Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

How Well Does The New York State Higher Education Opportunity Program Work For Black Men? A Mixed Methods Study, Michael A. Dejesus Iii

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research trended towards a deficit-oriented approach to understanding and explaining Black male underachievement. The past education research has focused on discussing the underachievement of Black males in Higher education. Finding solutions often were prescriptive in “fixing” behaviors in Black males to improve academic achievement. Additionally, there has been a trend towards race-neutrality in education policies, programs, and admissions criteria. And there is a lack of research on whether race-neutrality further exacerbates Black male underachievement by ignoring key race and gender targeted supports services that could improve Black male academic outcomes in higher education. While Black men have historically struggled …

The Policy Feedback Loop: Exploring English Learner (El) Policy, Policy Implementation, And The Relationship Between Policy, Research, And Practice, Nathan D. Koerber

Doctoral Dissertations

This study will explore the EL policy implementation process and offer evaluative feedback by systematically reviewing the history of US federal educational language policy and its impact on schools and classrooms, as well as the role research, has played in the development of EL policy. Additionally, this study will explore how current language policy implementation impacts programming and practices in both the UK and the US through two separate case studies, as a means of providing evaluative feedback on the policies.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the complicated history of EL policy and its impact, as well …

Defining Inclusion: Surveying Educator Perceptions And Practices In Chile, Christina A. Bosch

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite earlier attempts to arrive at unified theories or conceptualizations, the international literature on inclusive education has increasingly documented the proliferation of operationalizations of inclusion in and even within single instances of policy, research, and practice, and called for further scholarly attention to such subjectivity. Specifically, there is a dearth of international research linking definitions to perceptions to practices within special and/or inclusive education, and findings on the efficacy of interventions to promote inclusive education practices in Spanish-speaking contexts or literature are similarly sparse. This study investigates how Latinx educators in K-12 schools conceptualize and practice inclusion with respect to …

Evaluating A Translingual Administration Of The Early Grades Math Assessment (Egma) In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Fernanda Gandara

Doctoral Dissertations

Translanguaging is a view around languages that normalizes diglossia without separation: the linguistic resources of the bilinguals are considered one integrated system. Translanguaging is also a language practice of bilinguals, who select features from their entire linguistic repertoire to make sense of the world around them. Translanguaging is widely used by students and teachers in the bilingual classroom, as it allows students to build upon their entire set of resources, enhance learning outcomes, perform identities, and develop their languages even further. However, translanguaging is rarely used in assessments of bilinguals. Assessments of bilinguals, especially large-scale tests, are typically monolingual in …

Who Is Like Whom? Reclassification And Performance Patterns For Different Groupings Of English Learners, Molly M. Faulkner-Bond

Doctoral Dissertations

Approximately 10 percent of the US K-12 population consists of English learners (ELs), or students who are learning English in addition to academic content in areas like English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. In addition to meeting the same academic content and performance standards set for all students, it is also a goal for ELs to be reclassified – i.e., to master English so that they can shed the EL label and participate in academic settings where English is used without needing special support. Working with a longitudinal cohort of ~28,000 ELs in grades 3 through 8 from one state, …

Building Communicative Competence: An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of An Intensive Japanese-Language Program, Yukiko Konishi

Doctoral Dissertations

Even though language-program evaluations provide educators with various types of information on teaching practices and the programs in which they work, insufficient literature discusses issues related to language-program evaluation. This mixed-methods study examined the effectiveness of a Japanese-language program offered at a government-sponsored Institute located in northern California on language-program evaluation and developing communicative competence at postsecondary schools.

Data comprised two sets of surveys, six individual interviews, and one group interview. Survey respondents were 35 former students of the institute and 12 Japanese instructors who are currently teaching Japanese or have taught Japanese at the Institute. Of the 35 students, …

Translanguaging And Identity In A Kindergarten Classroom: Validating Student's Home Culture And Language In An English-Only Era, Maria Eugenia Lozano Lenis

Doctoral Dissertations

This ethnographic multi-year study examines the effects of federal and state education policies in language-minority school children’s in Western Massachusetts. Specifically, it explores, how, in an increasingly English Only era, a Latina kindergarten teacher resists Massachusetts' restrictive bilingual education law at the same time that she builds on her students’ multi-ethnic identity. Methodologically, this study combines ethnographic and discourse analysis methods and techniques analyzing the curricular effects that the NCLB and the state of Massachusetts language policy have on an underperforming school serving a predominantly Latino/a population. The focus of the study is the literacy practices enacted by a Dominican …

Participatory Perspectives: A Photovoice Narrative Study Of Zambian Vulnerable Youth, Lori K. Imasiku

Doctoral Dissertations

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals aim to meet the needs of the world's poorest people by 2015 through universally agreed upon targets. Goal number two aims to provide universal primary education and states that "by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling" (United Nations, 2010). Zambia, located in Sub-Saharan Africa, in an effort to increase school access and attendance, developed the Free Basic Education Plan which eliminated school tuition up to grade 7 and allowed for a large number of children to enroll in school. While this effort …

Casa De La Solidaridad: A Pedagogy Of Solidarity, Kevin Yonkers-Talz

Doctoral Dissertations

Casa de la Solidaridad has been recognized as an innovative and effective educational model within Jesuit higher education yet, until now, there have only been verbal presentations of the unique attributes of the Casa de la Solidaridad model. In addition, there has been a lack of information regarding the influence of the Casa experience on the lives of alumni. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to thoroughly describe and document the unique attributes of the Casa de la Solidaridad model, and 2) to provide some insight into how the Casa program has influenced the lives of Casa alumni. …

The Principal's Role In Promoting Success For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students: A Participatory Research Study, Maria Norma Martinez

Doctoral Dissertations

We need to understand more fully what facilitates success in schools with diverse populations. Through participatory research, the voices of school principals who are responsive to the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students were recorded and analyzed to provide insights on the practices that promote the school success of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Using a dialogic retrospective, the participants had the opportunity to engage, individually and collectively, in reflection and dialogue to identify common themes that emerged in their important work as school leaders and as advocates for diverse students.