Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education: Case Studies on Policy and Practice

This book features case studies that address dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, which offer content instruction in two languages to help youth develop fluent bilingualism/biliteracy, high academic achievement, and sociocultural competence. While increasingly popular, the DLBE model is a framework that comes with unique hurdles and challenges. Applying a pioneering critical consciousness approach, the volume provides readers with narratives, awareness, and tools to support culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. Organized around four major areas—policy, leadership, family and community engagement, teaching and teacher learning—the volume’s case studies bring together stories from policymakers, educational leaders, family and community members, and teachers. The case studies spotlight examples in which power imbalances have been identified and shifted through critically conscious actions and offer insight into how to ensure all DLBE programs are nurturing, empowering, multilingual environments for all students, particularly racialized, immigrant, and transnational students. Accessible and varied, the case studies address important topics such as anti-Black racism, digital access, disability, school-district relations, working with undocumented families, and more. Each chapter includes a case narrative, teaching notes, discussion questions, and/or teaching activities to support stakeholders who wish to develop and enact equity in their DLBE policies, classrooms, and professional development. A key resource for supporting student needs and transformative inquiry in the classroom, this book is ideal for graduate students, professors, leaders, educators, and other stakeholders in bilingual education and language education.

Table of Contents:
Section I: Policy and Critical Consciousness. 1. ¡Ya basta! Changing Paradigms, Policies, and Practices for English Learners. 2. Revolisyon an ap Kontinye: Honoring Haitian Creole Through a Dual Language Program in Boston Public Schools. 3. “We can change the academic trajectory of our children in a snap”: Developing a high-school dual language program for Spanish-speaking students with no feeder program. 4. Centering Immigrant Voices and Experiences in a Dual Language Bilingual School: Teachers as Critical Pedagogues and Policymakers. 5. “Shifting lenses instead of always grinding forward”: Using Ethnography to Challenge Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Dual Language Education. 6. Using Critical Policy Analysis in Collaborative Professional Learning Communities to Enhance Dual Language Bilingual Educators’ Critical Consciousness. Section II: Leadership and Critical Consciousness. 7. The Convergence of Critical Consciousness and Culturally Sustaining Leadership Practices in Dual Language Bilingual Education. 8. The Power of Plática: Expanding Dual Language Bilingual Education at the District Level with a Bilingual Redesign Committee. 9. Dual Language, Dual Purposes: A Community in Conflict. 10. Black & Bilingual: Challenges in Decentering Whiteness in Dual Language Bilingual Education. 11. Vietnamese Dual Language Immersion: Commodifying an Uncommodified Language and Culture. 12. De la Lucha a la Victoria: The Journey to Save a Dual Language Bilingual Education Teacher Program. Section III: Families, Communities, and Critical Consciousness. 13. Fostering critical consciousness with immigrant families: The story of a Chinese immigrant mother in a Mandarin-English dual language program. 14. Cultivating Critical Consciousness with Mothers of Bilingual Students. 15. When Life Gives You Lemons: Critically Conscious Family Engagement in a Virtual Dual Language Kindergarten Class during a Pandemic. 16. Contextualizing Parent Activism in One of Milwaukee’s Bilingual Public Schools. 17. Relational Pedagogies and the Building of a Social Architecture of Authentic Cariño in the Teaching of Healing Practices at Academia Cuauhtli. Section IV: Teaching, Teacher Learning, and Critical Consciousness. 18. Black Liberation in Bilingual Education: A Case for Black Freedom Dreaming. 19. Intentando incluir a todes: A first-grade team’s gender-inclusive pedagogies. 20. English-only as a magic pill? Dispelling the myths about disability and dual language bilingual education. 21. Professional Development Through Critical Conversation And Testimonio At Simón Bolívar Elementary. 22. Bridging Testimonio Pedagogy with Dual Language Bilingual Education in a K/1 Classroom: One Teacher's Journey to Critical. 23. A Sense of Belonging: Biliteracy Instruction that Loves and Centers Latinx Emergent Bilingual Students and their Families. 24. Growing Critical Bilingual Literacies: Counter-Narratives and Social Justice in Bilingual Education. 25. Building on Emotion: Experiencing, Confronting and Reflecting on Patterns of Language Use in a TWI DL Classroom.