Applied Linguistics 31/1: 72–93 ß Oxford University Press 2009

doi:10.1093/applin/amp011 Advance Access published on 9 April 2009

The Relationship between Applied

Linguistic Research and Language Policy
for Bilingual Education1

DAVID CASSELS JOHNSON

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Washington State University

Currently, restrictive-language policies seem to threaten bilingual education

throughout the USA. Anti-bilingual education initiatives have passed easily in
California, Arizona, and Massachusetts, while one was closely defeated in
Colorado, and federal education policy has re-invigorated the focus on English
education for English language learners, while concomitantly obfuscating the
possibility of native language maintenance and developmental bilingual educa-
tion. This is the educational landscape within which bilingual education
researchers, educators, and students must face the formidable challenge of pre-
serving educational choice and bilingual education. Thus, substantive research is
needed on how bilingual educators navigate this challenging ideological and
policy landscape. Based on an ethnographic study of bilingual education lan-
guage policy, this article takes up this challenge by focusing on how beliefs about
Applied Linguistics research influence the interpretation and appropriation of
federal language policy in one US school district. The results have implications
for the relationship between the Applied Linguistic research community and
language policy processes.

TOWARDS MULTI-LAYERED RESEARCH IN

LANGUAGE POLICY
The field of language planning and policy (LPP) has progressed through a
number of phases [see review in Ricento (2000)], engendering multiple frame-
works which attempt to describe the process of national language planning/
policy development (Fishman 1979; Haugen 1983). While enumerating some
of the possible (and perhaps preferable) steps in and goals of language plan-
ning, these earlier frameworks have been criticized for focusing on top-down
policy making and ignoring the sociopolitical contexts in which language plan-
ning occurs [see review in Ricento (2000)].
Reacting to these so-called positivistic approaches, critical research empha-
sizes how the state can use language policy to perpetuate systems of social
inequality (Tollefson 1991, 2002, 2006; Ricento 1998; Wiley 2002;
Pennycook 2006). Tollefson (2006) articulates the aims of critical language
policy (CLP): (i) it is critical of traditional apolitical LPP approaches and instead
‘acknowledges that policies often create and sustain various forms of social
inequality, and that policy-makers usually promote the interests of dominant
 D. C. JOHNSON 73

social groups’ (Tollefson 2006: 42); (ii) it seeks to develop more democratic
policies which reduce inequality and promote the maintenance of minority
languages; and (iii) it is influenced by critical theory.
CLP scholarship has helped illuminate how language policies can be ideolog-
ical, and presents a rich picture of language policy development as one aspect
amongst many socio-political processes which may perpetuate social inequal-
ity, but it has also been criticized for underestimating the power of
human agency (Ricento and Hornberger 1996) and not capturing the processes

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of language policy development (Davis 1999). As others have noted
(Pennycook 2002; Hornberger and Johnson 2007), an (over)emphasis on the
hegemonic power of language policies delimits the agentive role of local edu-
cators during implementation. Ricento and Hornberger (1996) introduce the
metaphor of an onion to evoke the multiple layers through which language
policy develops and emphasize the language policy power of the teacher exer-
cised through pedagogical decisions. They argue that LPP research has unsuc-
cessfully accounted for activity in all layers. Similarly, Ricento (2000) points
out that language policy research has tended to fall short of fully accounting
for precisely how micro-level interaction relates to the macro-levels of social
organization.
Still, more recent work has examined implementation. Proposition 227 was
a voter-approved measure that restricted the development and maintenance of
bilingual education programs in California. After Proposition 227 was enacted,
bilingual programs were reduced (Gándara 2000), but Garcı́a and Curry-
Rodriguez (2000) note that teachers responded to the law in different
ways—from defiance to acceptance. Reflecting this complexity, ethnographic
portraits of California education, post-Proposition 227, reveal different find-
ings. Baltodano (2004) finds that the formerly pro-bilingual education parents
internalized the English-only ideology in Proposition 227, thus succumbing
to its hegemonic influence. Valdez (2001) and Stritikus (2002), on the other
hand, discuss the agentive role that teachers played in implementation, some-
times shaping the English-only focus of Proposition 227 to meet the needs of
their linguistically diverse students.
Some anthropological (Levinson and Sutton 2001; Gale and Densmore
2003) and sociological work (Ball 2006) on educational policy foregrounds
the agentive role of local educators in policy processes. For example,
Levinson and Sutton (2001) propose a sociocultural approach to educational
policy which recognizes the power in authorized policy and involves research-
ing official policy formation, but also emphasizes the need to consider policy
appropriation2 when the ‘temporarily reified text is circulated across the various
institutional contexts, where it may be applied, interpreted, and/or contested
by a multiplicity of actors’ (Levinson and Sutton 2001: 2). They hope that
traditional and clear-cut divisions between policy formation and implementa-
tion will be replaced with conceptualizations of policy making as a process
which stretches across time and contexts (Ball 2006).
74 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

The fate of bilingual education relies on language policy at multiple levels

from national policies [like No Child Left Behind (NCLB)] to classroom poli-
cies, and everything in between. Yet, most LPP research has traditionally
adopted a ‘top-down’ approach in that it examines either policy language
and/or the historical and sociopolitical development of policies without look-
ing at how such language is interpreted and appropriated. While ethnographic
studies of educational policy (Walford 2003) and educational language policy
(Stritikus 2002; Skilton-Sylvester 2003; Canagarajah 2006) are emerging,
Levinson and Sutton (2001) note that there is still a paucity of ethnographi-

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cally informed data on educational policy and, similarly, Blommaert (1996)
and others (Davis 1999; Hornberger and Johnson 2007) argue that the field
of language policy needs more ethnographic studies which illuminate local
language policy processes.3 As well, little work has been done which includes
both critical analyses of policy discourse and ethnographically captures the
multiple layers of language policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation,
or, in Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) terms, illuminates the various layers
of the LPP onion.
Thus, this article focuses on the appropriation of one policy—Title III of
NCLB—in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and, more specifically,
I focus on a theme which emerged during ethnographic field work: the role
of Applied Linguistics research and researchers in the creation, interpretation,
and appropriation of language policy. The following research question guides
this article: how does Applied Linguistics research shape the interpretation
and appropriation of Title III of NCLB?

