Dual Language Bilingual Education Program Implementation,Teacher Language Ideologies and Local Language Policy
In this dissertation, I investigated the top-down implementation process of a dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in over 60 schools in a large urban school district in Texas to identify language ideologies and issues of language policy and policy implementation according to local participating educators. Drawing on a language policy framework and research in linguistic anthropology to define language ideologies, I employed a multi-method approach (survey (n=323 educators), interview (n=20 DLBE teachers) and observation (n=3 DLBE teachers)) to measure and better understand language ideology and its significance for local language policy. Analysis revealed ideological tension and multiplicity, within and across educators, within single statements and overtime. These ideological tensions operated in distinct ways at the classroom level. I demonstrate how the multiplicity and complexity of language ideologies must be considered when trying to discuss the ideological struggle involved in implementing pluralist bilingual programs within an English dominant society. I present four potential models to conceptualize and analyze ideological tension as well as a discussion on the relationship between language ideologies and local language policy. Implications for teacher education, DLBE policy and future research are considered.
Link to Dissertation
Dissertation Supervisors: Dr. Deborah Palmer and Dr. Rebecca Callahan
Degree Granting Institutions: The University of Texas at Austin
Multiple Repertoires of Languages and Literacies: A Multiple Instrumental Case Study of Six Spanish-English Emergent Bilinguals in Grade 4
This ethnographic research over one academic year investigates the language and literacy engagement of six Grade 4 Spanish-English emergent bilinguals in and out of school. In the mid-sized Midwest city where the study was conducted, focal students were selected from one bilingual classroom and one English-medium classroom while keeping constant the school context which allowed for capturing patterns and divergences in language development by emergent bilinguals in varying instructional contexts. Classroom and family practices that shape language and literacy engagement are also examined. Central to this work is the notion of repertoires to describe the many and overlapping patterns of language use with related ways of doing, being and valuing that focal children acquire through the various discourse communities in which they participate. This research enhances understandings of children’s dual language and literacy learning, a necessary step in better supporting emergent bilinguals at school, and documents the value and complexity of repertoires children engage with outside of school which are often overlooked or misunderstood.
Dissertation Supervisor: Margaret R. Hawkins, PhD
Degree Granting Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Lucky” Mexicans and White Hispanics: Latina/o Teachers and Racial Identity
My dissertation is study is a two-year ethnography of the racial identity productions of a cohort of Latina/o teachers in the bilingual education program at a large, public university. The goals of this project are 1) to explore how Latina/o preservice teachers of varying racial self-identifications and cultural backgrounds author identities as bilingual educators; 2) to investigate how distinct racial, class, linguistic, and immigration backgrounds are used to construct intra-ethnic identity differences in the bilingual cohort; and 3) to explore how and why some Latina/o bilingual cohort members produce white racial identities. My theoretical framework draws upon theories of figured worlds and racial formation as entry points for understanding the complex socio-historical and everyday processes that produce Latina/o racial identities and whiteness. I use methods such as participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and life history to construct vignettes of the identities of each participant. The data sources include preservice teacher interviews, classroom observations, and educational autobiographies submitted by the Latina/o bilingual preservice teachers. Study findings explore the ways that socialization in family and schooling contexts produced whiteness in various settings and also investigates how participants thought about Hispanic, Latina/o, and Mexicana/o identities. Study findings also discuss the role of the bilingual program producing and creating distinctions between Latina/o, Hispanic, Mexicana/o and White participants. I argue that the bilingual program inverted the dominant social capital relationships by creating a figured world that emphasized Latina/o linguistic and cultural knowledge. Implications for this research include creating spaces where the dominant linguistic and social capital of mainstream schooling is challenged in order to develop reflective and empathic bilingual educators.
Dissertation Supervisor: Dr. Luis Urrieta
2016 Lifetime Achievement Award Dr. María Estela Brisk, Professor of Teacher Education/Special Education at Boston College
Posthumus Award to Dr. Richard Ruiz of the University of Arizona
2016 Graduate Student Travel Awards
($500 stipend to support travel to present as part of the SIG’s program)
Joanna Tigert from the University of Maryland
Adriana Alvarez from the University of Colorado
Meg Burns from the University of Colorado