Thesis advisor: C. Patrick Proctor / Schools, districts, and states are at a time of transition from the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and this change comes alongside evolving state policy landscapes. Since NCLB and the epoch of English-only education in Massachusetts, which ended after the passage of the Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK) Act in 2017, have been shown to have a primarily negative impact on emergent bilingual students, a historically marginalized group of learners, there is a need for educators and researchers to understand how educators are comprehending and responding to policy changes. Yet processes of policy interpretation and implementation are often not straightforward and many factors from the location of an organization to an individual’s role, connections, and prior professional experiences (Burch & Spillane, 2005; Spillane, 1998) can impact policy understandings and implementation. The purpose of this qualitative dissertation was to understand how educational leaders interpreted and responded to ESSA and the LOOK Act in Massachusetts. Utilizing sensemaking theory as a theoretical framework (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002), analysis of 17 participant interviews as well as state documents demonstrated that district, state, school, and organizational leaders were optimistic about the educational future of bilingual children in Massachusetts. They viewed the LOOK Act as offering needed flexibility for designing educational programs, as better aligning with participants’ beliefs about bilingualism and language learning, and as potentially facilitating the increased engagement of bilingual families as stakeholders with a voice. Educational leaders understood ESSA in relation to how they understood NCLB. They also viewed ESSA primarily as a compliance mandate. Participants responded to ESSA and LOOK by defending their intentional focus on the immediate: the policies, initiatives, and practices that aligned with their beliefs about what is best for bilingual students. These priorities included reconceptualizing programs of education for bilingual students and launching English Learner Parent Advisory Councils, both made possible by the LOOK Act, as well as hiring and retaining equity-minded district leaders, advocating at the state and district levels around funding structures, building teacher capacity to teach emergent bilingual students, developing multiple pathways for children, and shifting belief systems around bilingualism and bilingual children. Developing understandings of how educators interpret and respond to ESSA and LOOK can further inform educators’ crafting of policies and programs that can benefit bilingual children. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: María E. Brisk / Bilingual international students’ ability to function linguistically has been found to be closely associated with their academic performance (Karuppan & Barari, 2010; Rowntree, Zufferey, & King, 2016) and social adjustment (Andrade, 2006; Yeh & Inose, 2003). While most previous research has focused on the language and education experiences of graduate international students (e.g., Cheng & Erben, 2011; Jiang, 2014; Lin, 2006; Xue, 2013), it remains unclear how undergraduate students, especially newly-arrived college freshmen, function linguistically during their transnational, translingual, and transcultural experiences. Drawing upon Bioecological Model of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985), this one-semester-long qualitative study explored the linguistic functioning and first-semester college experiences of twelve international freshmen from China. The guiding research questions were: (1) How did the twelve Chinese international students from different disciplines function linguistically in academic and social settings at the beginning of their first semester in college? (2) How did they meet the oral and written linguistic demands in academic and social settings throughout the semester? (3) What has changed regarding their linguistic functioning over the course of one semester? The participants were twelve first-semester Chinese international freshmen majoring in eight disciplines. Multi-modal data were collected through a combination of a 4-month digital ethnography (Pink et al., 2016) using a culturally-relevant social media application software WeChat, along with traditional qualitative data collection methods including semi-structured interviews, bilingual language logs, writing samples across genres, talks around texts, and informal communication. Three themes emerged based on data analyzed following applied thematic analysis (Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012), including linguistic functioning in academic and social settings, the students’ coping strategies initiated, and their perceptions of support received. While the students’ previous language and education backgrounds played an important role in their ability to function linguistically in college, internal factors such as motivation and agency also helped to shape their first-semester college experiences. Although Chinese was frequently adopted as a bridging tool earlier in the semester, its popularity naturally decreased overtime throughout the semester. In questioning eight commonly held misconceptions, this dissertation has unpacked the within-group variability and tensions among Chinese international students and drawn attention to their initial transitional, translingual, and transcultural experiences from a developmental perspective. Based on the findings, I present (1) suggestions on how American higher education could better serve the unique linguistic and academic needs of its growing international student population to facilitate their long-term success, (2) implications on research methodology, and (3) directions for future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