METHOD
The ethnography of language policy
This study is an ethnography of language policy which ‘include[s] textual
and historical analyses of policy texts but must be based in an ethnographic
understanding of some local context’ (Hornberger and Johnson 2007). The
results reported herein are part of a larger 3-year (2002–5) multi-sited ethno-
graphic study of bilingual education policy and program development in the
SDP (Johnson 2007). Ethnographic data collection emerged out of a series of
action-oriented research projects on language policy and bilingual program
development with bilingual education teachers, administrators, and outside
researchers. These projects engendered participant observation and field note
collection in many different contexts within the SDP, including the following,
which are of interest for this article: (i) a series of meetings attended by
teachers and administrators during the development of the SDP language
policy, entitled ‘Policy for English Language Learners’ (2005); (ii) the central
administrative office in charge of language policy which operated under three
different names during data collection but is currently called the Office
of Language, Culture, and the Arts (OLCA); and (iii) bilingual teacher
 D. C. JOHNSON 75

professional development meetings. For the sake of data triangulation, I con-

ducted multiple formal and informal interviews with key teachers and admin-
istrators, including recorded interviews with four administrators and four
bilingual teachers and I recorded naturally occurring conversation at language
policy meetings. I also analyzed (and contributed to) multiple drafts of the
formal SDP language policy as well as informal policy texts (SDP language
education literature and web site texts).
In order to contextualize what was happening in the SDP, the ethnographic
data were then compared with: (i) ‘top-down’ policy texts, including Title VII

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of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), commonly known
as the Bilingual Education Act (BEA), and the multiple drafts of the policy
which took its place, Title III of NCLB; (ii) the political discourse which accom-
panied the creation, interpretation, and appropriation of Title III, including
Senate and House debate over NCLB (found in the legislative record), political
literature released by politicians, and web site information from the USA
and Pennsylvania Departments of Education; and (iii) interviews with one
Federal Department of Education administrator and one Pennsylvania
Department of Education Administrator.

Language policy discourse analysis

Along with ethnography, I use intertextual discourse analysis to analyze the
connections between the various layers of policy discourse. Bakhtin (1986)
proposes that both the texts we write and the speech we create (discourse)
are filled with the echoes of previous speakers and writers. These echoes, or
intertextual connections, imbue texts and discourse with dialogic overtones and
multiple meanings and any interpretation of a (potentially multi-voiced) text
or discourse requires an understanding of these intertextual connections.
Lemke notes that an intertextual approach requires any given text to be
analyzed ‘in the context of and against the background of other texts and
discourses’ (Lemke 1995: 10).
For this study, the object of analysis is policy discourse which includes spoken
interaction (e.g. policy meetings, congressional debate, and interviews) and
writing (e.g. language policy language). Contained within this policy discourse
are policy texts which are a part and product of the discourse and typically take
the form of a language policy in the traditional sense, i.e. the language policy
text. For example, Title III is the product of congressional debate and, there-
fore, a piece of Title III text is both a policy text and a product/part of policy
discourse. What is referred to as a text, then, is simply the reproduction of some
policy discourse and text for the purpose of analysis in this article. Following
Gee’s (1990) distinction of little d and big D discourse, (policy) Discourse refers to
larger discourses [after Foucault (1978)] which influence behavior and inter-
action and tend to normalize particular ways of speaking and being. The pur-
pose of intertextual discourse analysis of language policy is to analyze policy
text and discourse ‘in the context of and against the background of other texts
76 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

and discourses’ to illuminate policy Discourse and establish links between the
various layers of language policy.
Specifically for this article, I focus on circulating ideas about ‘research’ as
they influence bilingual education policy. Each text, collected during ethno-
graphic fieldwork, is analyzed in light of features within the layers of context
which may be intertextually linked. Explanation of the context in which
each text was collected is supported by field notes and participant observation.
Intertextual connections are then analyzed between micro-level language
policy discourse and ‘top-down’ or macro-level language policy Discourse.

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The goal here is to trace the intertextual links between federal and local
language policy discourse by focusing on a particular theme: the role of
Applied Linguistics research and/or researchers in language policy creation,
interpretation, and appropriation.

FEDERAL LANGUAGE POLICY

This section deals with the role of research in the development of Title III
and in the resulting policy language. An analysis is offered of early drafts
of Title III and the discourse (legislative debate) which led to its enactment.
I look at how ‘bilingual education’ is defined and the requirement that
all language education programs should have scientifically based research
support.

