“Now it’s all upper-class parents who are checking out schools”: gentrification as coloniality in the enactment of two-way bilingual education policies

Bilingual education as a whole has been gentrifying, as more privileged students replace Transnational Language Learners (TLLs) in bilingual education spaces and policies (Valdez et al. in Educ Policy 30(6):849–883, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904814556750). We argue this is an extension of coloniality (Mignolo in Local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000/2012): as two-way bilingual education (TWBE) policies are enacted, they are shaped by globalizing, neoliberal, and monoglossic discourses that have a history of dispossessing and erasing minoritized peoples and languages. Taking a critical constructivist grounded theory approach, this study brings together three unique data sets from the US Midwest, Southeast, and Texas to question: How does gentrification manifest in TWBE across policy scales and contexts? And how are stakeholders responding to or resisting gentrification and its underlying coloniality? Regardless of the varying state policy and local contexts, each TWBE program in our study experienced gentrification. Specifically, TLLs and their Spanish language(s) were replaced or diminished as TWBE policy enactment intersected with district and state policies, particularly those shaping enrollment, transportation, course scheduling, and teacher and student recruitment. While the analysis focuses on gentrification processes through policy enactment, we also detail spaces of consciousness where stakeholders recognized and resisted them and conclude with a discussion on how coloniality is both manifested and can be challenged in language policy enactment.