Emergent bi/multilingual children have historically been afforded few opportunities to engage dialogically with peers and teachers in posing authentic questions and co-constructing interpretations of texts as their reading instruction has traditionally been skills driven. Additionally, more recent scholarship has identified increased opportunities…

This study follows the literacy experiences of four Latina middle schoolers as they read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and compose home language narratives in their heritage voices. Both their vibrant ethnic cultures and other intersecting rays of identities are analyzed in the vein of their literate identities. Through analysis of their…

A child language broker is an individual who is interpreting between two parties due to a language difference. Previous research has focused on the parentification, undue burden, and stress on the child who is engaging in this practice. While these concerns are well researched and valid, there is a positive lens to the system in which this child…

This research provides information toward answering the question of whether bilingual studies at the university level might be elitist. This is a recurring research topic in terms of using English for nonlanguage instruction at the primary and secondary levels, but very few studies refer to university education. We seek to fill that gap in the…

This qualitative phenomenological study explores teachers' and bilingual adolescents' views about heritage language (HL) maintenance and bilingualism. Interviews with twelve teachers and twelve students revealed limited value for bilingualism. English dominance overshadowed the importance of bilingualism and HL maintenance. Findings reveal the…

The present study examined the production of inalienable possession with body parts in Spanish among 20 school-age children of Mexican-born parents born and raised in the United States. The results were compared to those of 20 first-generation immigrant parents (main input providers), 27 Spanish-dominant children of similar age, and 12 Spanish…

This ethnography analysis presents the translingual academic moments -- moments in an academic interaction where both Spanish and English are used -- of a group of six Spanish Heritage Language students who work as academic peer tutors in a Spanish for Heritage Speakers Program at a large public university. The analysis of peer-tutor interviews…

This dissertation was an investigation of how students in two-way bilingual immersion (TWBI) programs construct their bilingual identities inside and outside the school setting, highlighting the unique and multifaceted nature of their language development and cultural identity formation. TWBI programs aim to cultivate bilingualism and biliteracy,…

There is an expectation of bilingual proficiency as a requirement for admission into most bilingual teacher preparation programs, as well as licensing criteria and job requirements for bilingual teaching positions. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge the dynamic nature of bilingualism and that prospective teachers differ in the level of support they…

The sweeping changes brought forth by the pandemic led me to reshape my dissertation in order to develop non-academic skills that will allow me to better meet the shifting challenges of our times. Mine is a non-traditional project focused on the application of technologies and the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (the process by which…

In the current study, an initiative that focuses on bilingual proficiency among masters-level counseling students provided the opportunity to qualitatively answer the question: For Latina/o bilingual graduate students who are training to be licensed counselors, what is the meaning behind pursuing and obtaining recognition of their Spanish language…

In this study, we examine how adolescents in a dual-language program negotiate intersectional identities through interaction, while engaged in small-group exploratory talk around the task of a collaborative-writing project. We recognize that while dual-language settings can help adolescents build relationships with ethnolinguistically different…

This report summarizes results from a 2020 spring survey of 8th-grade students in the middle school Dual Language Program. Most students indicated they felt proud to be bilingual, appreciated the opportunities to receive high school and college credit, and wanted to continue Dual Language in high school.

Globalization has impacted higher education to an unprecedented degree, resulting in a need for students and teachers to be prepared for interaction in culturally and linguistically diverse environments at home and abroad, in both the university and the workplace. The present case study at a university in Spain collected questionnaire, individual…

At the southernmost tip of Texas, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) opened its doors on August 31, 2015 as a 'bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate' campus--the only one of its kind and at a scale never before attempted in the United States. This is a categorical achievement in the near 200 year-long quest for the educational…