Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Assessing Professionals Working With Latinx Families With Special Needs In Monterey County, Jose Francisco Hernandez Rivera

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Special Kids Connect (SKC) is a nonprofit organization serving children with disabilities and their families in Monterey County. This capstone project concentrated on the professionals working with children as part of SKC’s Early Start Intervention Program. The project’s objective was to discover local agencies' professional development training needs that serve Latinx families with disabled children between 2 to 8 years. Seventy-five child-care providers, early intervention service professionals, regional center staff, and school district personnel responded to the survey. They indicated an overall 60 % needed an understanding of systems related to IEPs, Early Start Services, Developmental Screenings, Social-Emotional Screenings, Regional …

“Failure Is Not An Option”: Sub-Saharan African International Graduate Students’ Experiences In U.S. Higher Education Institutions, Alfred Acquah

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The rapid growth of international students, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa, in U.S. higher education institutions calls for more critical research to understand their nuanced experiences in these institutions. So often, international students are homogenized and put under one umbrella, which shadows their unique experiences, especially those from developing countries and regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, the paucity of literature on these students makes it even harder to hear their voices. Therefore, there is the need to disaggregate international students to become aware of some of their subtle challenges. This study aims to explore the experiences and community cultural wealth (CCW) …

Examining The Attitudes Of Preservice Teachers Toward English Learners, Annie Chou

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The rapid growth of the K-12 English Learner (EL) student population in the United States raises concerns related to their learning and growth in schools. Teachers are central figures in their students’ achievement. The influence of teachers’ attitudes on student learning and development validates the need to examine these in research studies. What influences teachers’ attitudes is an important part of understanding teachers’ attitudes towards their EL students. Certain individual characteristics including teachers’ training, may be associated with their positive attitudes. Studies have shown that effective teacher preparation programs can change preservice teacher attitudes in general and specifically towards their …

The Unexpected President: An Instrumental Case Study On Women University Presidents, Jessica Soria

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research study sought to examine the experiences of women university presidents. Despite the universal call for the diversification of higher education leadership, women are significantly underrepresented in the seat of the university presidency as higher rank university leadership positions are overwhelmingly occupied by white males. By interviewing women university presidents from diverse backgrounds and from different institutions, this instrumental case study examined their unique experiences. This study utilized two critical theoretical concepts to guide the study: intersectionality and gendered organizations theory.

Building A Positive Teacher And Student Identity In The Chinese Dli Context, Lila Jensen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio contains a selection of the author’s research interests and learning achievements while in the Master Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). It represents the author’s investigation, observation, and reflection as an MSLT student and as a Chinese teacher and coordinator for the Chinese Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program in Utah.

The first section of the portfolio contains the author’s teaching perspectives including professional environment, teaching philosophy statement, and professional development through teaching observations. These perspectives represent her professional growth over the years in the field of Chinese teaching in the DLI setting. The second …

Building 6c’S (Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Culture, Connectivity) In The Chinese Learning Classroom, Weixi Dong

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This teaching portfolio is a product of the author’s studies in the Masters of Second Language Teaching Program at Utah State University and her experiences as a teacher of Chinese at the elementary school level in the State of Utah’s public school Dual Immersion program. The author provides a selection of teaching reflections and research that have had the most impact on her teaching practice. First, the author offers personal reflections and a theoretical framework for her pedagogy in the Teaching Perspectives section, through a discussion of her professional environment and teaching experience; this is followed by the Teaching Philosophy …

The Study Of Morphological Awareness For English Learners, Jane Beeninga

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

English Learner (EL) students in American schools are becoming increasingly common, but there does not seem to be enough support for these students. This is causing EL students to fall behind in content areas such as reading (Richards-Tutor et al., 2016). The purpose of this study was to investigate what barriers are keeping EL students from succeeding in reading. After identifying a need for vocabulary instruction, the researcher will be conducting a morphological awareness intervention to improve EL students’ ability to figure out unknown words. Morphological awareness is the understanding of a word’s smaller units such as prefixes, suffixes, and …

Teacher Activism For Emergent Bilingual Learners : A Qualitative Study, Cyrene A. Crooms

