Bilingualism for All? - (Bilingual Education & Bilingualism) by Nelson Flores & Amelia Tseng & Nicholas Subtirelu (Paperback)

About the Book

This book adopts a raciolinguistic perspective to examine the ways in which dual language education programs in the US often reinforce the racial inequities that they purport to challenge. The chapters adopt a range of methodologies, disciplines and language foci to challenge mainstream and scholarly discourses on dual language education.

Book Synopsis

This book adopts a raciolinguistic perspective to examine the ways in which dual language education programs in the US often reinforce the racial inequities that they purport to challenge. The chapters adopt a range of methodologies, disciplines and language foci to challenge mainstream and scholarly discourses on dual language education.

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.

This collection points to the hidden injustices of racial inequality in bilingual education in the United States. It is an important read for anyone (teachers, parents, administrators) interested in making dual language education accessible to everyone.

This illuminating volume is an indispensable read for understanding how raciolinguistic ideologies work and how they frame bilingual education. Attending to intersections of language, race, disability, and class, the authors in this collection offer much-needed critical and cutting-edge analyses of a wide array of programs and practices. Their work boldly asks us to reconsider the aims of bilingual education and disrupt deeply entrenched white supremacy in schools.

While this reader is compiled of multiple manuscripts that could and do stand alone, the synthesis of raciolinguistics across a plethora of contexts is what makes this book in its entirety a wonderful contribution to the field of DLE and a guide-like handbook for readers. It is a must-read for anyone interested in raciolinguistics in dual language and for those tasked with dual language program development and sustainability.

About the Author

Nelson Flores is Associate Professor of Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, USA. His current projects seek to apply a raciolinguistic perspective to bilingual education in the United States.

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.

Nicholas Subtirelu is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University, USA. His recent research looks at how bilingualism is constructed as a commodity and the implications this has for racial economic justice in language education.