Defining bilingual education

Beginning in 1968 when it was first enacted, Title VII of the ESEA, otherwise
known as the BEA, was the preeminent federal educational language policy
which governed how federal money was administered to language education
programs in the USA. At the time of its inception, the goals of bilingual educa-
tion were vague and definitions and typologies were scarce (Crawford 1998;
Ricento 1998; Wiley and Wright 2004); those on the political left and right in
the US supported what seemed to be an effective way for transitioning ELLs
into English language classrooms. This ambiguity in goals affected each install-
ment of the act when it was revised four more times, but in 1994 there was a
definitive shift in the policy language toward valuing bilingualism as a resource
(Wiese and Garcia 2001) and promoting both transitional and developmental4
bilingual education (in which native languages are developed). Yet, in 2002,
Title VII was effectively replaced by Title III of the newly named ‘No Child Left
Behind Act’ (NCLB). With its vigorous attention to English language acquisi-
tion for ELLs, Title III has fomented concern that developmental bilingual
education will be phased out and transitional or English-only pedagogical
approaches phased in (Wiley and Wright 2004).
While critics of Title III decry the dominant focus on English language edu-
cation and concomitant obfuscation of bilingual education, early drafts of the
policy were even more restrictive. House Resolution 1 (HR 1) was introduced
 D. C. JOHNSON 77

in the House of Representatives by John Boehner (Republican-Ohio) and

began with ‘findings’ which make a conspicuous shift away from the language
in the BEA:
(a) FINDINGS – The congress finds as follows: (1) English is the common
language of the United States and every citizen and other person
residing in the United States should have a command of the English
language in order to develop their full potential [HR 1, Title III,
Sec. 3102]

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HR 1 places English at the fore, both in education and in society, because it is
necessary for developing one’s full potential.
This nationalistically monolingual sentiment is accompanied by a three-year
time limit on ELL participation in bilingual education:
[Purpose:] (3) to assist local educational agencies to . . . prepare
limited English proficient students, including recent immigrant
students, to enter all-English instructional settings within 3 years
[emphasis added, HR1, Title III, Sec. 3102].
HR 1 might have restricted bilingual education to three-year transitional pro-
grams and concomitantly outlawed developmental bilingual education.
However, when HR 1 was sent to the Senate for debate, Senators such as
Jack Reed (Democrat-Rhode Island) argued that 3 years was an arbitrary
time limit and students may need more time before they transition into all
English instructional settings (22 June 2001, Congressional Record).
Therefore, in the Senate, the ‘findings’ and 3-year time limit were struck
from the policy and, when it was sent back to the House, legislators like
Silvestre Reyes (Democrat-Texas), who championed late-exit bilingual educa-
tion throughout the legislative process, celebrated the new version of the bill
as a victory for bilingual education. On the House floor, Reyes exclaimed:
I am proud to support the conference report on HR 1 . . . bilingual
programs are important to limited English proficiency children
because they build on native language proficiency to make
the transition to all-English academic instruction . . . Opponents of
bilingual education favored placing a three year time limit on
how long students can be enrolled in bilingual education regardless
of what level of English proficiency they reach . . . The compromise
bill gives students the flexibility to remain enrolled in bilingual
education as long as is appropriate. [Congressional Record,
20 December 2001, emphasis added]
Reyes identifies ‘bilingual education’ as a pedagogical method which builds on
native language proficiency to transition students to all-English academic
instruction. He does not believe that time restrictions should be placed on
this transition but he considers bilingual education to be, by definition, transi-
tional, and not a method for native language maintenance and, thus, his
definition does not include developmental programs.
78 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

While bilingual education supporters, like Reyes (and Ted Kennedy,

Democrat-Massachusetts), saw Title III as a victory for bilingual education,
opponents of bilingual education also felt victorious. In a press release,
Boehner, who had introduced HR 1, proclaimed:
As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (H.R. 1), the bipartisan
education reform legislation signed in January by President
Bush, bilingual education programs across the country are being
transformed to give new tools to parents and to focus on helping

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limited English proficient (LEP) children learn English. [News
from the committee on Education and the Workforce, 17 October
2002]
Boehner’s press release suggests that Title III will transform bilingual education
programs such that they focus on English and, presumably, not mother tongue
education. This, according to HR 1 (which Boehner introduced to Congress),
is necessary for ELLs to develop their full potential, and the quicker they can
transition to English, the better.
Both political allies (like Reyes and Kennedy) and political opponents
(like Boehner) celebrated Title III as a victory; as well, even political allies of
bilingual education perpetuated the Discourse that bilingual education was
necessarily transitional, a notion that is reflected in the final policy text. This
policy Discourse ignores applied linguistic research which (i) compares multi-
ple bilingual program typologies (Hornberger 1991; Garcı́a and Baker 2007)
and (ii) demonstrates the effectiveness of developmental bilingual education
relative to transitional and ESL-focused programs (Thomas and Collier 1997,
2002; Lindholm-Leary 2001; Krashen and McField 2005; Rolstad et al. 2005;
August and Shanahan 2006; Genesee et al. 2006).

‘Scientifically based research’

Along with the focus on English, Title III includes the provision that any
education program must be based on ‘scientifically based research’, repeating
the phrase 119 times. For example, in the beginning of Title III, one of the
‘Purposes’ sets the tone for the rest of Title III:
The purposes of [Part A of Title III] are to . . . provide State agencies
and local agencies with the flexibility to implement language
instructional educational programs, based on scientifically-based
research on teaching limited English proficient children, that the
agencies believe to be the most effective for teaching English
[Title III, Part A, Sec. 3102, 9].
This excerpt suggests that local educators must choose language programs
which are supported by scientifically based research; yet it also poses an inter-
pretive dilemma by simultaneously insisting on local flexibility (another
salient theme coursing through NCLB) while placing at least one, and perhaps
two, restrictions on local choice: (i) any program must be based on
 D. C. JOHNSON 79

scientifically based research; and (ii) the agencies must believe in the effective-
ness of their chosen program. What is believe referring to—beliefs about the
most effective programs or beliefs about scientifically based research? Both
interpretations are plausible based on the policy text alone.
In order to ascertain how the US Department of Education interprets
these policies, I interviewed the director of the State Consolidated Grant
Division5 (Brinda Sea6) in the Office of English Language Acquisition to
discover what, if any, educational programs were supported or promoted
by the Department of Education. She immediately and unequivocally