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This qualitative dissertation study explored what informed the pedagogical moves of four teacher activists of emergent bilingual learners (EBLs). Quijano’s (2000) theory of coloniality of power served as a theoretical lens to examine the historical underpinnings of current education language legislation and policies impacting EBLs. There is a growing body of literature on teacher activism, but very few studies center teacher activism for linguistic justice. Picower’s (2012) framework for teacher activism was used to create data sources, which included interviews, artifacts, field visits, and personal communication. Data were analyzed using open and axial coding strategies. Findings were presented in four …

Arts Integration For Foreign Language Teaching And Learning: A Three Paper Dissertation, Qian Zhang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This three-paper dissertation examines whether arts integration-an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form-helps with foreign language teaching and learning, especially language performance. The first paper conducts a comprehensive literature review of research on arts integration and its use in the context of language classrooms, including both English as a Second Language and Foreign Language classrooms. The second paper is a qualitative case study exploring how a French teacher perceives the role that arts integration plays in her students’ language performance. Specific arts-integrated strategies are discussed, and connections are made to students’ language …

A Literature Review Of Multicultural Education Practices To Support Marginalized Communities, Karleigh Ferrell

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to provide an overview of the current literature surrounding multicultural education practices that effectively support students from marginalized communities. Today’s classrooms are the most diverse and expansive that they have ever been in terms of the student population, but this is not yet reflected in employed public school teachers. So, it is crucial that teachers and public schools are culturally competent and prepared to implement multicultural education practices. Teachers that are culturally competent and that utilize multicultural education strategies have a higher sense of self-efficacy and less risk of burnout, and students of all identities have better …

Practicing Self-Advocacy For Displaced People In The English Language Learner Classroom, Payton Persinger

MA TESOL Collection

This study is comprised of a literature review of best practices for working with displaced people and interviews with teachers of refugees. The author found that self-advocacy is multifaceted and that promoting self-advocacy is a key way to support learners in advocating for themselves and their communities. As borders become less porous, there will be more refugee crises, and more language teachers will be needed. Best practices for teaching languages include seeing students as cultural experts, teaching and encouraging resistance, being a trauma-informed practitioner, teaching legal rights, and making room for students to choose what they learn.

Learning Local Languages As A Means Of Preserving Culture: An Analysis Of The Federal Education Laws’ Treatment Of Regional Languages In The Basque Country And Colombia, Olivia Jaramillo

Honors Theses

Regional languages are essential components of vibrantly diverse cultures. Across all regions of the globalizing modern world, regional languages remain one of the clearest markers of the rich heritage and history that each continent, country, state, city, town uniquely possesses. Unlike the more dominant languages of our evolving international landscape, local and regional languages explicitly capture precise cultural experiences of limited populations. These languages carry specific nuance, meaning, grammar, and vocabulary obscured by other forms of communication. This project, researching and analyzing two individual countries’ regional language education under the federal legal systems, holds the importance of safeguarding local languages …

The Relationship Between Culturally Responsive Teacher Roles And Innovative Work Behavior: Canonical Correlation Analysis, Funda Nayir, Gurkan Saridas

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The aim of this research was to identify the relationship between culturally responsive teacher roles and innovative work behavior according to teachers’ views. The first phase of the analysis revealed that in the first canonical function, which is calculated to maximize the relationship between culturally responsive teacher roles and innovative work behavior data sets, culturally responsive teacher roles and innovative work behavior data sets share a variance of approximately 77%. In addition, as a result of the canonical correlation analysis, we determined that there is a positive relationship between the variables of the culturally regulating teacher (CRT) and the culturally …

Decolonizing And Diversifying French Curriculum In Twin Cities K-12 Schools, Helen Radovic

French Honors Projects

French classes in United States K-12 schools are still largely Paris-Centric and targeted towards a white/upper-class student demographic. The purpose of this study is to examine K-12 French teacher’s strategies in promoting diversity in their classrooms, and what effect this has on student engagement. Participants include eight K-12 French immersion teachers in the Twin Cities (Minnesota). Results from the study are complex and varied, however, they indicate that use of authentic resources and connection to students’ personal interests and culture are major ways in which the French curriculum can be reshaped to promote diversity and engagement.

