English and Spanish 'para un futuro' - or just English? Immigrant family perspectives on two-way immersion

摘要

This article considers immigrants' perspectives on language immersion education. Data are drawn from a longitudinal research project that examined one suburban school district's construction of a two-way immersion (TW1), bilingual education policy. Analyses focus on 18 months of participant observation with six Mexican immigrant families who had at least one child in TWI. Framed by the language policy and planning literature as well as the study of childhoods, the findings foreground both parents' and children's understandings of their district's new policy. Parents' hopes for TWI to develop students' bilingualism matched the policy's stated intentions, but children also foregrounded the public debate's focus on developing students' English skills. The discussion considers what these contrasting perspectives mean for the political implementation of bilingual, TWI policies.