Discourses in Dual Language Bilingual Education

In this chapter, we aim to help readers make sense of discourses about dual language bilingual education (DLBE) circulating in the United States. We show that the many discourses scholars describe cluster into discursive families built on shared underlying logic. In Part 1 of the chapter, we situate DLBE discourses that historically explain why discourses matter and—building on Ruiz—present a cross-epistemic model for understanding discourses in DLBE. In Part 2, we use our model to map the current landscape of DLBE discourses, illustrating how they relate and respond to one another, and how they emerge from and shape the larger social, political, and historical context. We address the consequences of each discourse family for DLBE program design and implementation: in centering or marginalizing bilingual and multilingual students and in promoting or dismantling spaces that value diverse languaging practices. We conclude by suggesting how educators might use this critical understanding of the discursive landscape to facilitate ideological becoming and, ultimately, to develop more liberatory and healing DLBE discourses.