Educational Leaders’ Agentive Power to Disrupt Racial and Linguistic Hierarchies

Abstract

Within the current U.S. climate of post-truth politics, systemic barriers threaten to reify racial and linguistic hierarchies. Students and communities are stuck at the intersection of macro language education policies and micro enactments of said policies. Latinx communities notably are experiencing intensified segregation, even in bilingual education programs designed to support linguistic and cultural diversity. This study brings together two ethnographic investigations exploring the agentive power of educators who acted as policy arbiters to disrupt asymmetrical power relations, implementing meaningful change in rural and suburban bilingual education contexts in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The findings explore the transformative power of single arbiters to disrupt hierarchies, but led us to problematize the notion of sustaining agentive power within a single arbiter, arguing for collective arbitration networks to maintain long-term advocacy.