“Don't Take Our Space”: Strategies, Agency, and Resistance in the White Space of a Dual Language Program

Abstract

This ethnographic case study investigates one dual language (DL) program in the midwestern United States. Drawing on concepts of “The White Space” (Anderson, 2015) and spaces of multilingualism (Blommaert et al., 2005), it explores the social perceptions, actions, and normative sensibilities of young children in a DL program where people of color are “typically absent, not expected, or marginalized when present” (Anderson, 2015, p. 10). This study shows how students and teachers co‐construct DL spaces and highlights how racially minoritized children resist, navigate, and (re)shape relationships in the White Space of the program. The article concludes by encouraging researchers and teacher educators to support DL teachers in their development of a critical consciousness to help them name and counteract inequities in DL programs.