In the early 2000s, I followed the development of one suburban school district’s new two-way immersion (TWI), bilingual education policy. As they decided to shift from a typical/transitional bilingual education program to two-way immersion for all of their Spanish-dominant students, there was much public discontent and debate. I explored:
- how immigrant parents navigated the public debate and made choices about “TWI” (Dorner, 2012; Dorner, 2011)
- the public discourse and “zone of intolerance” about TWI, as seen in school board meetings, newspaper reports, and parent-run listservs (Dorner, 2011)
- how children take part in families’ sense-making about policy (Dorner, 2015; Dorner, 2010)
More recently, colleagues and I (Cervantes-Soon, Dorner, et al., 2017; Dorner & Cervantes-Soon, 2020; Palmer, et al., 2019) have reviewed research on two-way immersion education, critically pointing out that TWI programs do not always live up to their promise of equality, equal opportunity, and high achievement for all students and families. A summary of this research is included in this “e-brief” about two-way immersion bilingual education (2016). See also:
- Dorner, L., Moon, J. Freire, J., Gambrell, J., Kasun, S., & Cervantes-Soon, C. (2023). Dual language bilingual education as a pathway to racial integration? A place-based analysis of policy enactment. Peabody Journal of Education, 98(2), 185-204.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2023.2191566 - Dorner, L., Cervantes-Soon, C., Heiman, D., & Palmer D. (2021). “Now it’s all upper-class parents who are checking out schools:” Gentrification facing two-way bilingual policy enactment across scales, contexts, and stakeholders. Language Policy, 20(3), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-021-09580-6
- Dorner, L. & Lee, S. (2020). Una búsqueda de la equidad y la justicia: District leaders attempt to expand dual language bilingual education for equity. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 23(3), 3-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555458920916910