The ethnic studies-heritage Spanish project: a university–school partnership to develop an ethnic studies curricular ecology

Ethnic Studies (ES) as a high school subject matter and graduation requirement fills us with hope about the potential for equity-oriented, transformative education in California. Research has demonstrated that the curriculum of Ethnic Studies centers BIPOC students’ experiences and results in positive outcomes for students’ academic engagement and achievement when employed with culturally responsive pedagogical tenets and high expectations (Sleeter, 2011; Bonilla et al., 2021; Dee & Penner, 2017). Reframing the “achievement gap” as an “opportunity gap” has identified both curriculum content and pedagogy as a solution to more accurately reflect the experiences and issues of access to education that many students of color face (Carter & Welner, 2013). With the rapid increase in high school Ethnic Studies programs, coupled with legislation that mandates their inclusion as a graduation requirement, schools and districts face the challenge of recruiting, preparing and supporting teachers of Ethnic Studies (Fernández, 2019). However, questions about its implementation abound, from overcoming the reluctance to content and framing by segments of the population (Sleeter & Zavala, 2020; Tintiangco-Cubales, 2015) to the actual logistic rollout in the schools.

A research team at the Stanford World Language Project, including the authors, partnered with a local district to test the concept of intersecting the content of Ethnic Studies (ES) and World Languages (WL) in a move that sought to support the district's ongoing work to fulfill this curriculum mandate while maximizing the synergies in the pursuit of a multicultural society. In this article, we present the empirical case for a viable entry point for ES into the learning ecology of schools, and we appeal to school leaders to seek meaningful connections across curricular areas as they plan for and implement ES curricula. First, the problem of practice is defined in its current and historical context. Then, we identify areas of curricular intersection. Finally, we describe the Ethnic Studies-Heritage Spanish (ES-HS) project we conducted, including its outcomes and implications for institutions, educators and students. At this moment in our nation's history, we conclude with a reflection on lessons learned that can be transferred to other initiatives of equity-oriented and inclusive curricular innovation concerning the Ethnic Studies conundrum in California and beyond.

Historically, Ethnic Studies as a discipline emerged from social movements in the 1960s, and San Francisco State University became the first institution to create a College of Ethnic Studies in 1969 (Hu-DeHart, 1993). Crutchfield's apropos quote, “We might have won the strike, but the struggle continues” (Ehsanipour, 2020), predicts the challenges we are facing now. The last couple of decades have seen a dramatic growth in interest in ES, with renewed energy as research has shown that students who take courses in ES have better attendance in school, are more likely to graduate and are more likely to attend college (Bonilla et al., 2021).

In 2010, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) School Board broke ground by unanimously adopting a resolution in support of Ethnic Studies in their schools (Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2015). This policy was the result of a collaborative effort between university professors, K-12 teachers, students, parents and community organizations, all working together to achieve systemic change that addresses equity, access, and gaps in educational achievement. Lacking state guidance or defined preexisting models, SFUSD teachers and school leaders faced the question of not only defining what Ethnic Studies was, but also developing curriculum and culturally responsive pedagogy for teaching ES.

In 2020, Assembly Bill 1,460 was signed into law by Governor Newsom, requiring college students in the CSU/UC system to take an ES course to graduate. This move in higher education continued to build momentum for the larger issue of ES for the broader school population. The road to the institutionalization of ES in the state is further defined by two pivotal educational policy documents that have contributed to defining the parameters of implementation: the model curriculum and the graduation mandate. Following considerable contention among interest groups since the 2016 Assembly Bill mandated the development and adoption of an ES model curriculum (Bell et al., 2022; Pawel, 2021), the California State Board of Education finally adopted this foundational cornerstone in 2021. Its purpose was to

Importantly, in 2021, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill No. 101, which added Ethnic Studies to the Education Code as a graduation requirement, making it the first state to require Ethnic Studies as a course for high school graduation. This move further reaffirmed ES as a general requirement for the general school population, working to reinforce a sense of belonging among minoritized populations and raising collective awareness about diverse worldviews among the mainstream population (Sullivan & Flores, 2023).

At a macro level, the challenges that have emerged along the way are notorious. For instance, the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing struggled to find consensus and satisfaction in the field as to the credentialing requirements for the teachers in charge of ES ^[1]. Another significant example is that the ES graduation mandate has been maintained in its timeline (ES course starting in the Fall of 2025), but it has defaulted into implementation limbo as it remains unfunded in the state budget for education as of 2025 ^[2].