In the past decade, many American high school graduates have been deprived of the cultural vocabulary that was once the fundamental and common possession of educated persons in past generations. This dearth of knowledge--also described as a lack of cultural literacy is a glaring problem, reflected quite noticeably in declining scores on standardized tests. This national paucity in cultural literacy has not left the Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School (in Roosevelt, New York) unscathed; therefore, this study assessed the needs of the students and devised strategies to meet those needs. In 1991, five workshops were conducted for teachers in the English/language arts department. Because the Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School, which comprises a predominantly Black, middle-class student population, has not escaped this national malady, this study utilized action research to improve teaching techniques and enhance cultural literacy. Using African-American culture as a vehicle, an effort was made to forge a link between Black culture (emphasizing the literary aspect) and other required materials. The main objective was, and still is to motivate students to learn, thereby improving their academic status and raising their test scores. In every field of endeavor--be it educational, or otherwise, it would benefit the leaders or staff members to make attempts to meet the students, workers, or members, where they are on their various intellectual and inspirational levels, tapping into their latent talents. With emphasis on collaboration and an action research approach, an effort was made to implement measures for solving the stated problem. Academically, this study offered students the opportunity to use their cultural heritage, their interests, and their talents as a catalyst to general "world knowledge." This rise in levels of cultural literacy may lead to greater feelings of self-worth, and eventual improvement in test scores on teacher-made tests as well as standardized tests.

Desde el año 2001, integrantes del pueblo originario shipibo-conibo —grupo étnico de la Amazonía peruana— se establecieron en el mercado público de Cantagallo en el distrito del Rímac, Lima-Perú. Desde su llegada, a lo largo de diferentes etapas, los shipibos se han establecido y desarrollado en este espacio y han intentado mantener su cultura, costumbres y tradiciones junto con su lengua de origen. Sin embargo, no se sabe en qué medida los jóvenes han mantenido su cultura y su lengua originarias. Por ello, se explorarán las percepciones de los adolescentes de la comunidad shipibo-conibo de Cantagallo respecto a su idioma, pues son los herederos de dichas tradiciones, costumbres, modo de vida y cultura que mantienen en esta ciudad. El método que se utilizó para la presente investigación fue cualitativo por lo que se realizaron entrevistas estructuradas. Los resultados muestran que los adolescentes utilizan la lengua shipibo-conibo con su familia y amigos dentro de la comunidad; sin embargo, factores como la discriminación, desinterés, vergüenza, entre otros representan una amenaza para la vitalidad de la lengua shipibo-conibo. / Since 2001, members of the shipibo-conibo indigenous people —an ethnic group originally from the Peruvian Amazon— settled in the public market of Cantagallo in the district of Rimac, Lima-Peru. Since their arrival through many years, they have settled and developed in this location, trying to maintain their culture, customs and traditions along with their native language. However, it is unknown how young people have maintained their native culture and language. As a result, we explore the perceptions of the adolescents of the shipibo-conibo community of Cantagallo regarding their language, since they are heirs of those traditions, customs, lifestyle and culture that they maintain in this city. The method used for the present research was qualitative, so in-depth interviews were conducted. The results showed that adolescents use the shipibo-conibo language to communicate with their relatives and friends of the community. However, factors such as discrimination, disinterest, embarrassment, among others, represent a threat for the preservation of the shipibo-conibo language. / Trabajo de suficiencia profesional

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to understand how young children bridge belonging and language in a dual language immersion (DLI) setting. I developed a 10-week ethnographic study in a Spanish-English third-grade class in the Northeast of the U.S. where data was collected in the form of field notes, interviews, and artifacts. Here I explored the way language instruction and student participation influenced the development of the teacher and students’ multiple identities. The findings of this study suggest that emergent bilinguals’ identity development derives from the process built through multiple dialogic classroom instruction and practices. The products of this process emphasize the sense of belonging and language practices as main components of students’ hybrid and fluid identities. This research contributes to the field of identity development and DLI studies in terms of knowledge, policy, and practices. In particular, the findings of this study: (a) increase our knowledge of students’ multiple identities development in DLI settings; (b) impact policy implementation in elementary schools; and (c) reveal classroom strategies and successful instructions in elementary education.

