UC San Diego

This study examined the experiences of the local actors responsible for implementing dual immersion education within the classroom, i.e. teachers. The number of dual immersion programs in California has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Initial growth is attributed to restrictive state language policy during the late 1990s, but has continued due to integration efforts by local schools and districts to attract more privileged families to DI magnet programs. The duality of language instruction means teachers and administrators may find themselves navigating what I call the dilemma of duality, that is, teaching dual languages, serving dual groups, and addressing the divergent dual national, state, and district standards of English and that of a partner language. I employ coupling theory to understand the dynamic configurations between institutions, organizations, and social interaction in the workplace (Hallett and Hawbaker 2021). A central goal of this project is to highlight how an organization can display the institutional ideals of accountability and dual immersion, while decoupling classroom activities from those ideals. The dilemma of duality highlights this process by studying the practices and experiences of dual immersion teachers as they employ an institutional logic of accountability and a logic of adaptability while navigating organizational practices that are loosely- and tightly-coupled to external pressures. At my research site, the absence of state and district standards, accountability structures, and administrative oversight for Spanish development, but routinized assessments and regulatory pressure from district/school administrators for English development, results in a dual immersion program where the classroom activities can change teacher-to-teacher and grade-to-grade. The complexity of state and district standards for language and subject content, as well as state exam requirements, changed as students progressed from kindergarten through fifth grade, which shaped the alignment of teachers practices to institutional and organizational practices. Perceptions were further shaped by the structure of the immersion program, as teachers in a single-teacher format were responsible for English/Spanish language and subject content standards, creating a sense of freedom to deviate from formal curricula and standards. Teachers in the partner format divided their coverage of language and content standards but felt more constrained because of the need to bridge English and Spanish content with each other.