This new ES requirement poses systemic challenges at a micro level. For instance, school districts face the human resource issue of whether a special credential is needed or whether social science teachers can teach ES courses. At a curricular level, the field has been divided ^[3] between the approach of the model curriculum and the critical race theory-inspired so-called “Liberated” Ethnic Studies Curriculum championed by university faculty and educator activists (for opposing views, see Rubin, 2024; Arce et al., 2024). Regarding the project described in this article, a critical problem of practice is whether to approach ES only from a socio-historical perspective in the classroom or the opportunity for a more integrated, school-wide approach to cultural literacy, inclusion and a global perspective. The latter approach offers the potential to make fruitful connections with subjects like World Languages, particularly in a multicultural and multilingual state like California.

In a nation divided by issues of equity, representation and the legitimacy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the time for educational transformation and community dialogue advanced by ES is here and now. As discussed earlier, the current policy landscape presents complex challenges and ambiguities for the effective implementation of ES, particularly regarding curricular content and personnel, which can also be leveraged as “ideological and implementation spaces.” Inspired by Hornberger's (2002) and Flores and Schissel's (2014) language policy conceptualization, we conceive these spaces of possibility as opportunities to capitalize on the agency of educators to take transformational advantage of the underdeveloped or undefined policy areas to push for educational visions and solutions that overcome structural obstacles and realize educational opportunities for minoritized populations. This project expands the concept by incorporating the school–university as a layer of support for these spaces, akin to Willans's (2021) idea of “implementational support” in these spaces. In practice, it is a call to think equitably outside the box when confronting the complex problem of ES implementation in the current sociopolitical context, where policies and mandates often create ambiguities due to the fear of antagonizing either side in a political power struggle.

This project proposed and supported seizing an ideological and implementational opportunity: reframing the rollout formula that most districts are pursuing, in which ES is stagnantly compartmentalized. From the current isolationist stance, placing the full responsibility for ES instruction on history and social science educators may make the charge more defined and the tasks circumscribed, while simplifying administrative oversight of a kind of instruction that is proving controversial in some locales. However, a narrow curricularization of ES can also lead to coverage that is insufficient or does not do justice to the content by oversimplifying the multidimensional nature of the ethnic experience of communities (León, 2025). Moreover, creating silos, where the responsibility for social justice education rests solely with one department, overlooks the interdisciplinary perspectives and contributions that WL and other teachers could bring to the ES curriculum.

Conversely, adopting an interdisciplinary curricular stance as this project advances promotes collegial connections among educators and, most importantly, the potential to attain instruction that more fully addresses a broader range of diverse cultural experiences and perspectives. This additive approach to ES as an area of knowledge and experience beyond the single-subject approach has the promise of creating an ES ecology rather than a subject by providing additional WL spaces where ES content can feel personally relevant in communication.

As stated by a veteran California WL teacher, “Whoever opposes this crossover between ES and WL does not have a clue about what is happening in WL because it is already there and has always been there.” In fact, WL educators employ pedagogical approaches that routinely incorporate students' cultures and histories into language lessons. Imperative to the success of WL educators is the integration of relevant language teaching methods from the California World Language Standards and Framework in the domains of Communication, Culture, and Connections (Xiong-Lor, 2024). This project and article assert the relevance of this question: What potential can we unlock by establishing cross-curricular connections between WL and ES?

The California ES Model Curriculum (ESMC), approved in 2021, highlights the histories and contributions of marginalized groups, particularly African American, Latinx, Native American and Asian American communities. Building on this, the Orange County Office of Education (OCDE), in collaboration with Southeast Asian scholars and educators, released an ES model curriculum in 2024 focusing on Hmong, Cambodian and Vietnamese histories ^[4]. This progress invites consideration of how World Language (WL), as defined in the social justice-oriented California World Language Framework (CDE, 2020) classrooms can integrate ES principles, offering a richer and more complex teaching and learning space.

The intersection of Ethnic Studies and World Language education reveals a powerful synergy grounded in cultural affirmation, critical consciousness and identity development. Both disciplines aim to expand students’ understanding of the world, yet when combined, they go beyond cultural appreciation to interrogate systems of power, uplift marginalized voices and affirm lived experiences (Anya, 2021). World Language classrooms, particularly those serving heritage learners, are natural sites for Ethnic Studies workspaces, where students explore themes such as immigration, language loss, family histories and racialized identities. Language becomes more than a means of communication; it becomes a vessel for storytelling, healing and resistance. Teaching language through an Ethnic Studies lens allows students to engage in culturally sustaining practices that honor their backgrounds while critically analyzing the social and historical forces that shape them. For nonheritage learners, this integration fosters empathy and global awareness, transforming language learning into a deeper act of solidarity and justice. Together, Ethnic Studies and World Language education offer a holistic, transformative pedagogy that prepares students to navigate – and reshape – a diverse and inequitable world.

