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Full-Text Articles in Education

Enhancing Cultural Awareness Policy And Pedagogy At A Bilingual Nursery School, Rola Touckly Aug 2022

Enhancing Cultural Awareness Policy And Pedagogy At A Bilingual Nursery School, Rola Touckly

The Dissertation-in-Practice at Western University

Globalization and migration have impacted the cultural demographics at educational settings worldwide. Families with young children relocating to new countries experience distress and a sense of cultural loss, in terms of language, beliefs, and values. Grounded in the social constructivist worldview, this organizational improvement plan proposes how to support cross-cultural kids and their families during the periods of transition and adaptation, at an international nursery school located in the Middle East. Influenced by the cross-cultural adaptation theory and a multidimensional ethical framework, the problem of practice addresses the need to develop a relevant policy and to enhance culturally responsive practices. …


Building Intercultural Capacity In School Teams To Support Refugee Students, Heather A. Young Aug 2022

Building Intercultural Capacity In School Teams To Support Refugee Students, Heather A. Young

The Dissertation-in-Practice at Western University

In a period of globalization and forced migration, refugee numbers are increasing exponentially, and unprepared school systems embrace students as families settle in unfamiliar territory. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores the experiences of a school team at Calluna Elementary School (CES, a pseudonym) in Southern Ontario, where staff strive to build their collective intercultural capacity in order to best serve an influx of newcomers who have survived war and significant loss. The Problem of Practice (PoP) involves addressing staff struggles with trauma-informed pedagogy, early literacy instruction, and maintaining an asset-focused perspective, through a refugee critical race theory lens. To …


Exploring The Effects Of A Chinese Heritage Language School On The Identity Construction Of Its Adolescent Students, Angela Dong Aug 2022

Exploring The Effects Of A Chinese Heritage Language School On The Identity Construction Of Its Adolescent Students, Angela Dong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This qualitative case study examines the identities of four adolescent students in a Chinese heritage language school in Atlantic Canada using a combination of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and textbook analyses. Drawing from the conceptual approaches of reflexivity and translanguaging, this study explores the participants’ understandings of what it means to be Chinese, how Chineseness relates to feelings of Canadianness, and the role Mandarin plays in their overall identity constructions. Existing literature (e.g. Lu, 2001; Shin, 2010) has found that maintaining fluency in a heritage language has positive effects on speakers’ cultural identities. The findings of this study show that …


Text Comprehension In Monolingual And Bilingual Adult Readers, Sharan K. Grewal, Deanna Friesen, Olivia Ward Aug 2022

Text Comprehension In Monolingual And Bilingual Adult Readers, Sharan K. Grewal, Deanna Friesen, Olivia Ward

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The present study examined whether University students who learned English as a second language differed from English monolingual students on their ability to detect inconsistent content in short informational texts about animals. Adults completed a self-paced reading task, performed text recalls, and completed a True/False test. Half of the texts contained information in the 5th sentence that contradicted the 2nd sentence’s information (inconsistent condition). The other half did not contain any contradictions (consistent condition). Participants also completed language and cognitive tasks as individual differences measures. Results revealed a significant interaction between language group and consistency, wherein monolingual adults spent more …


Increasing The Academic Achievement Of English Language Learning Students: An Inquiry Into Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Kimberly A. Bartlett Aug 2022

Increasing The Academic Achievement Of English Language Learning Students: An Inquiry Into Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Kimberly A. Bartlett

The Dissertation-in-Practice at Western University

The English Language Learner (ELL) international boarding students at an independent, not-for-profit school have consistently demonstrated lower levels of academic achievement than their local peers. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) proposes to address this Problem of Practice (PoP) by creating a professional learning community (PLC) to institute more culturally responsive pedagogy. This OIP suggests a compelling correlation between inclusiveness and academic success, and therefore the school needs to raise its level of cultural competency, introduce more equitable assessments, and increase coordination among the various departments and systems that support the ELL students. The implementation of the proposed solution relies on …


Reading Strategy Intervention And Reading Comprehension Success In Bilingual Readers, Bailey Frid Apr 2022

Reading Strategy Intervention And Reading Comprehension Success In Bilingual Readers, Bailey Frid

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Previous research has found that specific reading strategies predict reading comprehension success in bilingual readers (Frid & Friesen, 2020; Friesen & Frid, 2021). Yet, the pattern in which readers recruit these strategies has not been investigated. In the first study, the patterns of strategy recruitment used by skilled vs. poor bilingual readers was analyzed with previously collected think-aloud data. Results showed that skilled bilingual readers recruit a variety of strategies, they pair necessary inferences with other strategies and utilize comprehension monitoring strategies. In contrast, poor readers perseverate on specific strategies, recruit fewer strategies in total and make more incorrect statements. …