ABSTRACT
As DLBE educators and researchers, part of our conscientization call is to (1) name problems/tensions/contradictions “of objectivity, meritocracy, color-blindness, race, neutrality, and equal opportunity” in DLBE settings and (2) act on them, thereby fulfilling the two-part definition of Paolo Freire's critical consciousnesses. One such problem brought to the field's collective consciousnesses is how emergent bilinguals (EBs) are often treated as a homogenous group in the research literature, when in reality they consist of many heterogenous peoples with distinct sociocultural realities and educational experiences. The study and application of intersectional analyses can be one way to address the enduring call for educators of EBs to fulfill the action-component of critical, or sociopolitical, consciousness so that DLBE programs may garner greater equity in pursuit of social justice. The three questions that guide this theoretical literature review are: (a) What is intersectionality, and how is it relevant to DLBE? (b) How has intersectionality (not) been explored in the DLBE literature? (c) How can intersectional analyses foster socially just DLBE programs? This chapter is organized by the three research questions with the major themes in the research, followed by a call for future research.