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responded that they do not promote or prefer any particular method and
are, in fact, prohibited from doing so: ‘We stay completely out of it’ (telephone
conversation, 24 May 2006). She stressed that it was up to the states and
schools to choose particular pedagogical programs for ELLs as long as the
chosen programs are ‘research-based’ and added that as long as they provide
support for their programs in the form of research, they are eligible to receive
Title III funds.
While NCLB does outline the parameters of scientifically based research (see
Title IX, A-B7), the US Department of Education provides little guidance for
local school districts8 regarding which programs the research supports or what
even counts as scientifically based research. Brinda Sea neither advocates
particular bodies of research nor language programs which such research
might support, and asserts that the US Department of Education cannot
prescribe particular pedagogical approaches.9 Not only does federal policy
discourse offer no clear answers, but also federal policy texts, like Title III,
can be confusing since they necessarily contain multiple voices and are
an intertextual mixture of new and old policy language. Of the multiple
authors of Title III, whose intentions carry the most power? Further,
how are such policies—whose authors have conflicting intentions—
interpreted and appropriated in school districts around the USA? How
do educators make sense of these multi-voiced texts?

THE SDP
The SDP is an example of a local education agency responsible for interpret-
ing and appropriating Title III. The fifth largest school district in the USA, the
SDP has around 200,000 students, 14,000 of whom receive ESOL/bilingual
program support services (representing more than a third of the ELL popula-
tion for the entire state of Pennsylvania). While almost 50% of the ELLs
are Spanish speaking, the SDP also serves large populations of Khmer,
Vietnamese, Chinese, and Russian speakers.
The SDP was a forerunner in bilingual education policy and has a history
of supporting bilingual education programs—shortly after Title VII competitive
grant funding became available under the BEA in 1968, pilot programs were
implemented. Since then, bilingual programs have included Russian, Chinese,
Khmer, and Spanish programs. Today, one central administrative office
80 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

oversees all ESOL/bilingual programs. OLCA is the primary interpretative con-

duit for federal language policy and the administrators therein are the primary
arbiters for interpretation and appropriation of educational language policies—
including Titles VII and III.
The data reported in this study arose from my close work with OLCA
on various projects including the SDP language policy which began with
what was called a ‘language policy retreat’ (March, 2003) and ended with its
ratification at a school board meeting (June, 2004). I acted as a participant–
observer during the production of the policy and I also helped edit the policy

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document at various stages in its development. However, while this gave me
an insider’s perspective of how a local policy might be created, the minor
additions I made to the document were largely ignored in the end.
OLCA, in a sense, facilitates the intertextual links between federal and local
language policy, yet the nature of this facilitation varies depending on who is
doing the interpreting and, here, I focus on the various ways that applied
linguistic research and researchers influenced the interpretation and appro-
priation of Title III. Specifically, I look at how two OLCA administrators
and one outside applied linguistic researcher (and SDP consultant) influenced
language policy in the SDP during the development of the SDP language
policy.

Reflexive appropriation of applied linguistics research

In the fall of 2002, OLCA recruited Eve Island, a Title VII consultant to the
SDP and well-known and respected applied linguistic researcher, to begin
developing an official language policy for the entire school district.
Beginning in the spring of 2003, Eve organized and facilitated a series of
policy meetings which culminated in a 2-day language policy retreat at
which around 35 school district employees, teachers, and principals gathered
to flesh out what they would like to see in a language policy.
Eve was a human conduit and intertextual bridge between the Applied
Linguistics research community and the SDP practitioners. Eve would portray
the bilingual teachers’ struggle to maintain their bilingual programs as part of
a larger bilingual education movement going on throughout the USA. For
example, before the language policy retreat, Eve sent an inquiry to the
TESOL Advocacy Listserv, requesting advice for writing a school district
language policy; while she did not receive specific suggestions, she did receive
words of encouragement which she then announced at the beginning of the
language policy retreat. She reported that Donna Christian said, ‘I’ve never
seen anything like this!’ and Richard Ruiz said that he ‘loved this!’ (field
notes, 13 March 2003). In this way, well-known applied linguists were posi-
tioned as supporters of bilingual program development and the language
policy initiative within the SDP.
Eve not only brought words of encouragement to the language policy
retreat, but she also relied heavily on David Corson’s book Language Policy in
 D. C. JOHNSON 81

Schools: A Resource for Teachers and Administrators (1999) (which proposes

theoretical models of school district language policy development) as a foun-
dation for the development of the SDP policy. She used the book as a step-
by-step manual for constructing the policy and she perpetrated the modus
operandi of Corson’s policy theories. For example, Corson adamantly argues
for school language policy creation which draws upon the knowledge and
resources of many different actors, not just a few key administrators, and
in doing so can resist ‘unfair aspects of reproduction and . . . help soften

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social injustices’ (Corson 1999: 25). At the language policy retreat, Eve and
I discussed the ramifications of Corson’s perspective on the SDP language
policy:
Eve refers to creating spaces or the emancipation potential within a
language policy for challenging dominant ideologies and question-
ing how linguistic capital is allotted and this is really important in
Corson’s book. She hopes his theories about the power of a school
language policy to be emancipatory manifests in the SDP [field
notes, 14 March 2003].
Eve herself anthropomorphized the philosophy espoused in Corson’s book by
facilitating negotiation between teachers and administrators and empowering
teachers in the language policy development process. Eve challenged tradi-
tional divisions of language policy ‘creators’ and ‘implementers’.
Eve cited a community of applied linguistic researchers to promote and
maintain local Discourses about the benefits of developmental bilingual edu-
cation and she portrayed larger societal Discourses outside the SDP—as
espoused by Donna Christian and Richard Ruiz—as supportive of local
policy discourse. In this way, Eve challenged monolingual Discourses, so
prevalent within and without US educational language policy, and instead
portrayed applied linguistic research and researchers which support develop-
mental bilingual education as a dominant Discourse.

