ABSTRACT
As we look back at the struggles of Civil Rights activists to ensure bilingual education, we can better see the future for an “otherwise” in a transformed dual language bilingual education (DLBE). In this chapter, we provide the theoretical grounding for dual language bilingual programs to be spaces of equity by focusing on three “otherwise” theories: decolonial, nepantlera, and raciolinguistic ideologies. These theoretical perspectives shed light on how language, bilingualism, and biliteracy have been normalized in schools in ways that often exclude the practices of bilingual-minoritized students. Decolonizing, nepantlerizing, and disrupting raciolinguistic ideologies in DLBE disrupt traditional understandings of language, culture, and history. This then brings into full-view minoritized bilingual students themselves, as well as how they learn by leveraging their own knowledge systems and ways of doing language, their translanguaging. The chapter proposes that DLBE adopts the critical approaches explored in this chapter: a critical flexible dual language bilingual allocation policy at the program level, and critical pedagogical practices at the classroom level.