Ethnic Studies (ES) validates students’ cultural identities and histories, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. In World Language (WL) classrooms, this means integrating culturally relevant content that connects with students’ linguistic and cultural heritage, as well as the broader communities associated with the language being taught. This intersection not only affirms students’ identities but also enriches language learning by fostering critical consciousness and global awareness. Research indicates that when WL teachers incorporate students' diverse backgrounds into their teaching practices, it enhances student engagement and affirms their cultural identities (Dion, 2020).

Language is inherently tied to power, identity, and social access, making it an ideal medium for teaching ES through dialogic pedagogies. By engaging in these discussions, students gain an understanding of the socio-political implications of language, recognizing its role in both empowering and marginalizing individuals (Wodak, 2012; Xiong, 2018; Youdell, 2010). Within WL classrooms, students can critically simultaneously examine how language forms and structures build communitive interactions in the present and how they have been used historically, whether as a tool of colonization or a means of resistance.

Empathy is another critical outcome of Ethnic Studies (ES), as it enables students to view the world from perspectives often left out of traditional curricula. Engaging with authentic texts, cultural narratives and multilingual voices enables students not only to develop linguistic skills but also to cultivate deeper intercultural competence and empathy toward diverse lived experiences (Dunbar, 2020; Sleeter, 2011). World Language (WL) classrooms provide an ideal space to explore global cultural practices, beliefs and worldviews, fostering a nuanced cross-cultural understanding that transcends the inertia of hegemonic ethnocentrism.

Decolonizing education involves challenging dominant, often Eurocentric narratives and dismantling historical biases. In WL classrooms, this means addressing the impacts of colonialism on language, such as the suppression of Indigenous languages or the imposition of colonial languages on native populations. The global and local work in WL classrooms also involves promoting ecological conditions for multilingualism, supporting Indigenous knowledge systems and community-led language practices that reclaim linguistic agency and validate the lived experiences of marginalized communities (Meighan, 2025).

ES encourages a student-centered, inquiry-based approach that invites learners to reflect on societal institutions, power dynamics reflected in language practices and normative practices. In WL education, this pedagogical approach encourages students to critically reflect on how dominant and non-dominant languages, as well as prestige in language variations, are shaped by both fixed and changing societal values and power dynamics. This allows students to bring their lived experiences into the classroom as sociolinguistic agents, creating a relevant learning environment where their voices are valued and engaged (Pitman, 2022).

Finally, ES advocates for strong partnerships among schools, families and communities. WL teachers often invite guest speakers, arrange cultural events, use films and collaborate with local cultural organizations to build bridges between the classroom and ethnolinguistic bilingual communities (Osa-Melero et al., 2019). These partnerships can enhance students’ pride in their cultural and linguistic heritage while simultaneously offering authentic language artifacts for learning to nonheritage learners of a second language.

Incorporating ES into WL classrooms bears the promise of promoting an education that is meaningfully inclusive, deeply empathetic and socially aware. It challenges students to think critically about language, culture and identity as we pursue the democratic goal of forming citizens who respect and advocate for cultural and linguistic diversity. Importantly, as we seek to have students think outside their taken-for-granted cultural habits, it challenges educators’ leadership and thinking about curricular boundaries, our unquestioned “grammar of schooling” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994), and the culturally based design of our educational organizations.

Our research project focused on piloting the ES and WL intersections in Spanish for Heritage Speakers (HS). This specific course served as a strategic gateway for ES to enter the WL field in the specific context of this partnership as a fertile ground for this cross-fertilization, given that the HS course is already a racialized experience and an implementational space in itself (Gómez Soler & Fuentes, 2021), led in this and many other districts by teachers who volunteer to teach as a way of honoring their heritage (Gironzetti & Belpoliti, 2021). By design, in an ES context fraught with macro-, meso-, and micro-tensions, this project had to be launched in a welcoming context that reduced the perception of backlash risk and maximized attention on curricular growth and learning.

Heritage Spanish (HS) is a subject matter in high schools that serves a targeted mission for the educational rights of Latinx students (Potowski, 2013). Still, to this day, many speakers of Spanish with significant cultural ties to this ethnolinguistic group are sentenced to course irrelevance and disengagement by being placed in Spanish I courses. The Spanish for Heritage Speakers courses, sometimes referred to as Spanish for Native speakers, have been developed to recognize the specific learning needs of this population, characterized by a vast diversity of linguistic profiles and biographical trajectories (Potowski, 2016).

