This book is essential reading for educators, parents, and policy makers interested in establishing Dual Language Bilingual Education programs. Focusing on a single school viewed over a seven-year period, the chapters describe the very serious social justice challenges surrounding gentrification and tell a compelling story about the ways that sincere efforts to build an inclusive school can still result in re-centering whiteness and marginalizing low-income children and their families.
— Guadalupe Valdés, Stanford University
This is a troubling account. Gentrification and Bilingual Education takes a close look at the gentrification of Latino communities and how this can be ironically enhanced by the availability of two-way dual language/bilingual education programs. It raises the serious, if not haunting, question of whether vulnerable communities comprised of immigrant, bilingual learners should entertain the resources that a gentrifying community brings. This book is destined to be a staple of Critical Bilingual Education Studies.
— Angela Valenzuela, University of Texas at Austin; author of Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring
People advocating for the expansion of DLBE programs often point to quantitative studies that illustrate their effectiveness at improving student academic outcomes. This volume powerfully illustrates the ways that long-term ethnographic research can help us to move beyond these numbers by bringing critical attention to troublesome dynamics—including the ways that the expansion of DLBE programs may serve to displace the racialized bilingual students they were created to support. Gentrification and Bilingual Education is a must-read for anybody currently working with or hoping to begin DLBE programs in their local communities in ways that support racialized bilingual students.
— Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania
This book provides a deep, critical, and much needed examination of interest convergence and gentrification with respect to dual language bilingual education. Gentrification and Bilingual Education demonstrates through multiple data sources how working class Spanish speaking children are initially invited to participate in dual language programs because they serve the interests of white English speaking children intending to learn Spanish. Over time, with increased gentrification of the neighborhood, it becomes clear that the dual language programs move exclusively towards a white mainstream, colorblind curriculum. This book is a must-read for bilingual educators who wish to learn about the power dynamics in dual language bilingual education.
— Christian J. Faltis, Texas A&M International University