Bilingual Paraeducators' Navigation of Narrow Identity Spaces in a Rural Elementary School

Authors

• Jenelle Reeves, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3874-6812

Document Type

Book Chapter

Date of this Version

2023

Citation

Reeves, J. (2023). Bilingual paraeducators’ navigation of narrow identity spaces in a rural elementary school. In Educating Multilingual Students in Rural Schools:
Illuminating Diversity in Rural Communities in the United States, edited by M. R. Coady, P. Golombek, and N. Marichal, pp. 70-97. 

Comments

Copyright 2023, Jenelle Reeves. Open access

License: CC BY 4.0 International

Published in Leiden, The Netherlands by Brill

Abstract

Demographic shift in the Great Plains, primarily as a result of agri-industries pulling Latinx workers to rural spaces, has diversified the student enrollment in rural schools. Athens Elementary School, for example, was one of its state’s first majority minor- ity schools, shifting from predominantly White, English-speaking learners to mostly Latinx learners over the course of the 1990s to 2020s. Many Latinx newcomer familiesspeak Spanish or indigenous languages, arriving in Athens with little or no English. Meanwhile, Athens’ school personnel has remained overwhelmingly White, of Euro- pean descent, and English-speaking, creating a mismatch between those who attend and those who teach school. In this divide stands the bilingual paraeducator. Through the detailed narratives of Juana and Manuela, two bilingual paraeducators, this chap- ter describes how paras not only provide linguistic and cultural brokering but also how they navigate a narrow identity space as non-certified school staff, critical knowledge holders, and educators of children, newcomer families, teachers and administrators. Implications include the need for rural, multilingual schools to reckon with the lan- guage and culture ideologies that restrict not only bilingual paraeducators but also their linguistically minoritized learners.