Applied linguistics research as support

During the development of the SDP language policy, I interviewed another
champion of developmental bilingual programs—the Chief Officer of OLCA,
Emily Dixon-Marquez. Emily helped author both the Title III application
and Title VII grants and was also an integral member of the community that
developed and drafted the SDP language policy. Her influence, however, tran-
scends the time limits of this study as she first started working in the district
in 1973, shortly after Title VII monies were made available under the BEA.
In a recorded interview, she reflects on the history of US bilingual education
language policy, beginning with the BEA:
David: How do you interpret the parameters that were set in the
Bilingual Education Act?
82 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

Emily: Well, I think that whoever set them probably wasn’t basing
it on research because there was none – so in terms of federal grants
3 and 5 years were always convenient numbers.
David: What are the 3 and 5 years?
Emily: Well, transitional bilingual programs were initially 3 years
and then out in the (mainstream) – and that’s how the legislation
read.

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David: So in that title VII grant has continued until NCLB?
Emily: But it’s really evolved – it’s become an enrichment model
whereas before it was just remediation or a deficit type
approach . . . it’s much much much better . . . I think it started it
was like three million – and it’s now into the hundreds of millions
[recorded interview, 11 April 2003].
Emily characterizes the growth of language policy in the USA as developing
and incorporating a better sense of the research because, in part, there was no
body of bilingual education research when Title VII was developed. According
to Emily, US education policy has grown alongside and been buttressed
by applied linguistic research—as the research trends have grown away
from remediation or deficit approaches, and increasingly supported
enrichment models of language education, so has policy, leading right up to
NCLB.
I then asked Emily about NCLB’s requirement that all educational programs
be supported by scientifically based research and how this influenced their
Title III application. Emily said that they referred to the results reported in
Thomas and Collier (1997, 2002) suggesting that two-way (or dual language)
and one-way developmental bilingual education are the two most effective
program models for facilitating content knowledge, acquisition of English,
and maintenance of students’ mother tongues. Based on these studies,
OLCA chose to develop ‘dual language programs’. I asked her why these pro-
grams were acceptable under Title III:
Emily: [W]e preceded NCLB in terms of models and so forth – we’ve
been doing dual language, that’s not new to us, so it hasn’t been
enlightening in that sense. We’re glad that it’s an acceptable model
that they subscribe to.
David: Why is [dual language] an acceptable model?
Emily: I think probably because of the Thomas and Collier study –
which the government is comfortable with and they think has some
integrity to it – and it’s research based . . . plus I think this country is
finally coming to the realization – and I’m probably being really
optimistic, and maybe naı̈ve here – but coming to the realization
that we need to learn more about languages and cultures [recorded
interview, 11 April 2003].
 D. C. JOHNSON 83

Emily asserts that NCLB is simply catching up with what they already knew
in the SDP—developmental bilingual education is an effective and research-
based language education model. Further, Emily senses a shift in the language
ideological landscape in the USA—we are coming to the realization that we
need to promote learning about various languages and cultures.
For Emily, the advancement of knowledge about languages and bilingual
education, supported by applied linguistic research, has engendered bilingual
educational policies which are increasingly sensitive to these shifts. She inter-
prets Title III as being at the forefront of this national ideological shift and thus

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it embodies an enrichment model of bilingual education. Yet, as she argues,
the SDP preceded this national trend toward enrichment models of bilingual
education and thus NCLB has not been enlightening in that sense.
In our interview, Emily was generally very optimistic about Title III and its
effects on bilingual education in the SDP. Along with the policy text support
for dual language education, she expressed gratitude that under Title III, unlike
Title VII, money was no longer distributed according to a competitive grant
and the per pupil entitlement was more per pupil. For Emily, this was ‘won-
derful news’ (recorded interview, 11 April 2003). Emily’s interpretation of
Title III stands in contrast to its creators, like Reyes, who conceptualize ‘bilin-
gual education’ as necessarily transitional. This is not because Emily was una-
ware of the English-focused flavor of NCLB (as the author of the Title III
application, she was well aware of its requirements), but she still interpreted
it as supporting the dual language programs she intended to implement with
Title III money.

Referencing research in local language policy

Within the discourse community responsible for the SDP language policy,
Emily and Eve helped perpetuate the belief that developmental bilingual
education was superior to transitional programs. Inspired by this belief and
buttressed by applied linguistic research (Thomas and Collier 1997, 2002)
and researchers (e.g. Donna Christian, Richard Ruiz, and David Corson), it
appeared as though a policy which outright resisted and/or ignored Title III
would develop. However, initial policy language filled with idealism even-
tually gave way to pragmatism, and, while the initial community of policy
developers included a more egalitarian mix of teachers and administrators
from multiple levels of institutional authority, OLCA eventually took control
of the drafting process.
The developers of the policy, including Eve, and especially Emily, were
cognizant of the language in Title III and drafted a policy which appropriates,
ignores, and/or alters Title III text. The first shift is a conspicuous snub of
the ‘scientifically-based’ language in Title III in favor of:
High quality programs for ELL’s provide optimum conditions
for English Language acquisition, and therefore, the District com-
mits to . . . programs for ELLs using sound instructional practices
84 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

as shown by research in the field of second language acquisition

[III, 1a].
Note the immediate nod to English language acquisition and the district’s
assertion that they are committed to programs which ensure this, thus appro-
priating Title III’s English-focused discourse. However, using second language
acquisition research to engender sound instructional practices is conspicuously
different than Title III’s assertion that programs need to be based on ‘scientif-
ically based research’.

