No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Here I am Now! was the title immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and local refugee community youth gave to their participatory photography installation displayed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This exhibit was the culmination of students' participation in a series of alternative community service-learning (CSL) courses offered through CIRCLE (Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment). Here first-generation undergraduate students mentored neighboring Vietnamese and Cambodian refugee youth using photography and art and applying community development education principles and techniques. While community service-learning pedagogy has become an established educational practice on most U.S. universities and colleges today, little research has been conducted viewing the educational impact of community service-learning pedagogy on diverse student populations. The majority of the scholarship in this field focuses on the experiences of white middle-class students engaged in service-learning relationships with communities from unfamiliar and different socio-cultural, racial, ethic and economic backgrounds (Dunlap, 1998). This dissertation presents a different perspective. Here I examine how immigrant and refugee undergraduate students understood and made meaning of their participation in a community service-learning experience with youth from familiar and similar ethnocultural contexts. This model valued participants' common cultural assets, highlighted the immigrant and refugee experience, and attended to specific local refugee community needs. To answer my research questions I applied critical ethnographic approaches and analyzed student narratives (interviews, journal entries, reflection papers, poetry and photography) to better understand participants' community-service learning experiences. Through the prisms of three educational learning theories I review the university context, highlight aspects of the situation under study and proceed to build an emerging framework for CSL pedagogy with diverse communities. These theories include; experiential and critical pedagogy, situated learning theory, and the anthropological concept, funds of knowledge, as guides toward developing culturally relevant CSL curriculum with immigrant and refugee learners. Through student narratives, I demonstrate that critical CSL curriculum and service that emphasize peer learning and strategic and cultural resources (funds of knowledge), provide diverse undergraduate students with alternative and creative spaces of critique and possibility in their higher education and community service-learning experiences.

The purpose of this study was to understand how a predominately White school conceptualized and implemented multicultural education. Presently, multicultural education is discussed in the contexts of urban or suburban school settings in which there are students from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Little has been written about multicultural, particularly anti-racist/anti-bias, education in mostly White rural areas. The study was conducted over a five-month period from February 1993 through June 1993 with informal visits in the fall and spring of 1994. The data is based on observations, documents, and interviews with teachers, aides, staff, and parents. Questions addressed definitions of multicultural education, successes and barriers encountered in the process, and suggestions for further improvement. The section on definitions of multicultural education includes eight categories: Accepting and Respecting Self and Others, Learning About Self from Others, Developing Critical Thinking Skills, Addressing Issues of Bias, Learning Through Contact, Standing Up for Justice, Going Through the Process, and Integrating Throughout the Curriculum. Factors contributing to the school becoming more multicultural were: a strong and open staff, an in-depth, interdisciplinary curriculum, a school-wide practice of inclusion, a small school with strong parent involvement, and a supportive community located relatively close to a university town. Factors that hindered the school from becoming more multicultural included: an ambivalence about the role and significance of race and racism, a lack of agreement about who ought to provide leadership and how, a lack of a permanent forum for discussion and guidance as the school moves through controversial issues, and a state of constant change which made planning difficult. Despite these barriers, the school community's capacity and commitment to learn and grow creatively in the face of such challenges suggested a strong foundation for the life-long process of becoming a multicultural school.

The purpose of this research was to determine whether participation in a dual-language program by English-language learners (ELLs) contributed to the literacy development of this student population. This qualitative research spanned 5 months and was conducted within an elementary school located in central Florida. It is important to note that the researcher was also a teacher within the dual-language program under study, hence possessed an inside perspective of the program and the progression of several participating students. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What factors contribute to the improved literacy development for ELLs through participation in a two-way, dual-language program? 2. What factors contribute to the failure to improve the literacy development for ELLs participating in two-way, dual-language programs? As an ethnographic study, the qualitative methods of observation, interviewing, and examination of artifacts (i.e., work samples) were employed. ELLs attending the 1st through the 5th grades were observed during their Literacy Block and interviewed regarding their feelings about learning two languages. Parents and teachers were also interviewed to determine their beliefs surrounding the contribution of the dual-language program to the literacy development of the participating ELLS. Work samples, including reading scores and journal samples, were also examined. The four processes of the W. P. Thomas and V. P. Collier (1997) prism model--sociocultural processes, linguistic processes, academic development, and cognitive development--served as the theoretical framework for the data analysis. The prism model facilitated elaboration of how all processes involved in the development of the ELLs' literacy skills are related and intertwined. After triangulation of the data from the observations, interviews and work samples, ten factors affecting second-language acquisition for ELLs participating in a dual-language program were discovered in this study. Nine appeared to contribute to successful literacy development and one factor appeared to contribute to failure in the acquisition of second-language literacy skills. Based upon the findings, it appears that participation in a dual-language program indeed contributes to literacy development in ELLs. Contributions to the field and recommendations for related future research are presented.

