Culturally relevant pedagogy receives limited attention in many U.S. dual language classrooms. This article focuses on understanding the barriers eight elementary Spanish-English dual language teachers saw as preventing the implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy in their urban classrooms. Employing critical sociocultural theory and drawing on pláticas as a method, four primary barriers were identified: lack of time, lack of culturally relevant materials, lack of knowledge, and the belief that social justice topics were inappropriate for young children. The individual and contextual issues surrounding these barriers and their implications are discussed for teacher educators and those involved in dual language education.

We argue the emergence of a shift in U.S. language education policy discourses from an equity/heritage (EH) framework focused on equity for English learners and non-English heritage languages, toward a global human capital (GHC) framework linked to neoliberal considerations of the language skills of individuals and nations. This discursive shift represents a change in the audience to which language education programs are primarily marketed. Drawing on a critical approach to content analysis to test for evidence of this discursive shift in Utah, we analyzed 164 articles from 5 Utah newspapers from 2005 to 2011 that assigned value statements to dual language and bilingual education. EH values declined or changed little over time whereas GHC values increased. Policy implications are discussed.

Utah’s public schools are home to an increasing number of K/1–6 dual language (DL) programs established through a state-centralized model that has sparked interest domestically and internationally. We theorize three potential constituencies of DL—maintenance, heritage, and world language—then use critical discourse analysis to examine how equitably multiple official state promotional materials discursively portray these constituencies and their interests as well as what other discourses most strongly emerge. We found Utah’s state DL discourses were targeted primarily toward a White, world language constituency, and we found that the explicit privileging of economic considerations discursively erased equity and local language concerns associated with maintenance and non-White heritage constituencies. We argue that this discursive misdirection represents a narrow application of the language-as-resource policy orientation. We conclude with implications for favoring a version of globalized language education that promotes local diversity and equitable access to opportunities.

This article provides a snapshot in time of teacher perceptions, school culture, and partnership building. We delineate how teachers perceive our partnership’s purpose and its role in transforming school culture. Second, we describe how teachers express the life expectations they have and the possibilities they hope for their students and the families involved with the partnership. Finally, we outline our thoughts on moving forward with building partnership, continuing to transform school culture, and collaborating with teachers. In conclusion, we discuss the role that partnership building can have o n creating pathways to higher education for students in communities of color.