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Then, unlike Title III, the policy defines bilingual education:
A bilingual education program develops and maintains first
language literacy as well as literacy in the second language
[Section III, Part 2b].
This text defines ‘bilingual education’ as a method which develops and
maintains first language literacy which is not a goal of transitional programs
and stands in contrast to Title III’s assertion that the goal of bilingual education
is for ‘limited English speakers to enter all English-instructional settings’.
Thus, definitions of bilingual education as necessarily transitional in federal
policy text and discourse are resisted (or ignored) in favor of language
which allows for developmental programs. Then, unlike Title III, the SDP
policy makes explicit claims about what language programs the ‘research’
supports:
The district recognizes that . . . research indicates that strong first
language development serves as an effective foundation for
second language acquisition [III, 3b].
This allusion to the interdependence hypothesis (Cummins 1981) asserts that
English acquisition is aided by first language development, and presumably,
pedagogy in which first languages are strongly developed.
The SDP language policy text makes a few important discursive shifts away
from, while concomitantly maintaining, some of Title III’s English-only focus.
While SDP language policy text appropriates some of the salient English-
focused language from Title III, it also creates implementational space for
developing various types of bilingual programs because it makes specific
claims about what the research supports—strong first language develop-
ment—and defines bilingual education as a program which develops first
languages.

Applied linguistic research as doctrine

The remainder of this article focuses on shifts in bilingual education policy
that took place between the Fall of 2003 and Spring of 2005, illustrated
by changing definitions of ‘good’ bilingual education and shifting interpreta-
tions of Applied Linguistics research. What is missing in this study, and what
might be expected at this point, is a description of the implementation of
 D. C. JOHNSON 85

the SDP language policy. In large part, there was no implementation and
thus it existed, and continues to exist, as an interesting remnant on
the OLCA web site, but has no real power. Its lack of power is, in part,
due to a shift in pedagogical philosophy and bilingual education policy
at OLCA.
In the fall of 2003, OLCA acquired a new director of ESOL/bilingual pro-
grams, Lucı́a Sanchez, whose beliefs about applied linguistic research were
different than Emily’s and Eve’s and influenced language policy accordingly.

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Emily Dixon-Marquez and Lucı́a Sanchez are an interesting comparative jux-
taposition of how language (education) ideologies influence interpretation and
appropriation of top-down language policies like Title III. Lucı́a started work-
ing at OLCA as Emily, who quit OLCA in 2004, was leaving, and as the
current director of ESOL/bilingual programs, Lucı́a has been the most influen-
tial interpreter and appropriator of federal and state language policy since
2004.
Before coming to Philadelphia, Lucı́a worked at the Pennsylvania
Department of Education where she reviewed and approved the Title III
plan submitted by Emily. Thus, when Lucı́a started working at OLCA, she
adopted the responsibility of overseeing implementation of Title III monies
which she herself had approved! Yet, Lucia’s beliefs about bilingual education
differ from Emily’s and stand in contrast to the additive bilingual beliefs
circulating through OLCA and the development of the SDP language policy.
I had a chance to interview Lucı́a and ask her about programmatic changes
that were underway:
When you talk about bilingual education, in many research based
models, it is uh – considered a way to help children, or assist
students who are second language learners, to acquire English –
The problem we have seen historically with bilingual education is
that – somehow even students who are born . . . in the United States
have been placed in bilingual education programs just . . . because,
even though they’re native speakers of English, they come in with
some gaps with their linguistic development due to maybe speaking
another language at home or even hearing another language at
home [recorded interview, 13 June 2005].
Like Silvestre Reyes, what Lucı́a refers to as ‘bilingual education’ is a
programmatic model, the primary goal of which is acquisition of English for
ELLs. Bilingual education in her usage is specifically intended for non-native
English speakers. Speaking or hearing a non-English language at home may
induce gaps in some English-speaking students’ English language develop-
ment, but those students, as English speakers, are still not good candidates
for bilingual education in her view. Lucı́a’s beliefs about research influence
her conceptualization of what ‘bilingual education’ is and who it is for; it does
not include developmental programs and is not for English speakers born in
the USA.
86 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

Lucı́a has promoted transitional bilingual programs which exit ELLs to

English-medium classrooms by middle school. Her interpretation of the
research accommodates (or vice versa) her interpretation of the intentions
of Title III:
Title III was created to improve English language acquisition
programs by increasing the services or creating situations where
the students would be getting supplemental services to move
them into English language acquisition situations [recorded inter-

