1. Promoting Bilingualism and Multiculturalism
Through Powerful Learning Communities
Sonia Nieto
Loyola Marymount University
February 2009

2. Framework for understanding quality education
for linguistic minority students
Comprehensive
school reform
(collective)
Sociopolitical
context of schools
and society
(institutional/ ideological)
Personal values
and commitments
(individual)

3. Sociopolitical context [who has power. How it is used. Who benefits
Sociopolitical context [who has power? How it is used? Who benefits? Who loses?]
Societal level:
Who counts?
Who has access to education? health care? employment? housing?
Who can speak their native language in the community? at work?
What counts?
Whose language is “standard”?
Whose lifestyle is “normal”?
School level:
How do school policies and practices benefit some students over others? (curriculum, pedagogy, disciplinary policies, hiring practices, parent outreach, etc.)
Ex, Curriculum: Whose knowledge counts?
What knowledge does the curriculum reflect?
Whose perspective is represented?
Who benefits? Who loses?

4. Quality EDUCATION for linguistic minority students =
Equity
Access

5. Asking “profoundly multicultural questions”
Who’s taking calculus? physics? Are there enough labs for all students?
Is the bilingual (ESL, ELL, or special education) program in the basement? (hall closet?under the stairway? next to the boiler?)
What are our children worth?
Who’s teaching the children?

6. Seven Basic Characteristics of Multicultural Education
Anti-racist/anti-bias education
Basic education
Important for all students/people
Pervasive
A process
Education for social justice
Critical pedagogy

7. Anti-racist, anti-bias education
Not simply celebratory
Doesn’t automatically “take care” of racism
Inclusive of biases other than racial (gender,
language, social class, sexual orientation, etc.)

8. Anti-racist, anti-bias education
Confronts racism and other biases directly through content, approaches, and pedagogy:
Welcomes “dangerous discourse”
Teaches young people skills in combating bias
Pays attention to how some students benefit over others
in school policies and practices

9. Basic Education
As necessary as reading, writing, arithmetic, and computer literacy
Part of the core curriculum
A more representative, more truthful canon
Preparation for living in an increasingly diverse, complex, and interconnected world

10. Important for all students
Not just for “urban,” “minority,” “at risk,” “disadvantaged” students
All students have been miseducated, although in different ways

11. Pervasive A philosophy; a way of thinking about the world
Not a specific subject matter, unit, class, or teacher
Not just ethnic tidbits, holidays, festivals, or fairs
A philosophy;
a way of thinking
about the world

12. Pervasive: Permeates everything
Curriculum
Pedagogical approaches
Sorting practices
Staff diversity
Reading materials
School traditions and rituals
Assembly programs
Letters sent home
Bulletin boards
Outreach to homes and community at large
Athletic programs
Cafeteria food

13. Education for social justice
Recognizes the injustice and inequality in the world
Prepares students to be citizens in a multicultural and democratic society
Focuses on the role that students and teachers can play in turning injustice into justice
Puts learning into action
Is democracy at its best: messy, complicated, and sometimes full of conflict

14. A Process Beyond curriculum and materials, textbooks and units
Dynamic, ongoing, ever-changing
Involves intangibles
Relationships
Communication
Learning preferences

15. Critical pedagogy
Recognizes that knowledge is neither neutral nor apolitical and that every educational decision is a political decision
Teaches students to question, explore, and critique
Helps teachers and students understand different perspectives
Helps students and teachers move beyond their partial (and therefore) limited experiences
Not about “political correctness,” but about affirmation and respect for all students of all backgrounds

16. promoting bilingualism and multiculturalism
Teaching as solidarity
Teaching as advocacy
Teaching as sociocultural mediation
Teaching as political work

17. Teaching as Solidarity
At my undergraduate college, I was in the majority. That was mostly who was in the program: White women who were native speakers of English. But in the BEM Summer Program, out of 30 students, there were a handful of native English speakers…
Mary Cowhey

18. Teaching as Solidarity
Bill Dunn
Coming out of the closet as a Spanish speaker
In my work, I often act as a bridge between different cultures. Part of my evolution as a teacher has been in self defense: I have learned to make my life easier by making life easier for my students; but another, greater part of my experience has been a deep curiosity and yearning to understand the lives of my students. In my struggle to understand, I have learned not only a great deal about my students, but also about myself…

19. Teaching as Advocacy Ambrizeth lima
I teach because I believe that young people have rights, including the right to their identities and their languages… This has meant that I’ve had to engage in many struggles to retain bilingual education {a right that was eradicated in 2002 when the voters of Massachusetts supported the elimination of bilingual education through a ballot initiative)…
Teaching is about power. That is why it must also be about social justice.

20. Sociocultural mediation
Teaching as
Sociocultural mediation
I'm a White, middle-class woman who grew up in a White, middle-class neighborhood and went to a White middle-class college. I know if I was really going to teach today’s kids, I had a lot to learn…
Mary Ginley

21. Teaching as Political work
Diana Caballero:
When I started teaching over 35 years ago in a second grade classroom of a New York City public school, I was motivated by a passionate belief in equality and social change. My commitment to educational change stemmed from my personal background as a working-class Puerto Rican growing up in the South Bronx in the 1950s.
“Teaching is always political” (Paulo Freire)

22. LESSONS LEARNED From these teachers and from other research
Diversity is a resource, not a problem
Students with previous schooling need more than language instruction
Students do not need to be separated from same-language peers to develop English language skills
Parents and community members need to be welcomed and involved in the education of their children
Teachers need to confront their unexamined assumptions to understand how racism and other biases operate in schools and influence both their teaching and their students’ learning
Teachers can - and should - have high academic standards while at the same time affirming students’ identities
Students are often our best teachers

23. Learning from students
Only as learners recognize themselves democratically and see that their right to say “I be” is respected, will they become able to learn the dominant grammatical reasons why they should say “I am.”
Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, 1998