Linguistically And Culturally Responsive Teaching For Ll In The Mainstream Classroom: Planning Tools And Other Classroom Resources, Emily L. Macarthur

Masters Projects

An increasingly diverse student population, including English Language Learners (LL), are continuing to integrate into U.S. schools in recent years. Without the proper training and tools, teachers are struggling to meet the needs of LL in the classroom. This project argues for the inclusion of linguistically and culturally responsive teaching methods and curriculum choices for implementation in a mainstream classroom. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Literacy Shifts call for LL to meet the same rigorous standards as their Native English-speaking (NES) peers, and so the planning tools and other resources described in this project reflect the CCSS’ focus on …

Driving Change: A Model For Collaborative Librarianship In Prince George’S County, Maryland, Nicholas A. Brown, Kyla Hanington

Collaborative Librarianship

The Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (PGCMLS) has a long-standing partnership with the county’s human rights education and enforcement agency, the Office of Human Rights (PGCOHR), formerly the Prince George’s County Human Relations Commission (PGCHRC). The two agencies serve over 967,000 Prince Georgians, a majority-Black (64.4%) and Latin or Hispanic (19.5%) population with a sizable immigrant community (22.7%). The civil rights issues of 2020 hit close to home in Prince George’s County and the agencies have sustained a multi-year effort to provide residents with opportunities to learn how to engage with social justice topics for personal and collective advancement. …

The Promise Of The Taxonomy Of Online Racism For Critical Race Media Literacy In Social Studies Education Research, Jemimah Young, Cristina Worley, Jamaal Young

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

The purpose of this article is to present an argument for the uptake of the online taxonomy of racism as an analytical framework for online analyses of racism to support the adoption of critical race media literacy (CRML) within social studies education. First, we provide an overview of the utility of the taxonomy of online racism. We then offer a discussion of how hashtag analysis is currently used to study racism in other fields and can be adapted for use among teacher educators, pre-service, and in-service social studies teachers. Then we present #hashtag content analysis as an exemplar for implementing …

Authentic Low-Stakes Practice To Make Meaning Lasting For Ells: Creating Vocabulary Chants And Songs To Enhance The Word Generation Curriculum, Lori Cohen

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

This curriculum creation is designed to supplement the Word Generation (WordGen) vocabulary program for middle school students. It adds songs and chants of the weekly focus words for use as a mnemonic device to remember and synthesize word meaning. The WordGen curriculum is heavily based on reading and writing and English Language Learners (ELLs) are at a disadvantage when tasked with learning and understanding academic vocabulary due to the short length of time for mastery (Cummins, 1999; Collier, 1987; Thompson, 2017). This curriculum is inspired by the desire to appeal to ELLs who would respond favorably to music or kinesthetic …

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round: Rethinking The St. Louis Busing Program, Tango Walker, Ketosha Harris

Dissertations

This autoethnography shares our personal experiences and counter-narratives in the St. Louis busing program. Through our mission we expound on experiences and real-life situations as seen through our lens as a student and a mother in the St. Louis busing program. Critical race theory (CRT) was used as an essential framework allowing us to focus on the following four tenets: counter-stories, permanence of racism, whiteness as property, interest convergence. (Anderson, et al., 2017). Critical race theory (CRT) is the framework in social sciences that examines society and culture as it relates to categorization of race, law and power (Lynn & …

Issue In Equity For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students With Complex Support Needs: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Level Student Data, Rosalia Pacheco

Special Education ETDs

Research has shown that English learners with disabilities should have access to both special education and Title III services as required by law (de Valenzuela et al., 2006, 2018, 2016, 2022; de Valenzuela & Copeland, 2018; Kangas, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021). This quantitative study uncovers issues of educational inequities related to: (a) the identification of these students as English learners; (b) their access to Title III services; and (c) the instructional settings in which they are educated for culturally and linguistically diverse students with Autism (ASD), Developmental Delay (DD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Multiple Disabilities (MD), or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). …