Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2022

The Continuum of Racial Literacies: Teacher Practices Countering Whitestream Bilingual Education

Laura C. Chávez-Moreno University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

An equitable education for linguistically minoritized and racialized-Othered youth fosters their biliteracy and critical consciousness about racial ideologies. Yet little is known about how or whether secondary-level dual-language bilingual-education programs and teachers seek to enhance students’ critical consciousness—especially as a means of grappling with racist ideologies. Drawing together literacy and race studies in education, I theorize a continuum of racial literacies, then employ it to examine dual-language curriculum and instruction practices. I use interview and classroom-observation data to reveal that a racially diverse dual-language program offered more racial-literacy practices on the hegemonic end of the continuum than the counterhegemonic end. Using teachers’ practices as an index of their program’s stance on racial literacy, I argue that the program provided a whitestream bilingual education: it offered biliteracy schooling through hegemonic racial-literacy practices that perpetuate white supremacy. The teachers’ successes and challenges speak to the need for structural attention to resources, training, and program-wide support for critical-racial-literacy practices. I conclude the article by joining calls for bilingual education to enhance youths’ critical-racial consciousness, adding racial to signal the need to be intentional in teaching about and countering racism, colonialism, and imperialism.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2022-11-15
DOI
10.58680/rte202232151
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing across the curriculum race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Smagorinsky (2025)
    Writing and Reading Qualitative Characters
    Written Communication
  2. Autry et al. (2024)
    Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English
    Research in the Teaching of English

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    Research in the Teaching of English
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    Research in the Teaching of English
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CrossRef global citation count: 9 View in citation network →

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