What Prevents Massachusetts Schools from Implementing the Seal of Biliteracy? A Basic Qualitative Research Study

Abstract

Bilingual education has been a political topic for years but lacks concrete legislation to promote biliteracy and bilingualism. The Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL) is an optional award for public high school seniors demonstrating mastery in English and an additional language. The problem was less than half of the public secondary school districts in Massachusetts offered the SoBL. The purpose of this study was to discover challenges preventing public secondary school districts in Massachusetts from offering the SoBL. Dewey’s theory of education and Ruiz’s language orientations comprised the theoretical framework supporting language learning and communication within pragmatic educational philosophy. The research questions aimed to identify reasons the SoBL was not offered, stakeholders’ perceptions of the SoBL, and the potential impact of earning college credit in high school on SoBL. The target population comprised 222 public secondary school districts in Massachusetts that did not offer the SoBL. Fifteen educators consisting of administrators and world language teachers representing three public secondary school districts participated in the research. Open-ended questionnaires allowed coding responses, determining themes using inductive content analysis (ICA), and sharing ideas to understand why the SoBL was unavailable in many public secondary schools. Four identified themes indicate that the SoBL was not offered because of a lack of knowledge, a lack of support, insufficient programming, and school districts’ low priority for world languages.