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Full-Text Articles in Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education

Critical Cultural Perspectives On Teaching Arabic As A Foreign Language (Tafl): A Critical Ethnographic Investigation Of A Us College-Level Course, Shaimaa Moustafa Sep 2020

Critical Cultural Perspectives On Teaching Arabic As A Foreign Language (Tafl): A Critical Ethnographic Investigation Of A Us College-Level Course, Shaimaa Moustafa

Doctoral Dissertations

A gap in the critical cultural research paradigm in foreign language teaching (FLT) and teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) at the college level in the U.S. context subsists. FLT and TAFL have been characterized by the prevalence of the communicative and proficiency-based pedagogies and their concomitant research frameworks. This prevalence is tied to the growing neoliberal and terror rhetoric in recent years (Kramsch, 2005; Bernstein et al., 2015). In the face of the latter, a need for critical cultural frameworks of teaching and research became plausible to deconstruct the different clichés and biases in the context of Arabic …


An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang Oct 2019

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …


When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien Jul 2019

When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on a 3-year ethnography, this dissertation documents the story of Presente, an explicitly critical youth-led restorative justice group attempting to dismantle the school-prison nexus and create a more youth-centered culture at their high-reform high school. This dissertation addresses the questions: How does serving as a restorative justice peer leader impact students? What challenges and opportunities arise as the school tries to transition to more restorative practices? And how do the values central to restorative justice come up against, challenge, and get challenged by neoliberal education reform?


Critical Language Awareness In An Ell Urban Language Classroom: Transforming A Latina Teacher’S Language Ideology, Yvonne V. Fariño Nov 2017

Critical Language Awareness In An Ell Urban Language Classroom: Transforming A Latina Teacher’S Language Ideology, Yvonne V. Fariño

Doctoral Dissertations

How can language be re-conceptualized as a tool and resource in contested pedagogies? Vygotsky theory of the mind (1978, 1986, 1998) and Engeström Activity Theory (1987, 1992) document how learning and development are situated within sociocultural contexts (Scribner & Cole, 1981; Tharp & Gillmore, 1988). Vygotsky theory of the mind (1978) central tenet is “understanding everyday activities and of cognitive processes” (Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004: 467), or the process of appropriation itself, as it happens in everyday practices without isolating it from social context or human agency. Even though the goal of activity theory claims to be multi- voiced …


Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer Aug 2015

Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how teaching an English literature curriculum centered on the stories, experiences, cultures, histories, and politics of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people constitutes a meaningful site for teaching and learning in a high school classroom. The dissertation offers insights on how the teaching of LGBTQI-themed texts in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to critical literacies teaching. The project follows principles of critical qualitative research and employs an ethnographic case study approach with the purpose of transforming educational …


Positionality And Its Effects On Pedagogy: Examining The Identity Categories Of Race, Class, And Gender Of English As A Second Language (Esl) Preservice Teachers., Hollie Marie Nawrocki Aug 2015

Positionality And Its Effects On Pedagogy: Examining The Identity Categories Of Race, Class, And Gender Of English As A Second Language (Esl) Preservice Teachers., Hollie Marie Nawrocki

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the identity categories of race, class, and gender in preservice teachers, and how the nexus of those identities impacts their teaching practices, especially when teaching English Language Learners (ELLs). The topic of teacher beliefs of preservice teachers has been well researched. However, there were gaps in the literature concerning the positionality of preservice teachers with specific regard to race, class, and gender. This study sought to address gaps in the existing literature by examining the participant perceptions of race, class, and gender of preservice English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers and …


Speaking Back To Structure: Critical Multimodal Media Literacy & The Politics Of School Reform, Kate Way Aug 2014

Speaking Back To Structure: Critical Multimodal Media Literacy & The Politics Of School Reform, Kate Way

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the development of critical multimodal and media literacy skills in high school aged students against the backdrop of current state and national education policy. Following the progress of students in a semester-long writing course that focuses on critical multimodal and media literacy, the study examines how critical literacy skills develop within different modes and mediums – particularly those enabled by new media and digital technologies – and considers the implications of critical multimodal and media literacy skills for student engagement, agency, and achievement. The study further analyzes the impact at the institutional level of educational reforms incentivized …


Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent Aug 2014

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …


(Un)Packing Your Backpack: Educational Philosophy, Positionality, And Pedagogical Praxis, Yvette Prinsloo Franklin Aug 2012

(Un)Packing Your Backpack: Educational Philosophy, Positionality, And Pedagogical Praxis, Yvette Prinsloo Franklin

Doctoral Dissertations

In this philosophical research project, the author examines the question: How can the case be made that there is an imperative need to change the trajectory of current efforts to reduce “achievement gaps” in the United States and (re)vision a transformation of our school settings through conscious-raising sensitivity regarding issues of equity towards equality amongst educators that harnesses the work of philosophy of education scholars? She engages the reader in a theoretical hike through a philosophical argument for attending to philosophical theories of education, extending the work of Jane Roland Martin regarding sensitivity and drawing heavily on the scholarship of …


Decolonial Multiculturalism And Local-Global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage For Developing New Praxes In Education, Katharine Matthaei Sprecher Aug 2011

Decolonial Multiculturalism And Local-Global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage For Developing New Praxes In Education, Katharine Matthaei Sprecher

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a conceptual bricolage that explores complex, reflexive, and interrelated dimensions of educational praxes. My work is grounded in the assertion that the ever-changing, local-global nature of contemporary societies requires new approaches to curricula, pedagogies, policies, and practices in U.S. schools to meet the challenges and opportunities of a global era. Presenting my research and findings as four articles, I begin with a dialectical analysis of theoretical and pedagogical literatures to develop an adaptable framework for decolonial multicultural education. In Article 1, I demonstrate how this framework synergizes aspects of social reconstructionist and critical multicultural, global, and …