TY - JOUR
T1 - Moving away from the 4-hour block
T2 - Arizona’s distinctive path to reversing its restrictive language policies
AU - Kaveh, Yalda M.
AU - Bernstein, Katie A.
AU - Cervantes-Soon, Claudia
AU - Rodriguez-Martinez, Sara
AU - Mohamed, Saida
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - In spring 2019, without controversy or fanfare and without violating the voter mandate of Proposition 203, emergent bilinguals in Arizona were once again granted unrestricted access to dual language bilingual education after nearly 20 years. The policy change was accomplished through a seemingly small piece of legislation that reduced the daily Structured English Immersion requirement from four hours to two hours. In this study, we analyze the Senate and House education committee hearings in which this legislation was unanimously approved before being signed into law by the governor. Using critical discourse analysis and through a theoretical lens of interest convergence, we examine the strategic moves utilized by speakers and legislators to build consensus for this remarkable, yet overlooked, legislation. We found that, in contrast to policy reforms in California and Massachusetts, which used a “multilingualism-for-all” strategy, the speakers and legislators in Arizona focused on English learners. Yet, they worked to show that a change benefitting English learners would also benefit parents, schools, teachers, districts, and even the state of Arizona. Our findings suggest that advocacy for bilingual education that is informed by contextual awareness and translated into the local discourse can produce success, even in conservative contexts such as Arizona.
AB - In spring 2019, without controversy or fanfare and without violating the voter mandate of Proposition 203, emergent bilinguals in Arizona were once again granted unrestricted access to dual language bilingual education after nearly 20 years. The policy change was accomplished through a seemingly small piece of legislation that reduced the daily Structured English Immersion requirement from four hours to two hours. In this study, we analyze the Senate and House education committee hearings in which this legislation was unanimously approved before being signed into law by the governor. Using critical discourse analysis and through a theoretical lens of interest convergence, we examine the strategic moves utilized by speakers and legislators to build consensus for this remarkable, yet overlooked, legislation. We found that, in contrast to policy reforms in California and Massachusetts, which used a “multilingualism-for-all” strategy, the speakers and legislators in Arizona focused on English learners. Yet, they worked to show that a change benefitting English learners would also benefit parents, schools, teachers, districts, and even the state of Arizona. Our findings suggest that advocacy for bilingual education that is informed by contextual awareness and translated into the local discourse can produce success, even in conservative contexts such as Arizona.
KW - Arizona
KW - English language learners
KW - Language policy
KW - dual language education
KW - emergent bilingual students
KW - interest convergence
KW - structured English immersion
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U2 - 10.1080/19313152.2021.1973261
DO - 10.1080/19313152.2021.1973261
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115141355
SN - 1931-3152
VL - 16
SP - 113
EP - 135
JO - International Multilingual Research Journal
JF - International Multilingual Research Journal
IS - 2
ER -