—to develop positive cross-cultural attitudes—originally foregrounded one’s understanding of others, thus neglecting an examination of TWI’s potential to shape one’s self and cultural identities. They argued convincingly that there are intimate links between language and identity, which TWI programs must address (though they do not usually do so). Subsequently, Feinauer and Howard (2014) agreed that this area is undertheorized but concluded that “self” was actually included in the third goal, as multi/cross-cultural competencies begin with understanding one’s identity within diverse TWI classrooms. Crump (2014) then argued for the recognition that identities are not unidimensional; they are “imposed, assumed, and negotiated” (p. 209). Although the categories reviewed earlier (e.g., English/Spanish speakers, L1/L2) are certainly imperfect, they do discursively exist, and so we must question them, in order to break them down (Souto-Manning, 2010). However, there is a danger of understanding identity as a depoliticized process, an “unproblematic affirmation of student experience” (Giroux, 1988). TWI students from different language/cultural backgrounds are “invited to because bilingual,” so TWI programs could be “considered transformational. However, whether or not power relations are ever formally explored is up to the pedagogical stance of the particular teacher and the particular school” (Reyes & Vallone, 2007, p. 8).
Therefore, we propose the use of border pedagogies (Giroux, 1988) to bring together interrogations of the self (identity, agency) and others (culture, society, structures), to examine one’s position, how it is “read” and how it relates to power in the word and the world by encouraging each individual to locate her or his identity within particular histories of power, colonization, imperialism, and difference. Simultaneously, such work will challenge the limits of individual perspectives and develop abilities to act against oppression. Furthermore, border pedagogies push us to uncover the voices and knowledges of the subaltern by decentering hegemonic Whiteness and individualist notions of success and instead centering the experiences, languages, and worldviews generated by those in the margins (Cervantes-Soon & Carrillo, 2016). In short, TWI students, parents, and educators must study the effects of power relations in language education in order to transform pedagogical stances, positions, and curricula. The next two sections explore how we can bring critical consciousness to TWI programs and research, first with a focus on children and then with adult stakeholders.
Children’s Translanguaging and Knowledges
Child-centered studies are central to inform critical consciousness, particularly ones that consider children’s lives in the present moment, the shaping of identities, and the subaltern knowledges in TWI classrooms. Scholars across many fields are increasingly employing concepts like translanguaging, which highlight dynamic bilingualism and language as a social practice/activity (Gort, 2015). A blend of languaging—language as something people do, the constant adaptation of meaning and use of varied linguistic resources in social interactions—and transculturación, translanguaging “is a product of border thinking, of knowledge that is autochthonous and conceived from a bilingual, not monolingual, position” (García & Sylvan, 2011, p. 389). It is the communicative norm of multilingual speech communities; it includes children’s and teachers’ full range of linguistic repertories and the “complex discursive practices” that they use “to ‘make sense’ of, and communicate in, multilingual classrooms” (García & Sylvan, 2011, p. 389).
Translanguaging as a lens and developing critical language awareness with students (Alim, 2005; Fairclough, 2001; Martínez, 2013) will reshape TWI’s focus on what children do with language, rather than how teachers must develop a particular “standard” of language for students (Crump, 2014). First, studies with children will help educators recognize that language is an active, dynamic tool; translanguaging is the creative language play, complex negotiations, and brokering that occur in plurilingual settings (Dorner & Layton, 2014; Gort & Sembiante, 2015; Martín-Beltrán, 2010; Zentella, 1997). Second, because languaging processes are not void of power relations, infusing a border pedagogy within translanguaging practices may help reframe and reimagine TWI spaces through fostering critical consciousness. This type of pedagogy may involve implementing Freirean “culture circles” with young students (Souto-Manning, 2010), making space for students’ fears and embracing their complexities (Osorio, 2015), working to understand the relationship between language and power and redefining terms like Spanglish with students (Martínez, 2013), and developing multilingual learning spaces by following children’s leads in love and play (Orellana, 2016).
In summary, translanguaging is part of a transformative (Gort, 2015) and critical border pedagogy (Cervantes-Soon & Carrillo, 2016) that decenters Anglo-centric knowledge. Working with children and documenting their translanguaging, educators will have deeper knowledge of their students and their multilayered linguistic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. In turn, together they can recognize and rework the artificial separation of languages and sociopolitical contexts in TWI classrooms. Educators will better understand how “official” discourses work alongside subaltern ones, which can actually better support the development of academic discourses for TWI students (Gort & Sembiante, 2015).
Humanizing Research With All Stakeholders
Humanizing research—where children, parents, teachers, and researchers work alongside each other—is likewise crucial to dismantle TWI inequalities. Humanizing studies build “relationships of care and dignity and dialogic consciousness-raising for both researchers and participants” (Paris & Winn, 2014, p. xvi). Such work requires recognizing how traditional research and approaches to TWI programs can be “dehumanizing,” that is, as they imagine students as outcomes or critique teachers for their own lack of language. Researchers and practitioners alike must be critical of their work, rethink previous writing and assumptions, analyze their own linguistic/political histories, and engage with a range of TWI stakeholders in collective ongoing critical reflection; in turn, they can develop new curricula and work toward social justice goals (Bartolomé, 2004; Palmer, 2010).
Already, a few TWI studies have employed humanizing methodologies, highlighting the potential of the proposed pillar of critical consciousness. For example, framed as a critical collaborative action research project, a researcher-teacher and eight TWI teachers charted their transformations and challenges, as they worked to employ culturally relevant pedagogies (J. Freire, 2014). Hadi-Tabassum (2006) worked with a fifth-grade class to document TWI students’ and teachers’ efforts to grapple with discourses of race, class and gender inequities as they learned language and content together. Heiman (2017) has collaborated with parents and a fifth-grade critical educator in a rapidly gentrifying TWI community, documenting critical responses to issues of power/class.
These approaches may also promote the development of new curricula. Our review suggests that the conditions of TWI call us to consider the pitfalls of simply teaching mainstream curriculum in two languages. Teaching for critical consciousness and human connection requires that whitestream curriculum is decentered for all students. Future research alongside children and families could develop new content, based on communities’ rich linguistic repertoires and transcultural/transfronterizo (border crossing) experiences (de la Piedra & Araujo, 2012; Mateus, 2016; Zapata & Laman, 2016). This work would promote an understanding of the histories of colonization, imperialism, forced migration, racism, and neoliberalism, which are reflected in our language practices. Such curricula, which need to move beyond literacy/language arts and into all the content areas, have the potential to combat utilitarian and disembodied purposes for language learning.
Conclusion
This chapter is a call to researchers and practitioners to critically attend to the documented inequalities and recall the original “race radical” goal of bilingual education (Flores, 2016). Making the development of critical consciousness TWI’s fourth pillar draws strong attention to the power dimensions, hegemony of English and standardized languages, and subalternization of minoritized communities in bilingual education; it offers a decolonizing and humanizing framework for the future. We must work more critically to analyze these integrated bilingual spaces by recognizing the political power structures and ideologies that discursively shape the interactions (or lack thereof) in TWI. While some TWI programs may state equity goals or take critical stances, we are hopeful that explicitly naming critical consciousness as the fourth pillar will inspire and encourage all TWI communities to integrate counterhegemonic discourses into their policymaking, teacher preparation, classroom contexts, and pedagogies.