The term “heritage” was developed to encapsulate the distinct experience of a group of students while seeking to address pedagogically their two common denominators: A degree of existing linguistic competence and a connection to an ethnolinguistic group. HS provides instruction that is adapted to the linguistic assets of Spanish-speaking students while also embracing shared cultural identities (Beaudrie, 2023). Often, the level of competence is imbalanced between receptive and productive abilities or written and spoken skills, which calls for the tailoring of instruction that recognizes their existing linguistic repertoires and the intimate relationship that students feel with the Latinx ethnolinguistic group.

Teaching and learning in an HS class require a constant reevaluation of positionality and power in the classroom. The concept of “Heritage” has been problematized (e.g. Rothman & Treffers-Daller, 2014), and its implications need to be scrutinized: What are the implications of being designated as heritage for students assigned to these instructional spaces? What power relations are therefore assumed and established between the language identified as heritage and the hegemonic language (English)? HS teaching as a praxis needs to address these “elephants in the room” as it is being implemented (Valdés & Geoffrion-Vinci, 2011), as did the seasoned HS teachers involved in this research project.

The ES-HS project examined the intersections between concepts, pedagogical praxis and identities in developing curricular materials that support the language development of Spanish heritage speakers with critical relevance to their lived experiences. Raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2015) presents a fitting theoretical framework for examining these dynamics by positing the intimately intertwined connection and co-construction of language and identity within the racial and sociolinguistic hierarchies of US society. In pursuit of our research project's purpose, raciolinguistics served as a critical lens to examine and dismantle models of speakerhood: Who is said to speak “good Spanish”? What is a “native speaker”? What is Latinidad, and what role does language play in it? What are the linguistic ideologies pervading such judgments (Rosa, 2019; Tseng, 2021)?

As part of the project, the participating teachers engaged in professional development that closely examined the tenets and practices of ethnic studies teachers who had already taken the lead in implementing their districts, followed by development sessions that focused on raciolinguistics and linguistic ideologies. Accordingly, the instructional units that the teachers created sought to address and engage with issues of linguistic pride and discrimination head-on. For instance, one of the units focused on the dialogic analysis of the book “Orgullo Prieto” (2022), in which author Tenoch Huerta discusses colorism in Mexican society, leading to transnational comparisons about how race is culturally constructed and how neighboring countries enact notions of authenticity, nativism, and appropriateness.

Applying a raciolinguistic lens to this project entails building a bridge with Paris and Alim's Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (2014), which aims to recenter curriculum around the lived experiences of students and which “does not concern itself with the seemingly panoptic ‘White gaze’ that permeates educational research and practice with and for students of color, their teachers, and their schools” (p. 86). The Foucauldian White Gaze invoked by Paris and Alim maps onto Flores and Rosa’s (2015) critique of the oppressive listener perspective, which “makes it possible to see how different linguistic practices can be stigmatized in strikingly similar ways based on marginalized speakers' shared, racialized positions of enunciation and particular listeners' hegemonic positions of reception” (p. 162). When taken together and applied to Spanish for Heritage Speakers, these concepts call for a radical reframing of implicit models of speakerhood and a reassessment of taken-for-granted assumptions about proficiency and content relevance. These partnership projects' ES-infused Spanish heritage units, implemented by teachers, sought to assess the students’ linguistic assets, challenge paralinguistic judgments and idealized linguistic performances, and establish a nurturing connection between the class, the students and their context.

The ambitious curricular and pedagogical transformation proposed by this project necessitated a reliable connection between the district and university to frame a sustained collaboration in the turbulent waters of ES implementation in California. Hailed as a promising approach to education inefficiencies and inequities, school–university partnerships represent collaborative relationships between K-12 educational institutions and higher education organizations designed to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes through the exchange of knowledge, resources and expertise (Farrell et al., 2021).

School–university partnerships, if they are to be meaningful to the institutions involved, broaden horizons and extend beyond traditional student-teacher placements to encompass comprehensive initiatives that address teacher preparation, professional development, research and educational improvement (Coburn et al., 2013). In the United States context, such partnerships have emerged as a critical strategy for bridging the persistent theory-practice divide in education while simultaneously addressing the mounting pressures for evidence-based decision-making in schools and enhanced teacher preparation in universities (Desimone et al., 2016). These collaborations can take various forms, ranging from limited service-oriented arrangements to transformative partnerships that fundamentally alter the practices and structures of both institutions (Jones et al., 2016).

