Speculative Design for Organizing Transformative Bilingual Special Education Teacher Learning in the Borderlands

Teacher education programs rarely equip educators in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands to confront the entwined effects of racism, linguicism, ableism, and immigration policy on bilingual special education. In this study, the borderlands are understood not only as a geographic region but also as a sociopolitical space where crossing, surveillance, and in-between belonging make these intersecting inequities especially visible. In response, this instrumental case study examines how a newly designed bilingual special education course organized expansive learning among in-service teachers through the lens of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). Framed as a speculative social design experiment, the course engaged teachers in analyzing local data, historicizing language and disability inequities, and reimagining routine special education artifacts as multilingual tools centered on students and families. Drawing on written reflections, visual narratives, and future-making action plans, the study presents three focal artifact analyses that illustrate dimensions of artifact-mediated praxis: situated problem identification, historicized intersectional interpretation, and transformative agency through redesign. Findings show how selected artifacts made emergent shifts from deficit explanations toward systemic critique and from compliance-oriented documentation toward more participatory practices. The study suggests that future-oriented coursework attentive to mediating artifacts can support equity-centered redesign in bilingual special education teacher learning.