This qualitative case study examined communication strategies and interactional resources that junior and senior high school Spanish teachers use more often in their oral activities in central Pennsylvania public schools. A mismatch in students' knowledge and use of Spanish motivated the investigation. Twelve Spanish teachers were the purposely…

Heritage language speakers, those who have or claim a connection with the language of their ancestors, have become a group of interest in the United States, especially since programs to serve this population were initiated four decades ago thanks to the advocacy of grassroots organizations. Still, the reach of those programs is minimal and the…

The purpose of this dissertation was to provide teachers, principals, district administrators, and local, state, and national legislators with an understanding of what the perception is of Hispanic American Immigrant parents regarding their access to parental engagement and agency through the American public school system, specifically elementary…

California's K-12 student population is one of the most linguistically diverse in the nation, with nearly 40% of students who speak a language other than English. Despite federal and landmark K-12 policies supporting inclusion for multilingual learners (MLs), as revealed by the literature, MLs are often viewed through a white normative…

This critical ethnography examines how the language ideologies of non-teaching staff (NTS) shape language practices in a bilingual PreK-8 school. Recent research on two-way bilingual education reveals the ways that the language ideologies of teachers, administrators, and parents can support the privileging of English in bilingual programs by…

The promotion of language ideologies, policies and pedagogies that treat languages as separate and hierarchical has become a central concern for critical education scholars. In this case study, I explore how school actors at Colegio Colombiano (CC), an international school in Colombia, engaged with critical approaches to bi/multilingual education…

This study examines ideologies of language and orientations to bilingual education in California. Specifically, this study examines how three bilingually authorized first- and second-year teachers in one bilingual Oakland elementary school experienced professional development, and how that professional development connected, in multiple…

The Los Angeles Unified School District has undertaken an experiment in the education of immigrant students learning English. Over the 2021-2023 school years, the district opened three new high school Academies for recently-immigrated students explicitly tasked with centering their home languages to support their success in school. The students…

Latinx dual language learners (DLLs) are an enormous and growing student body that faces educational adversities and inequities. One of the most salient findings to emerge from decades of educational research is that DLLs who close the gap with their monolingual peers and have the best long-term academic performance are those who develop strong…

Teachers need support with on-going professional learning to effectively address Spanish-speaking biliterate students' strengths and language needs. They also need to build capacity in learning new standards and in implementing policy. This study utilized Communities of Practice and Latina/o Critical Race Theory to explore the learning process of…

This dissertation examines a teacher's language ideologies, their impact on curriculum modifications and bilingual Latinx middle schoolers' storytelling, to understand how a bilingual pedagogy builds on their cultural and linguistic resources. This qualitative study was conducted in a sixth grade writing workshop class in New York City as the…

This dissertation project represents a 2.5-year ethnographic study in a second-grade bilingual classroom and the homes of seven emergent bilingual children of Mexican-origin. This study examines how educational assessment policies shape the ways in which emergent bilingual children are socialized to express social and academic identities during…

The purpose of this narrative study was to explore how Latina cultural brokers understand their role in translating and interpreting complex, adult situations for their families, called cultural brokering, and how that background shapes their collegiate experiences. While much of the higher education literature in recent years has focused on the…

The purpose of this study was to examine how stakeholders in one Texas school district perceive, experience, and respond to the Spanish bilingual teacher shortage. The research design was qualitative with an exploratory, single case study approach. The case study school district was a mid-sized suburban district in Texas that utilized a dual…

This is a qualitative case study using ethnographic methods of how one school community has been able to negotiate Arizona's restrictive English only language policies. Drawing from classroom and school-wide observations, extensive interviews, and document collection, this case study explores three key questions in relation to this school's…