abstract: Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine how vocabulary size and inhibitory control affect word learning in bilingual (English-Spanish) children with hearing loss. Experiment 1 examined whether children with larger vocabularies learn and retain more words than children with smaller vocabularies. Experiment 2 examined whether children with better inhibitory control learn and remember more words than children with poorer inhibitory control. In addition, monolingual and bilingual children with and without hearing loss were compared on word learning and inhibitory control tasks. Method: Seventy-three children between 8 and 12 years of age participated in the study. Forty children had normal hearing (20 monolingual and 20 bilingual) and 33 had hearing loss (20 monolingual and 13 bilingual). For Experiment 1, children completed a receptive vocabulary test in English and Spanish and three word learning tasks consisting of a training and a retention component in English, Spanish, and Arabic. For Experiment 2, children completed the flanker task for inhibitory control. Results: In Experiment 1, larger total (English + Spanish) receptive vocabularies were predictive of better word training outcomes in all languages and better Spanish word retention, after controlling for age, degree of hearing loss, and maternal education. Children with hearing loss performed more poorly in Spanish and Arabic word training and retention than children with normal hearing. No differences were observed between children with normal hearing and hearing loss in English word learning. In Experiment 2, inhibitory control only predicted English retention outcomes. Children with hearing loss showed poorer inhibitory control than hearing peers. No differences were observed between monolingual and bilingual children, with and without hearing loss, in word learning or inhibitory control. Conclusions: Language experience (measured by total vocabulary size) helps children learn new words and therefore children with hearing loss should receive well-fitted hearing aids and school accommodations to provide them with access to spoken language. Bilingual exposure does not impair nor facilitate word learning. Bilingual children showed similar difficulties with word learning and inhibitory control as monolingual peers with hearing loss. Hearing loss, probably via language deprivation, has broad effects on children’s executive function skills. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2019

Currently there is a national policy debate on the issue of appropriate educational programs for language minority students. This study addresses the issue at the state level, asking: Are ESL/bilingual education policies in Oregon school districts providing equal educational opportunity for language minority students? The purpose of the study is to document ESL/bilingual policies in Oregon school districts, and to analyze them in terms of their contribution to equality of educational opportunity. Policy analysis serves as the theoretical framework for the study because of its potential as a synthesizing paradigm for studies in educational administration. The Policy Process Model (Heflin, 1981), incorporates three stages: (a) policy formulation, (b) policy implementation, and (c) policy impact. The research questions correspond to these three stages, and seek to analyze policy in eight areas pertinent to ESL/bilingual education. (1) Identification and assessment; (2) Instructional programs; (3) Primary language usage; (4) Exiting and mainstreaming; (5) Recognition of minority group cultures; (6) Parental involvement; (7) Personnel requirements; (8) Program evaluation. Survey research was chosen as an efficient method of gathering data from a large number of subjects throughout a widespread geographical area. The design of the survey instrument included an analysis of legal and theoretical bases for educating language minority students, expert input, and field testing. The entire population of 305 Oregon school districts was surveyed. A 93.8 percent response rate was obtained. The analysis of data produced the following conclusions: (1) There is a large and growing population of limited-English proficient (LEP) students in Oregon schools. Although most districts provide some type of programs for LEPs, district policy is rarely mentioned as the reason for doing so. (2) Implementation varies widely from district to district, in the absence of clear statewide standards for effective education for language minority students. (3) Only nine percent of districts reporting LEP students implement ESL/bilingual policies that apparently are in complete compliance with federal and state laws. (4) Only two percent implement policies that concur with basic principles for educating language minority students. (5) A district's level of compliance with the laws and concurrence with basic principles do not correlate with district size; rather with numbers or percentages of LEP students in the district.

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive validity of the Spanish and English versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test for entering limited English proficient (LEP) Spanish and monolingual English kindergarten students. The criterion was reading achievement as measured by the Total Reading subtest of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) and the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education (SABE). In addition, percentage of instructional time in Spanish was examined as a variable which may combine with the vocabulary scores to predict achievement for the Spanish speaking students. Selected for the study were 355 monolingual English speaking and 208 monolingual Spanish-speaking kindergarten students from a single district in central California. The LEP students included were those who scored a "one," no English, on the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) upon entering kindergarten. Students included in the study were selected over 3 school years and 25 kindergarten teachers. Ninety percent of the district's students were on free or reduced cost lunch. The results of this study indicate there is a statistically significant relationship between entering kindergarten students' vocabulary scores and end of the first grade reading achievement but the vocabulary scores differentially predict achievement for the Spanish and English students. English speaking students scored significantly higher in reading achievement than Spanish-speaking students. The amount of time spent instructing in Spanish during the first grade combines with the students' language and vocabulary scores for a greater increment in the prediction of reading achievement. LEP Spanish-speaking students instructed more than 75% of the time in Spanish at the first grade level scored significantly higher in reading achievement than those instructed less than 75% of the time.

No description available.