"Dignity and Worth as a Person": Teacher organizing, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, and bilingual education today

Udall Center Fellows Talk by Leah Durán

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When

noon to 1:30 p.m., Feb. 13, 2024

Join us for a Udall Center Fellows Talk by Leah Durán2023-24 Udall Center Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies in the UArizona College of Education.

Prof. Durán will be presenting her work as a Udall Center Fellow, followed by a question-and-answer session with attendees. The Udall ­­Center Fellows Program offers a semester off from normal teaching to allow for creative scholarship and pursuit of funds to further the Fellow’s research.­­

This talk describes how a small, multiracial group of Tucson-based teachers and organizers built on grassroots bilingual education efforts in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Arizona, in order to successfully lobby for the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. Relying primarily on archival documents and oral histories, this research investigates how such an effort came about, what arguments and tactics this group used, and how those arguments were taken up and at times altered by federal legislators. This talk also considers how this policy accomplishment is remembered (or forgotten) today by scholars of bilingual education. To that end, I consider not only how this group achieved a significant national policy reform, but also what this history reveals about which challenges in bilingual education have been perennial, what issues the field has worked through and what promising approaches have been forgotten.

Lunch will be provided, but space is limited! Please register to attend by February 9th.

Contacts

Molli Bryson

Attachments