Although advocates of critical education such as Darder (1991), hooks (1994), and Macedo (1994) have critically assessed ethnic and language minority education, few studies have empirically examined bilingual education practices from a critical perspective. In this project, we investigated the pedagogical practices of educators, with classroom observations and in depth interviews with three bilingual teachers in San Antonio, Texas. Linguistic and cultural experiences and consciousness were implicated as teachers learned about themselves and their students. We found that participants supported bilingualism depending on their ideologies about language and culture as they facilitated inclusion of non-dominant-language learning and student empowerment. Additional research on teaching ideologies and consciousness within bilingual education pedagogies is necessary. (Contains 2 notes.)