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view, 13 June 2005].
Lucia interprets the goals of ‘bilingual education’ and Title III as the same—
eventual transition of ELLs into mainstream classrooms. She does not feel
that the ELL students in Philadelphia are well served by maintenance programs
and for these students, the preferred model is transitional (with all bilingual
education students entering mainstream classrooms by middle school) with
the option of heritage language classes to continue biliteracy development.
Throughout ethnographic data collection, bilingual education meetings
were held which involved policy and program development and teacher train-
ing. During one such meeting, led by Lucı́a, a couple of the teachers expressed
concern that the programmatic changes being implemented were a clandestine
attempt to get rid of bilingual education and mainstream ELLs, a claim which
Lucı́a adamantly rejected. After Lucı́a introduced the transitional program, one
of the teachers challenged her decision:
Teacher: Who or where did the decision make – come from to [tran-
sition students]?
Lucia: Because, because, number one, we looked at all the programs
that are effective based on Krashen’s research – and the beginning
of Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is long,
and there’s nothing we can do to change that [tape recorded,
1 December 2005].
Lucı́a’s beliefs about the research, and here she alludes to Stephen Krashen’s
research, are used to justify her interpretation of Title III as restrictively focused
on English language development. By conferring language policy decisions
to Stephen Krashen and Title III, Lucı́a deflects responsibility for her decision
to shift SDP language policy to outside experts and outside language policy,
both of which rigidly dictate a transitional bilingual language policy and
‘there’s nothing they can do to change that’.
Later in the meeting, she emphasizes this point by saying:
Everyone knows about Stephen Krashen – he’s a linguist that has
devoted most of his research to education, but he’s a linguist. He’s
a scientist that studies different linguistic patterns but he really – we
heard about the silent period through Krashen, we heard about
comprehensible input, that’s Krashen. We heard about the lower-
ing the affective filter, that’s Krashen, error correction, that’s
 D. C. JOHNSON 87

Krashen, so all of that is good research that we all as language

teachers need to know. And he said, he is the expert, and he said
that, yes, you can introduce English right away – Yes it is important
that we know what the research says [tape recorded, 1 December
2005].
In these two texts, Lucı́a clarifies her beliefs about what role ‘research’ should
play in language policy decision making. While Eve refers outside research and
researchers in an attempt to enhance teacher agency, and Emily interprets the

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research as supportive of local choice and developmental bilingual education,
Lucı́a positions the research, here embodied by Krashen, as setting rigid stan-
dards to which SDP language policy, and the teachers, must adapt. She
enhances Krashen’s standing as the expert by emphasizing his position as a
linguist and a scientist; in other words, Lucı́a is relaying Krashen’s expertise to
the teachers who should not blame the messenger for the message. The tea-
chers are stripped of their expertise and agency in making language policy
decisions—since they are neither linguists nor scientists (nor experts according
to Lucı́a)—and Lucı́a deflects the responsibility of SDP language policy decision
making to Krashen and Title III.

DISCUSSION
At this point, I would like to return to the research question proposed earlier:
how does applied linguistic research shape the interpretation and appropria-
tion of Title III in the SDP?
1 Ignoring the research: despite the preponderance of research supporting
the relative ‘effectiveness’ of bilingual programs, administrators in the US
Department of Education and federal lawmakers seem largely oblivious,
or at least do not subscribe, to particular studies or bodies of research.
Federal policy discourse perpetuates the limiting definition of ‘bilingual
education’ as a means for transitioning ELLs into English-medium class-
rooms. Obscured in this federal discourse about bilingual education is the
notion that it can be a means for fostering bilingualism and biliteracy for
both native and non-native English speakers alike; that it is a means for
utilizing languages as (cultural, educational, or economic) resources; or
that ELLs have a right to literacy in their mother tongues. Thus, federal
policy discourse and the resultant policy text (Title III) help perpetuate
the popular Discourse that bilingual education is, by definition,
transitional.
2 Vague demands for research support: still, in the US Department of
Education, the views about what the research supports are not clear
and/or not enforced when administering Title III monies, and the admin-
istrator interviewed for this study insisted that they would ‘stay out of
it’ as long as the Title III grant applicants provide (any) research support
for their chosen programs. While the definition of ‘scientifically based
88 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

research’ in Title IX is (somewhat) clear, this administrator did not give a

strict definition nor make claims about which programs are best, and she
is directly responsible for administering Title III monies, thus leaving
implementational space for creative interpretation of what ‘scientifically-
based research’ is and which programs it supports.
3 Including researchers in the local discourse community: applied linguistic
research is appropriated in the SDP in varying ways. Eve Island, the
Title VII consultant and applied linguistic researcher, appropriated
research (including her own) and voices from an outside community of

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bilingual education advocates and applied linguistic scholars (like Richard
Ruiz) to contextualize and support educator efforts to develop develop-
mental bilingual policy and pedagogy. Positioning the research(ers)
as allies, and the SDP practitioners as experts, empowered teachers to
become active agents in policy making. Eve served as a human conduit
and intertextual link between a community of Applied Linguistics
researchers and SDP educators; she positioned the policy developer’s
initiative ‘within the context of and against the background of’ (Lemke
1995: 10) academic discourse which supports both developmental bilin-
gual education and developing school district policy in an egalitarian
way that appropriates a diversity of teacher and administrator voices.
Concomitantly, she challenged traditional divisions between policy ‘crea-
tors’ and ‘implementers’ and exemplified how policies which reduce
inequality and promote the maintenance of minority languages can be
developed more democratically (Tollefson 2006).
4 Applied linguistic research as support: the Titles VII and III grant writer,
Emily Dixon-Marquez, viewed the requirement that programs must be
based on scientifically based research as beneficial because the research
she knew—especially the Thomas and Collier studies (1997, 2002)—sup-
ported the programs she wanted to promote in the SDP. Within the
ideological space created at the language policy retreat and maintained
by key players, developmental bilingual programs were positioned as
superior to transitional programs and the Thomas and Collier studies
(1997, 2002) were appropriated as allies. Further, Emily interprets
Title III as being supportive, in its language and funding, of dual language
programs.
5 (Mis)appropriating Applied Linguistics research as a mandate: while Emily
(and Eve) referred outside research and researchers in an attempt to
enhance teacher agency, the new head of ESOL/bilingual programs,
Lucı́a Sanchez, positioned the research, here embodied by linguists like
Stephen Krashen, as setting rigid standards (i.e. transition into English) to
which SDP language policy, and teachers, must adapt. Lucı́a’s interpreta-
tion of Title III was filtered through her definition of ‘bilingual education’
as necessarily transitional and she cited Krashen (in her words, a linguist
and a scientist) as an expert who supports this transition. The expertise of
the teachers was diminished in favor of outside experts whose research
 D. C. JOHNSON 89

