This dissertation seeks to illuminate additive significance of the entanglements within a Dual Language Immersion Spanish Science classroom where arts-based pedagogies are employed. Using a theoretical framework that combines Jane Bennett's Vibrant Materialism (2010) and notion of Enchantment (2002) and Gloria Anzaldua's concept of Nepantla…

Numbers of Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs are rapidly growing in the United States, especially in the New Latinx Diaspora in the South. With fast expansion comes a need for DLBE teachers, but there is a lack of programs in this region to prepare teachers with specialized knowledge for DLBE instruction. This phenomenological…

Despite the increasing number of U.S. born Latinos, placing heritage and native speakers in the Spanish curriculum is still a challenge (MacGregor-Mendoza & Moreno, 2020). The present article: (1) addresses the unique needs of heritage speakers in the Spanish curriculum; (2) problematizes traditional grammar-based placement exams; and (3)…

The unprecedented growth of Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in new destination states (e.g., Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee) calls for better understanding of the relation between their bilingual vocabulary skills and English reading achievement. The current study focused on school-age Spanish-English DLLs (N = 60) in…

This article investigates how young multilingual children's mathematics learning is connected to their language use, lived experiences, contexts, and emotions. To this end, we consider the experiences of children who used both Spanish and English to learn mathematics. We center on two instances of kindergarten children counting and use Systemic…

The purpose of this qualitative, interpretive study was to investigate general education K-12 teachers' perceptions of instructional practices and professional development for teaching Spanish as a first language English Language Learners. Specifically, I investigated the instructional practices and professional development experiences of K-12…

Having a dual focus on teaching content information and language is important in language-learning contexts and is a defining feature of dual language bilingual education (DLBE). However, systematically teaching both language and content is challenging for DLBE teachers. This exploratory mixed methods study of nine Spanish-English bilingual Latinx…

Both within the field of world language (WL) teacher education and across teacher education in other disciplines, critiques of the edTPA have increased over the past several years. In WL language education, scholars have identified issues related to raters' use of edTPA rubrics and a serious lack of transparency about rater expertise. To better…

Georgia and North Carolina are part of what some call the New Latinx South, a region where Latinx populations more than doubled recently. Both states have struggled to educate language minoritized students (evidenced by low graduation rates), yet are among the top three states for numbers of dual language (DL) programs in the Southeast. This model…

Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study followed a statewide sample of 1,169 children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program in 2013-14 through their 4th grade year in 2018-19. The study was conducted by researchers at the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The following summary…

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between attendance in Georgia's Pre-K Program and children's academic and social outcomes through third grade. This report includes a sub-study that incorporates a comparison group of children who did not attend any pre-k program. This report focuses on third grade outcomes, but it also…

This report summarizes results from the Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study Third-Grade Report. The study followed a representative sample of children (n=1,169) from their pre-k experience (2013-2014) through the third grade (2017-2018). Study components include: (1) Standardized child assessments that measure skills across learning domains. By…

The purpose of this evaluation study was to examine children's longitudinal academic and social outcomes associated with attendance in Georgia's Pre-K Program and to examine the quality of the classrooms attended. This report covers pre-k to 4th grade outcomes collected between the 2013-2014 and 2018-2019 school years as well as a sub-study…