Equitable language allocation and program models in dual language bilingual education: From oversimplification to decision-making processes at all scales

Abstract

This theoretical article, with recommendations for practice, interrogates how the field discusses dual language bilingual education (DLBE) models in the United States, with international implications for bilingual, immersion, and content and language integrated learning contexts. We reconceptualize the equity problems and potentials of so-called program models and language allocation as aspects of what we term linguistic resource strategy—the various language-related resources that language users strategize their use of. We describe three inequitable oversimplifications that stem from what we call models-talk—the oversimplified ways in which the dominant definitions of program models structure much of the DLBE conversation. We then respond to these three problems by offering a framework that can help educators and scholars more easily embrace the complexity of the full spectrum of decision making involved in allocating language(s) and how to assess its degree of equity. Building on theories of translanguaging and a retheorizing of linguistic resources and repertoires, this framework for language allocation conceptualizes three decision-making processes: grouping by students’ linguistic repertoires, alternating and connecting language(s), and allotting content and time to language(s). We identify questions to drive equity-centered planning at three scales: macro (government or district, school, and program policy), meso (planned curriculum, instruction, and materials), and micro (in-the-moment implementation decisions).