Can Bilingual Education Generate Meaningful School Integration? A Case-Study of Los Angeles
CRIS & LIEPP Seminar with Lucrecia Santibañez (UCLA), November 14th, 2025
Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, urban schools in the United States remain increasingly segregated by race, income, and language, concentrating low-income students in under-resourced schools. The recent rise of vouchers, charter schools, and homeschooling challenges decades of integration efforts.
Bilingual Education, or [translate:Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs] as they are called in the U.S., offers a potential solution. These programs provide instruction in English and a target language while fostering academic rigor, bilingualism, biculturalism, and cross-cultural competence.
DLI is the fastest-growing educational model in many states. Because language, race, and economic status are closely linked, DLI schools attract families with different home languages, bringing together students from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
This lecture discusses a recent research program studying DLI in [translate:Los Angeles], the second-largest public school district in the country. It covers how and where DLI programs develop, their effects on segregation, learning and linguistic outcomes, and strategies to recruit diverse families.
"Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, urban schools in the United States are increasingly segregated by race, income, and language, with low-income students concentrated in under-resourced schools."
"Bilingual Education, or 'Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs' as they are known in the United States, present a potential solution by providing instruction in English and a target language while promoting academic rigor, bilingualism/biculturalism, and cross-cultural competence."
Author's summary: Dual-language immersion programs in Los Angeles aim to reduce segregation by uniting students from diverse socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds while enhancing academic and cultural skills.
Would you like the HTML formatted with additional sections or more bullet points for clarity?