The success of school–university partnerships depends on several key factors that facilitate effective collaboration and sustainable outcomes. Research consistently identifies trust, mutuality and reciprocity as foundational elements, where partners develop a shared understanding of benefits and recognize the value each brings to the relationship (Kruger et al., 2009). Effective partnerships require strong leadership commitment from both institutions, with authority distributed across organizational levels rather than concentrated in single entities (Desimone et al., 2016). Precise communication mechanisms, well-defined roles and responsibilities, and alignment of goals and benefits are essential for maintaining productive relationships (Hogan et al., 2017). Additionally, successful partnerships demonstrate specificity in their activities and procedures, consistency with broader institutional priorities and stability through institutionalized structures that can withstand personnel changes. The presence of dedicated resources, both financial and human, along with appropriate incentive structures for all participants, further enhances the effectiveness of partnerships.

Despite their potential benefits, school–university partnerships face significant obstacles that can impede their development and maintenance over time. Power asymmetries between institutions often create challenges, particularly when one partner dominates decision-making processes or when the locus of control remains unequally distributed (Marsh, 2019). Institutional differences in cultures, timelines and priorities can also create tensions, as academic research timelines may not align with schools’ immediate needs for actionable results (Desimone et al., 2016). Resource constraints, including limited funding for partnership infrastructure development and competing demands on faculty and teacher time, pose ongoing challenges. Additionally, personnel turnover in both institutions can disrupt established relationships and necessitate ongoing efforts to rebuild relationships (Hogan et al., 2017). The complexity of balancing research rigor with practical applicability, along with navigating different accountability systems and evaluation criteria, further complicates the sustainability and effectiveness of partnerships.

Partnerships between universities and schools have the potential to marshal knowledge, expertise, and resources at multiple levels to enact meaningful educational change at the heart of educational praxis (Muñoz-Muñoz & Ocampo, 2016), which is especially needed in the case of ES, given the multidimensional complexities discussed above. In this context, the Stanford Accelerator for Learning at Stanford University offered seed grants to fund new research on igniting transformative approaches to ES teaching and learning in K-12 contexts. The Stanford World Language Project was awarded one such grant with the project “Intersection of Ethnic Studies and World Languages: Measuring Learning Impact of Integrated Instructional Units in High School.” By connecting with a local district that already had preexisting collaborative ties, the incoming grant resources and, most importantly, a shared vision for curricular synergy, the ES-HS project came into existence to create a Transformational Learning Community (Bernay et al., 2020).

The initial conjecture was that WL teacher expertise and subject matter were overlooked resources for implementing ES curriculum within most school communities. As a partnership team, we posited that WL teachers possess professional expertise, cultural wealth, teaching assets and funds of knowledge that reflect the communities they serve. Accordingly, WL teachers are uniquely positioned to connect with students and for students to see teachers deliver meaningful, culturally relevant ES curricula. The district leadership, teachers and researchers converged on a shared vision for the potential of this initiative to create favorable cross-curricular conditions for ES to take root in the district.

Upon launching the project, the partner university contributed preexisting curricular materials that had been developed with a similar integrative purpose in mind. In the summers of 2023 and 2024, at the annual Summer Seminar for language teachers, teacher leaders from the California World Language Project (CWLP) began to develop lessons and units that integrate ES and WL. These instructional units have the potential for resounding impact when implemented and also when used as models for additional curriculum development.

For this research project, teachers created their units where students deepened their knowledge of their identities, families, cultural communities and local histories using heritage language to ground the content (Dreilinger, 2021; Zamora et al., 2019). One of the significant differences between a typical heritage language class and Ethnic Studies for Heritage Speakers is that the specific curricular emphasis is on helping students understand themselves and the world around them through an ES lens while using their heritage language (Maldonado, 2024). The expectations in the partnership team were aligned: At a student level, this approach was envisioned to be transformative because it impacts their academic and personal growth simultaneously; at a curricular level, it was to promote a continuity of knowledge and experience that redefines the traditionally isolated approach to ES; and lastly, at the systems level, provided professional development and intentional, collaborative time for the participating teachers to align and strengthen their practice as a team.

