Juntos effort to preserve children’s bilingualism in English-dominated language landscape

Abstract

This paper presents a collaborative effort between a Head Start lead teacher and an educational scholar, focusing on a Head Start classroom in a non-traditional migration area in Pennsylvania. The joint initiative, called Juntos, was undertaken to support children's bilingualism in a context where English is the dominant language. The classroom is located in a semi-rural region, a historically White-dominated area that has undergone significant demographic changes in recent decades. These changes have led to cultural, economic, and linguistic tensions between original residents and new immigrants. Such tensions are evident in the Head Start classroom, where approximately 95% of the students come from Spanish-speaking households. English has historically dominated this region, shaping both the educational system and societal perceptions. Despite the growing Spanish-speaking population, these structures have not adapted to accommodate this shift, resulting in English remaining the primary language of instruction, with Spanish-speaking students often placed in ESL programs. Consequently, school readiness has become synonymous with English proficiency.

In this local context, a bilingual lead teacher strives to foster bilingualism among her students while ensuring they meet school readiness criteria, even though her classroom is not designated as bilingual. Her efforts, in collaboration with a researcher, have resulted in students becoming proficient in both English and Spanish. This ethnographic study documents her resistance to the hegemony of English as the language of education and seeks to amplify and advocate for the voices of bilingual early childhood educators in linguistically diverse regions where language dominance persists, with the goal of empowerment and representation.