"I Spoke It When I Was a Kid".

By examining the potential of purposefully implemented critical bicultural pedagogy (CBP) for student empowerment, this article responds to Culture and Power in the Classroom: Educational Foundations for the Schooling of Bicultural Students by Antonia Darder (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2012). Using a theoretical framework based upon student voice, critical pedagogy, and multiculturalism, the article examines the role of CBP in an English-only fourth-grade classroom. The perspectives of eight students undergoing a process of bicultural identity-making in a school where bilingualism is devalued are explored. Although they had internalized the limiting social constructs of race, culture, and language ideologies, through CBP these children transformed into critical individuals able to question, provoke, and analyze the societal status quo. Students who had been socialized to identify with the dominant culture—doing everything possible to "fit in"—took strong positions as emerging bicultural agents of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]