Our theory of action was that the resources and synergies in the partnership would create the ecological conditions for teachers to develop HS units that addressed the four pivotal themes within ES (identity, history and movement, systems of power, and social movements and equity). As intended outputs at the student level, we targeted two interrelated outcomes: increased sense of belonging and communicative competence growth. At the teacher level, we examined the professional growth experience among participating teachers, which emerged as they developed their own notions of critical language awareness (Fairclough, 2014). The research and unit design process, as well as data collection and analysis, involved all members of the partnership at various stages of the project. At a partnership level, the team remained keenly self-aware of institutional dynamics considering sociological and political dynamics at the local, state and national levels, which led to reflective dialogues among stakeholders.

The ES-HS project employed an engaged partnership research design involving the authors and three Spanish heritage language teachers, in addition to a coach and a district administrator. Data collection encompassed multiple sources at three levels: student engagement was assessed through classwork samples, teacher observations and researcher classroom observations of nine course sections reaching 232 students; teacher experiences were documented through pre and post semi-structured interviews examining professional growth and pedagogical development and institutional dynamics were captured through partnership reflection sessions (pre and post focus groups) among university researchers, district administrators and participating teachers. This multi-level approach enabled comprehensive analysis of outcomes through thematic analysis across student learning, teacher capacity-building, and institutional collaboration within the university-school partnership framework. Validity was supported by triangulation of data sources and the post focus group, which also served the function of member validation of preliminary findings. Conclusions at these three levels are presented in the sections that follow.

A total of 9 sections of high school Spanish, taught by the participating teachers, participated in the implementation of the ES-infused units, which translates to 232 students being reached by this initiative. Student engagement and participation were assessed through classwork, teacher observations and researcher observations. The observations revealed that student engagement was high regarding production in Spanish and the criticality of student contributions, which, as assessed by teachers, surpassed the average participation for the same groups earlier in the course. In the spirit of conciseness and due to space limitations, we focus on an analysis of deep insights into one of the units that focused on the migrant experience. In three consecutive sessions, students explored the past and present migration narratives and dilemmas, first engaging with the 1990s story of Elián González, then examining the current plight of unaccompanied minors, and concluding with a debate session.

Through textual and media input, the students gained knowledge of the story of Elián González, which helped decenter the prevailing narrative about migration to neighboring Mexico and provided nuanced insights into past and present migratory flows. A student reflected “El documental desarrolla el tema que no hay privacidad y yo opino que eso era la razón que Elián quería regresar a Cuba,” ^[5] which underscores how the unit addressed not only history but also a critical opportunity for portraying immigration, childhood, and political dynamics in the mass media. In line with the principles of ES, the activity offered an opportunity to enrich perceptions about the diversity inherent to the Latinx panethnic category, as evidenced by a representative response by a student: “Yo no sabía que Cuba tenía un dictador y me interesó porque eso es la razón porque hay muchos cubanos en los EE.UU” ^[6].

The central part of the unit developed Spanish literacy through a close reading activity sequence of a four-section article dealing with the legal treatment, rights and benefits of unaccompanied children. Students were asked to engage with their critical language awareness and weigh in on the meaning and implications of the expression “Unaccompanied Alien Child,” which brought up reactions such as “Alien es un término despectivo y se quita la dignidad de los niños. No es correcto usar esta palabra peyorativa” ^[7]. The textual activity provides students with opportunities to express their opinions about policies such as the Flores Agreement and zero-tolerance approaches and connect them to experiences they may have had in their contexts and entourages.

In the final session of the unit, students have built linguistic resources and background information to be able to participate in the “philosophical chairs” debate. Following a central premise (“Todos los obstáculos que los niños migrantes (acompañados y no acompañados) pasan en su travesía hacia los Estados Unidos valen la pena”), students must compile and write arguments for and against the complex dilemmatic statement that they were presented with. The students begin by taking initial stances and move to the designated areas of the class, where they may change their locations as they are persuaded by arguments different from theirs. In their final reflections, one student stated: “Aunque hay más oportunidades en los EE.UU. no le vale nada si necesitas hacerlo solo o estar mal tratado” ^[8]. On the other side of the opinion spectrum, another student considered that “Esto me dejaba a pensar que sí valen la pena porque si alguien van a cruzar la frontera, es por una razón buena. También estoy de acuerdo con Andrés porque la systema en los estados unidos es muy buena de los systemas en latino américa” ^[9].

Validation and representation of practices that were already in place were key conclusions derived from the interviews with the participating Heritage Spanish teachers. All three teachers came to the realization that they had already been implicitly integrating Ethnic Studies (ES) practices into their classrooms, although they had not labeled them as such. This newfound awareness provided space for deep reflection – not just on pedagogy but also on personal identity and the relationships they built with students. The project served as a mirror, allowing educators to see the cultural and justice-oriented elements already embedded in their teaching and to refine them further with intentionality.

