Disrupting the Monolingual Bias
A Framework for Teacher Advocacy
- Lillian Ardell - Language Matters
Foreword by Margo Gottlieb
Empower multilingual learners and challenge deficit thinking now
Multilingual learners (MLs) deserve more than assimilation—they deserve equity, empowerment, and celebration of their full linguistic repertoires and identities. This groundbreaking book uncovers how deficit ideologies about language perpetuate assimilationist practices that harm MLs’ heritage languages, cultural identities, and equitable opportunities for academic success. Through real-life stories and sociolinguistic analysis, author Dr. Lillian Ardell provides the tools to transform classrooms and schools into spaces that celebrate multilingualism and foster biliteracy, even in places where deficit thinking about MLs determines instructional practices and outcomes.
Rooted in research and supported by actionable strategies, this book calls on educators to evolve as advocates, inspiring them to shift their mindsets and practices to nurture bilingualism and biliteracy. Features include:
- Detailed exploration of the "Monolingual Bias" and how it operates within policies, curricula, and classrooms
- Insights into five "Disruptor Archetypes" to help educators identify their advocacy roles
- Real-life "Disruption Stories" offering inspiration and strategies for combating the Monolingual Bias
- Self-reflection tools like the "Small Brave Moments Quiz" to guide professional growth
A call to action for educators ready to challenge deficit mindsets and champion multilingualism in their schools, Disrupting the Monolingual Bias offers educators the tools they need to dismantle harmful practices and create classrooms that honor and uplift MLs.
“A true awakening for all teachers who work with multilingual learners and their families. Ardell passionately defends multilingualism from a personal, collective, and institutional stance. This is a volume that should not sit on a bookshelf but rather inspire you to rethink spaces for infusing multilingualism in your context and join the compelling cause of Disrupting the Monolingual Bias.”
“This book provides vivid examples through metaphors and stories to showcase how biases impact our students of color. It gives educators the tools we need to feel empowered to disrupt inequities and create safe, inclusive, unbiased spaces for our students who sometimes depend on our voices as their only hope of advocacy.”
"As I read Disrupting the Monolingual Bias, I remembered the six-year-old version of me that entered a U.S. schooling system speaking only Spanish. With each page turn, I revisited the linguistic trauma that was inflicted upon me by the educators charged to teach me, in their quest to get me to learn English and assimilate quickly. This book is a must-read for anyone serving culturally and linguistically diverse student communities. By weaving research with the very personal, transparent, and inspiring anecdotes of leaders in our field, Dr. Ardell manages to illuminate the continued harms of linguistic oppression, while also providing needed tools to engage in the courageous dismantling of educational systems that continue to marginalize some of our most vulnerable students."
"Disrupting the Monolingual Bias is engaging and readable. It is often written that culture is what we USE to see but seldom what we ACTUALLY SEE. The same can be said of the monolingual bias in schools. In this book, Dr. Ardell has concretely defined the monolingual bias and then presented in great detail examples of these bias in school contexts, district policies and classrooms, enabling readers to not only SEE monolingual bias but also decide how to address it in school contexts with multilingual learners. The book does not sugar-coat the challenges presented when addressing the monolingual bias, but lays out a powerful rationale for why addressing these issues is imperative in the evolution of bilingual/dual language education."