Toward a Race Radical Vision of Bilingual Education for Kurdish Users in Turkey: A Commentary

Abstract

This commentary presents a Race Radical Vision (RRV) for Kurdish-Turkish bilingual education in Turkey.  A RRV reinforces the need to consciously include issues of racism, imperialism, identity, and local practices in the development of bilingual education teacher education programs that advocate for minoritized language use in all aspects of education. It is argued that without a RRV for bilingual education, the State will represent bilingual education to benefit of own interests, ultimately destroying bilingual education as a strong anti-racist educational practice.  Turkey needs a strong RRV of Kurdish-Turkish bilingual education to ensure that racism and colonialism remain in the national educational discourse.  This commentary draws on experiences of bilingual education in the United States as well as other countries to show the importance of a RRV for developing bilingual education from a local language rights perspective.  It also points out some of the challenges bilingual educators and scholars face when State becomes involved in funding and shaping the anti-racist perspective in bilingual the State takes over the anti-racism practices, especially when the State is tied to neoliberalism and neoliberal ideals of individualism and colorblindness.Keywords: Bilingual education, RRV, Kurdish, Turkey