Closely tied to this was the emphasis on Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2014). Teachers made a deliberate effort to center students' cultural backgrounds and linguistic assets, which in turn enriched student learning. This approach led to ES-HS instructional units being framed around themes such as identity, language, immigration and food – topics that resonated personally with students and helped bridge academic content with real-life experiences. These topics created space for vulnerability, storytelling and deep personal sharing in the teachers' testimonies, which led to a stronger sense of belonging and self-worth.

However, the journey was not without obstacles at an ecological level. Teachers reported concerns about backlash from polarized parents, school administrators and district officials. One educator worried about their professional safety, while others experienced instability in their schools and districts, which made them concerned about the future implementation of ES. Nevertheless, as teachers engaged more fully with ES principles over time, they reported experiencing significant growth in their professional identities. They gained confidence in designing meaningful curricula and took pride in aligning their work with values of justice, equity and student-centered learning, particularly at a time when local and national politics were perceived as adverse to these endeavors. This growth was both personal and professional, as teachers challenged themselves to be more reflective and courageous through the collaborative space promoted by the partnership project.

Implementation challenges also surfaced throughout the project. Teachers struggled with planning logistics, including gaining consent for student participation, managing surveys and clarifying desired final products and outcomes. Additionally, as they cast their eyes to the future expansion of the project, the teachers also expressed some concern about how to adapt ES content for nonheritage students or those with lower language proficiency, creating tension between rigor, accessibility and developmental appropriateness. Despite these hurdles, the project ended on a note of hope and possibility. Teachers saw the transformative power of ES and expressed optimism about its future in World Language classrooms, even beyond heritage contexts.

The implementation of Ethnic Studies in World Language classrooms brought transformative experiences for both teachers and students, affirming the power of identity-based, culturally sustaining instruction. Teachers in the project chose to explore and inhabit the ideological and implementational space proposed by the partnership project despite systemic, logistical and emotional barriers and facilitated instruction that, in their assessment, raised engagement and linguistic production in students. Moving forward, support structures such as administrative protection, collaborative planning time, curriculum resources and professional development are essential to help teachers continue to engage in this meaningful and justice-oriented pedagogy, demands which, we contend, can be ameliorated within the framing of school–university partnerships.

School–university partnerships have the potential to cultivate collaboration between researchers and practitioners and to support practitioners with the implementation of research-based practices and are highly dependent on inter-institutional trust (Desimone et al., 2016). Longstanding partnerships between Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) and surrounding school districts, including the ES-HS partner district, have cemented such relational reliability and resulted in dozens of projects that have been designed to improve and transform educational practice by enabling researchers and practitioners to share their diverse perspectives and expertise (Farrelll et al., 2021). An example of this school–university partnership is a research collaboration between Stanford GSE and nine local school districts that supports the success of multilingual language learners, demonstrating the university's commitment to language and identity-based projects. Moreover, Stanford GSE researchers, the ES-HS partner high school district and eight elementary feeder districts have recently co-developed more than 20 research projects that have changed the reclassification practices of students identified as English Learners, ultimately improving outcomes for these students.

Effective school–university partnerships, such as the ES-HS project, employ a collaborative model whereby practitioners and researchers work as a team toward a common goal (Jones et al., 2016). Revisiting the foundations for collaboration, the local district administrator engaged with this research expressed her comfort in moving forward with this project because “the relationships were already in place” (Personal communication, May 20, 2025). She knew the researchers and trusted them, which, in turn, made it easier for her to approach and recruit teachers to participate. According to the district administrator, the teachers also had confidence in engaging because they had participated in professional development with the Stanford World Language Project (SWLP). Because the ES-HS project was closely aligned with the direction teachers had for their Spanish for heritage speakers’ classes, they felt supported by the research plan to develop units that incorporated students' identities, cultures and lived experiences. There was a natural alignment with the teachers' goals and the purpose of the HS classes.

While the preexisting relationships born of the longstanding university-school partnerships set a strong foundation for this research, there were political issues that required delicate navigation. Many districts across the nation are encountering pushback from parents who question the need for Ethnic Studies in the high school curriculum as well as the critical lens it offers students to explore their own racial identity and agency (Farag, 2023; Rana, 2023). In these times of “lightning rods” and to avoid unwarranted obstacles to the project, the team was advised and chose to reframe the title of the partnership project as “World Languages: Measuring Learning Impact of Integrated Instructional Units in High School.” Furthermore, the conceptual focus was identified as “ethnolinguistic content” to shield against tensions that the use of the “Ethnic Studies” phrase would have triggered. The goal remained the same: to emphasize finding new ways to innovate the curriculum in Spanish for Heritage Speakers by incorporating themes of identity, group, language, cultural variation and community lived experiences. This negotiation between the researchers and the district practitioners facilitated a smooth transition to initiate the project.

