Cogent Education

Intersectional identities: Navigating race, gender, ableism, and sociopolitical climates in Dual Language Bilingual Education

Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) is one of the fastest-growing approaches to language education in the United States, reflecting schools’ efforts to prepare students for participation in an increasingly interconnected and multilingual world (Christian, 2016). DLBE programs pursue four interconnected goals: bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, sociocultural competence, and—more recently emphasized—critical consciousness, which engages students and educators in analyzing and challenging systems of inequity (Dorner et al., 2022; Howard et al., 2018). These goals are enacted through a range of program models: one-way programs serving primarily monolingual speakers, two-way programs intentionally integrating English-dominant and partner-language speakers, and heritage or native-language programs that center the cultural and linguistic assets of students with family connections to the partner language (Fortune & Tedick, 2008). Together, these models hold the promise of affirming students’ identities and fostering additive bilingualism, though their equitable implementation remains a pressing challenge.

An emerging body of research underscores how intersectional identities shape student experiences in DLBE and influence family and community participation. Multilingual learners with disabilities, for example, often face systemic barriers to inclusion, receiving fewer bilingual supports in special education or being excluded from biliteracy opportunities due to assumptions about their ability to acquire multiple languages (Cioè-Peña, 2021; Kangas, 2017; Paradis et al., 2021). Limited preparation among bilingual and special educators compounds these inequities (Ortiz et al., 2020). Beyond disability, race, gender, socioeconomic class, and language background intersect to influence how students are labeled and positioned, determining whose identities are affirmed and whose are marginalized (Hamman-Ortiz & Palmer, 2023). Addressing these dynamics requires resisting deficit-based sorting practices and designing DLBE structures that affirm the full range of students’ identities.

Scholars also caution that the rapid expansion of DLBE is often shaped by neoliberal logics that frame multilingualism as a marketable skill for White, English-dominant students, rather than as a right for language-minoritized communities (Flores & García, 2017; Valdez et al., 2016). In some contexts, DLBE has even contributed to neighborhood gentrification, redirecting resources away from immigrant and working-class families (Heiman & Yanes, 2018). Embedding critical consciousness as a core program goal can counter these inequities by fostering curricula and assessments that honor students’ identities and by reframing bilingual education as a tool for equity and collective empowerment.

Recent shifts in rhetoric and policy that reduce support for multilingual learner programs threaten DLBE’s future and undermine what research consistently identifies as the most effective approach for these students (Delavan et al., 2004; Mahoney et al., 2022; Roda et al., 2025). Such shifts affect not only resources but also students’ everyday experiences, often reproducing inequities tied to race, gender, and ability (Cioè-Peña, 2021). Because students’ experiences cannot be separated from their interconnected identities, attending to intersectionality is critical. Educators’ assumptions, classroom practices, and relationships with families, alongside broader sociopolitical climates shaped by anti-immigrant discourse and funding debates, influence belonging, access, and the sustainability of bilingual programs. Safeguarding DLBE requires professional learning that engages bias and identity, authentic partnerships with families, and success metrics that go beyond test scores to include affirmation, belonging, and equity.

This Article Collection invites submissions that critically examine the role of intersectional identities in advancing equity and fostering belonging in bilingual education. We seek scholarship that explores how overlapping identities shape the experiences of multilingual learners and how educators, administrators, teacher education programs, and community organizations can collectively support these identities.

Areas of inquiry may include, but are not limited to:

• The influence of intersectional identities on pedagogy, student learning, and policy
• Experiences of bilingual learners with disabilities
• Gendered and racialized dynamics within DLBE
• Teacher positionality, advocacy, and practice in the current sociopolitical climate
• Partnerships with multilingual families and communities
• Teacher preparation for supporting the intersectional identities of future students
• Educator and student perspectives on belonging and identity in bilingual education
• Program-level leadership or policy decisions that shape equity in DLBE
• Comparative or cross-national perspectives on intersectionality in DLBE

We welcome empirical studies, theoretical analyses,  policy analyses, historical work, practitioner inquiry, community-engaged research, and conceptual essays. Submissions that highlight underrepresented languages, community-based bilingual education models, and marginalized identities are particularly encouraged. Collectively, the articles in this collection will provide a critical foundation for understanding the impact of intersectional identities on bilingual education and will offer new directions for building equitable, inclusive, and sustainable programs for multilingual learners.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system. Please select Language Education from the list of available sections during submission. Failure to select the appropriate Article Collection or Section name can result in delays.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 10 July 2026.

Please contact Kristen Brida at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

About the Guest Advisors

Sandra Silva-Enos, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Education in the School of Education and Social Work at Providence College. Her research is guided by commitments to sociocultural competence, human rights, and social justice, with a focus on creating equitable and inclusive learning environments for multilingual students, particularly Latino/a/x/e, Black, and immigrant youth. She examines how sociocultural competence can be lived out in dual language bilingual classrooms and how identity development and belonging take shape in academic spaces. She also works with teachers and pre-service teachers to build the skills and dispositions needed to engage diverse families and communities while advancing equity in education.

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Nuo Xu, Ph.D., is a literacy educator, researcher, and multilingual education specialist whose work focuses on bilingual education, biliteracy, and critical literacy practices. She teaches courses in reading and literacy in the Department of Elementary Education at San Francisco State University. Her interdisciplinary research examines dual language bilingual education, teacher education, critical literacy, and U.S. immigrant family experiences, with particular attention to the intersections of race, language, and education. Her current projects explore the sociopolitical contexts of language and literacy education for linguistically and culturally minoritized students, as well as teaching practices that foster critical consciousness and promote educational equity.

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Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Silva-Enos and Dr. Xu do not have any Conflicts of Interest to disclose.