Bilingualism, Biliteracy, Biculturalism, and Critical Consciousness for All: Proposing a Fourth Fundamental Goal for Two-Way Dual Language Education

Abstract

Two-way dual language (TWDL) bilingual education programs share 3 core goals: academic achievement, bilingualism and biliteracy, and sociocultural competence. This article proposes a fourth core goal: Critical consciousness. Although TWDL programs are designed to integrate students from diverse language, culture and race backgrounds, equity is unfortunately still a challenge in TWDL classrooms and schools. We argue that centering critical consciousness, or fostering among teachers, parents and children an awareness of the structural oppression that surrounds us and a readiness to take action to correct it, can support increased equity and social justice in TWDL education. We elaborate 4 elements of critical consciousness: interrogating power, critical listening, historicizing schools, and embracing discomfort. We illustrate these elements with examples from TWDL research and practice. In addition, we describe how critical consciousness impacts and radicalizes the other three core goals, in turn supporting the development of more successful, equitable, and socially just TWDL schools.

Equity/Social Justice, Instrumentalism/Neoliberalism: Dueling Discourses of Dual Language in Principals’ Talk About Their Programs

“…Paulo Freire (1970) theorized a similar process, which he called conscientização (roughly, conscientious‐ization or consciousness‐raising), and saw it as the outcome of an education whose aim is to liberate rather than control. Indeed, Cervantes‐Soon, Palmer, Heiman, Dorner, and other scholars have called for the necessity of critical consciousness in DL education: the ability to “reflectively discern the differences in power and privilege rooted in social relationships that structure inequalities and shape the material conditions of our lives” as well as to “recogniz[e] one’s role in these dynamics” (Cervantes‐Soon et al, 2017, p. 3; see also Palmer et al, 2019). They and others have argued that critical consciousness and sociopolitical consciousness must be developed when future DL educators are in their teacher training programs (Cervantes‐Soon et al, 2017; J. Freire, 2020; Rodríguez‐Mojica, Briceño, & Muñoz‐Muñoz, 2019).…”

Bilanguaging Love: Latina/o/x Bilingual Students’ Subjectivities and Sensitivities in Dual Language Immersion Contexts

“…Conceptually, bilanguaging love has the potential to rearticulate disciplinary knowledges and scholarship and enhance the value placed on bilingual border crossers' subalternized epistemologies and knowledges. As a framework for illuminating transformative social action in education, bilanguaging and bilanguaging love align with work on conscientization, critical consciousness, and bilingual subjectivities that foregrounds the radical possibilities of reclaiming and reframing subalternized epistemologies and knowledges (e.g., Cervantes-Soon et al, 2017;Freire, 1970Freire, /1993Moll, 2014;Palmer, Cervantes-Soon, Dorner, & Heiman, 2019).…”

Two‐way immersion teacher preparation

“…Currently, there is much scholarly discussion about the importance of developing TWI teachers' critical consciousness and providing opportunities for their self‐examination of linguistic ideologies (Alfaro, 2019, 2018; Briceño, Rodriguez‐Mojica & Muñoz‐Muñoz, 2018; Cervantes‐Soon et al, 2017; Faltis & Valdés; 2016; Hernández, 2017; Palmer, 2018; Palmer, Cervantes‐Soon, Dorner & Heiman, 2019; Varghese & Snyder, 2018). Critically conscious TWI teachers value their emerging multiliguals' (EMs) 3 cultural backgrounds and language varieties and infuse their funds of knowledge into pedagogy.…”

“…Advocating for linguistic diversity is a part of the aim, as well as investigating one's own cultural identity. Palmer et al (2019) asserted that critical consciousness in TWI programs requires: “(a) continuously interrogating power, (b) historicizing schools, (c) critical listening, and (d) engaging with discomfort” (2019, p. 124). The authors argued that critical consciousness needs to be a goal of TWI programs, accordingly, developing critical consciousness should be a goal of TWI teacher preparation.…”