The interdisciplinary/cross-curricular lens that the project advanced also required negotiation in the early stages, as was to be expected when institutional internal boundaries were challenged. Concern was initially raised in communications that “ES was going to be taken away from the Social Studies department,” which required some boundary work in clarifying what the project meant by “creating an ecology.” The team met and discussed the theory of action, thereby reassuring that the purpose was to increase the chances of success for ES by creating cross-curricular ties and a more diversified “root system” for the ES subject project to gain hold amidst the external turmoil.

In conducting a comprehensive, multilevel assessment of the partnership project, the research team reached a positive evaluation of the outcomes, with strengthened ties and trust between the district and the university. First and foremost, the students encountered relevant content that increased their overall engagement, which the district and university regarded as the most important accomplishment from an ethical standpoint. Looking into the future, the outcome of increased teacher capacity and resilience offers guarantees that the work can become sustainable and continue, as ES is recognized as a factor of success in the HS courses. Pending the legal and budgetary resolution of the ES implementation in California, the research team looks with optimism at the possibilities of conducting similar projects in other World Languages past our HS gateway.

As the timeline for ES implementation closes in, the questions that challenge and pervade our leadership and systemic thinking are already familiar in educational reform: How do we stimulate our systems’ receptiveness to change? How can we foster conditions for relevance in newly adopted content? How do we promote effective professional development that is directly tied to implementation? Simply put, how do we make equity-oriented transformation rooted and sustainable? The ES-HS school–university partnership provides us with valuable lessons about contextual awareness, the interconnectedness of curriculum and the conditions for educator growth.

Meaningful curricular transformation will require a dynamic, contextual awareness that spans from the macro to the meso- and micro-levels. The road to ES in CA has been paved with controversy that mirrors macro-sociological tensions in the United States, thus demanding a degree of caution and attention to detail when approaching the subject of ES with district partners, instructional leaders in partnership schools and teachers. As in any ecology, all actors and situational factors are interconnected, such that success in the ES-HS project is unlikely without carefully considering all stakeholders, addressing potential political blind spots and making an intentional effort to anticipate potential unintended consequences. Of special relevance is the initial assessment of the assets and challenges in the district where activities and transformation are taking place, with particular attention paid to identifying stakeholders and their stances, formal and informal hierarchical structures, the local framing of problems of practice and establishing reliable communication channels. The likelihood of achieving successful interdisciplinarity (Klein, 2021), as proposed in this article, is predicated on an ongoing meta-awareness of organizational cultures, symbolic boundaries and boundary work, as well as dialogue that forges a shared identity for the project to be undertaken.

Meaningful ES curricular implementation hinges on creating favorable ecological conditions. With the pending graduation requirement for ES looming and the shortage of certified teachers available to teach ES classes, collaboration across disciplines increases the probabilities of success for ES because it increases the critical mass of collaborators, diversifies the location of critical funds of knowledge, and fosters a culture of collaboration and shared ownership over time. In terms of transferable implications for other partnerships, conceiving the space for implementation as an ecology raises awareness about how curriculum, personnel and motivation to implement are interconnected, and success can never be attributed to a single factor at any given moment. The work in this project, focusing on bringing an interdisciplinary approach to teaching ES with WL, offers a statewide model and curricular materials for districts to use as a “fertilizing substratum” for their local initiatives.

Meaningful curricular implementation is tied to adopting a practitioner inquiry stance: The ES-HS project sought to create a space for exploration and experimentation that empowered teachers to advance the assumed confines of their curricular areas in a bottom-up approach. In testing the theory of action for the project, both the university researchers and the school team members adopted a “what if” inquiry approach, leading to the empirical verification of the premises and an openness to disconfirmation. The project’s ultimate realization cannot be overstated: the partnership served as a catalyst to recognize and highlight existing pedagogical assets (the work and experiences that preceded the project), ultimately sparking a collaboration that raised the stakes on the importance of cross-disciplinary opportunities for ES implementation. In the pursuit of educational equity, these are opportunities that cannot be overlooked in a path that cannot be unwalked.

The research was conducted under the supervision of the Stanford University Institutional Review Board with full adherence to legal and ethical principles of research conduct.