Dual Language Bilingual Education Placement Practices: Educator Discourses About Emergent Bilingual Students in Two Program Types

This article explores the placement practices of students into different educational programs in PreK-first grade, including two bilingual education programs and an ESL mainstream classroom. We then examine the discourse practices of four third-grade teachers and the school principal. Our findings suggest that initial program placement resulted in a perception that students were tracked by ability, and educator discourses on student ability reflected long-term consequences of these initial placement practices. We conclude with both theoretical implications and practical suggestions for the development of equitable dual language bilingual education program implementation.