Despite the linguistic diversity in the US, hostility towards non-English languages has been prevalent throughout the nation's history, especially from those in positions of power. Such enmity extended into the education system; hence, bilingual education is traditionally unpopular among Americans. While many policies since the first federal Bilingual Education Act have nominally created opportunities for bilingual education, schools have struggled to implement these programs due to vague and contradictory information in policies. These challenges are indicative of the gaps noted in past research between research, policy, and practice. The present study aimed to qualitatively explore whether two factors relating to research and practice may relate to the degree to which bilingual education policies were successful, specifically in states with large populations of Latinos. The two factors evaluated were the extent to which bilingual education terminology was accurately used in policies and the severity with which the Latino Threat Narrative manifested in the three states of interest, California, Florida, and Texas. Results indicated that these factors may relate to bilingual education policy success such that more accurate bilingual education terminology and lower severity of the narrative's manifestation each corresponded with more successful bilingual education policy. Because bilingual education programs have been found to foster more accepting communities, results from these studies suggest a need to resolve the issues affecting the success of bilingual education so as to promote multiculturalist values in the nation.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23582