The Future of Heritage Spanish Education: Enacting Open Pedagogy Principles for Social Justice

Abstract

In the past decades, Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) instruction has become an important component of language education in the US, as shown in the expansion of the field (increasing number of conferences, publications, research projects, professional development opportunities, and engagement with the community). In addition, the field has integrated broader principles and goals for Heritage Language Education (Loza & Beaudrie, 2022; Valdés & Parra, 2018), and advanced novel articulations of learning goals, curriculum implementations, assessments, and materials. The present article proposes the implementation of Open Pedagogies (OP) principles for SHL instruction, a framework that integrates inclusive collaboration with all stakeholders who engage as equal partners in a participatory culture. OP also offers students full ownership of their capabilities as they become empowered to become knowledge analysts, producers, and/or curators (DeRosa & Robinson, 2017; Vañó García, 2023). In this article we showcase how the Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish (TeCHS) at the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) implements and promotes Open Pedagogies principles to support Heritage Spanish education in the state. This initiative is a tangible enactment of the OP framework, which can inform the next chapter of SHL education in the US.