placed restrictions on SDP language policy by demanding transitional

programs, which is an inaccurate interpretation of Krashen’s research
(Krashen 1996; Krashen and McField 2005). Lucı́a reified popular defini-
tions of bilingual education (as promoted by federal policy discourse)
as necessarily transitional and, further, limited the role of teachers in
language policy processes to that of ‘implementer’.
Cutting edge theoretical developments portray language policy as a potentially
hegemonic mechanism through which dominant ideologies about

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language (education) are promoted (Pennycook 2006; Tollefson 2006). The
results of this paper suggest that emphasis should be placed on the word
‘potentially’ since it is shown that while language policies can have this
effect, the effects of policies are channeled through human agents in local
educational contexts and, thus, policy appropriation can be varied and unpre-
dictable. While Emily and Eve resisted the English-focused discourse in Title
III, Lucı́a appropriated it and promoted state-sponsored definitions of ‘bilingual
education’ over definitions cited in applied linguistic research. Both Emily and
Lucı́a advocate bilingual education but their beliefs about the best type of
bilingual education, and what the research says, colored their interpretations
of Title III. Using the same Title III policy language and money as support, they
implemented ESOL/bilingual programs in very different ways.
Emily’s interpretation that Title III is as flexible as it claims, and her beliefs
about bilingual education research, created and supported ideological and
implementational spaces for additive bilingualism. She and Eve fostered an
ideological space for bilingual language policy and program development in
which developmental programs were favored and an egalitarian discourse
community of administrators and teachers was encouraged to engage with
language policy processes. The educational transformation relies on Lucia’s
interpretation of Title III as rigidly English-dominant and her own beliefs
about language education research. In order for the effects of Title III to be
truly monolingual, at least in Philadelphia, administrators must allow them-
selves to be conscripted by its monolingual discourse.

CONCLUSION
It is difficult enough to pinpoint intentions in a single-authored text but
a language policy has multiple authors with varied intentions. As Bakhtin
(1986) argues, there are dialogic overtones and multiple meanings within
any given text. Title III is no different. Still, while a plurality of readings and
interpretations of national language policies like Title III of NCLB are possible
(and a reality in this study), policy Discourse constrains interpretation
and implementation possibilities—some interpretations will be privileged,
especially those sanctioned in federal discourse, while others may be obfus-
cated or discredited (Ball 2006). The production of Title III was characterized
by limiting definitions of bilingual education as necessarily transitional and
90 APPLIED LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE POLICY

this influenced the resulting policy text and some interpretations in the SDP.
One administrator’s appropriation of Title III suggests that her interpretation
was constrained by the English-focused and transitional bilingual education
discourse; therefore, Title III put limits on what was educationally feasible.
Still, other bilingual educators in the SDP were neither swayed by the
English-focused discourse, nor the limiting definitions of bilingual education
so prevalent in Title III, and used applied linguistic research to support their
interpretation.
It is up to local education agents to either expand or restrict their bilingual

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programs using Title III monies and it has gone both ways in the SDP. During
the first half of ethnographic data collection, Title III was interpreted as
flexible. In this ideological space of bilingual language policy and program
development, Title III was portrayed as a real windfall for SDP bilingual
programs and its flexibility was emphasized to teachers and other stakeholders.
A shift in personnel, however, led to different interpretations of how Title III
monies should be used, marked by beliefs that Title III’s focus on English was
a mandate for transitional programs.
As well, it is up to applied linguists to become engaged in local language
policy processes. This article shows that bilingual language policy implementa-
tion is an agentive process which can be influenced by applied linguistic
research and researchers. Because they are positioned as experts, at least in
Philadelphia, researchers can become members of the discourse community
which shapes the appropriation of language policy. In order to resist the pen-
dulum swing away from native language maintenance, researchers will need
to team with local educators—and especially administrators—to foster local
ideological spaces in which developmental bilingual education is championed.
And this is possible. SDP educators make choices and these choices influence
the implementation of Title III. Such choices are constrained by the language
policies which tend to set boundaries on what is allowed and/or what is
considered ‘normal’, but the line of power does not flow linearly from the
pen of the policy’s signer to the choices of the teacher. The negotiation at
each institutional level creates the opportunity for reinterpretations and
policy manipulation. Local educators are not helplessly caught in the ebb
and flow of shifting ideologies in language policies—they help develop, main-
tain, and change that flow.

TRANSCRIPTION NOTES
() transcription doubt
(?) unclear utterance
... ellipsis
- short pause
Italics emphatic stress

NOTES
1 The study upon which this is based
won the 2008 National Association
of Bilingual Education dissertation
competition.
2 Levinson and Sutton (2001) prefer the
term appropriation to implementation
which they feel implicitly ratifies a
top-down perspective. I agree and
adopt this term.
3 While other ethnographic work deals
with language policy (Hornberger
1988; Davis 1998; Freeman 1998),
the object of analysis in this body of
work is not policy itself.
4 Developmental or additive bilingual
education can be contrasted with sub-
tractive bilingual education and can
include one- and two-way/dual lan-
guage programs.
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