With the rise of the number of immigrant children in schools across the U.S., education research has directed its attention to understanding these newcomers' social experiences at school. Though Brazilian immigrant populations are growing, research on their unique social experiences remains limited. Grounded in critical sociocultural theory, this interpretive phenomenological study shares the social experiences of four Brazilian newcomers in elementary school. Participants were adolescents who had immigrated to the U.S. as children and attended English-only and/or Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs. As adolescents, participants were able to look back on their experiences as a newcomer in elementary school with greater perspective. Analysis of interview data reveal three main themes in Brazilian newcomers' experiences: (a) positive interactions with other Brazilian immigrant students; (b) microaggressions from non-Brazilian immigrant students; and (c) isolation due to the dominance of English at school. Findings underscore the importance of Portuguese-English DLBE programs as a place for Brazilian newcomers to support one another. Additionally, findings reveal the prevalence of microaggressions across English-only and DLBE settings, underscoring the need for schools and teacher preparation programs to equip teachers with tools to support these students' sociocultural competence in order to address microaggressions.

This study addressed the complex issue of data collection in program evaluation. The researcher sought to understand the influences affecting the quality and utility of data in program evaluation. The data collection process was examined through a single case study of a bilingual education program located in California. Information for this study was obtained through open-ended interviews with project staff, classroom teachers, and external evaluators. Other sources of information included records, documents, a computer database, and electronic mail correspondence with program officers. The researcher used Non-numerical Unstructured Indexing Searching and Theory Building (NUD*IST) computer software to manipulate interview transcriptions, records and documents. Emerging from the data were key categories and themes that were presented in narrative form. The researcher found that data collection was grounded in the context in which it occurs and was therefore, highly dependent on program staff. Data collection requires willing, qualified staff with an understanding of technology, assessment, and evaluation methodology.

During the last two decades, the issue of multiculturalism has gained exceptional importance in our schools. Yet, there is a lack of research that examines teachers' beliefs and understanding of multiculturalism and their influence on instructional strategies that are implemented. This study explored how teachers' beliefs and understanding of multiculturalism influence instructional strategies used in classrooms. A sample of ten teachers was selected from three public middle schools within a school district in San Joaquin County in Northern California. In this phenomenological study, intensity sampling was used for the selection of the participants. Out of ten teachers, five taught mathematics and five taught Language Arts. The data consisted of the interviews with each of the teachers, classroom observations, and the examination of instructional materials. Teachers' beliefs and understanding of multiculturalism were usually reflected in the instructional strategies that they utilized. In the analysis of data, the following themes were identified: “The Great Mosaic,” “The Learning Environment for Every Child,” and “Concerns Regarding Multiculturalism.” “The Great Mosaic” theme referred to different cultures that can be found in a classroom and in society. This theme dealt with teachers' beliefs regarding cultural diversity and their practices with which they attempted to address it. “The Learning Environment for Every Child” theme reflected teachers' beliefs about creating an environment where all students could learn. It also showed how teachers attempted to create such an environment. The “Concerns Regarding Multiculturalism” theme conveyed the concerns expressed by teachers about multiculturalism. Teachers explained that different problems related to multiculturalism still existed in society and schools and that improvement was necessary. This study has shown that teachers possessed certain beliefs and had some understanding of multiculturalism. Areas that need improvement were also revealed. These areas include, for example, the definition of multiculturalism and teachers' knowledge of instructional strategies, which foster multiculturalism, and of criteria for selecting multicultural content. The findings of this study have also shown that an in-depth understanding of multiculturalism is necessary.

Research on beliefs and the differential treatment of students of color or minority students has documented teachers' actions and students' lack of success; but most has not focused on the contextual variables pertaining to specific settings and their effect on teachers' beliefs. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the beliefs that effective, experienced community college instructors identified as guiding their teaching in classrooms where students were culturally and/or ethnically different from themselves. A sample of 10 experienced community college teachers was selected from two different community college populations in Northern California. For this phenomenological study, data were collected through intensive, in-depth interviews. The interview questions were focused on teachers' beliefs regarding their role, teacher/student interactions with culturally and/or ethnically-diverse students, decisions about the curriculum and pedagogical practices they choose to use, and how their thinking about socioeconomic class affected their perceptions on the students' ability to learn and be successful. The beliefs that guided these effective community college teachers centered on four basic themes: mastery, voice, authority, and positionality. Each theme encapsulated the areas in which the respondents' beliefs affected the dynamics of their pedagogy to differently produce minority students' identities. Most of the respondents believed that mastery is a collaborative process by which knowledge is constructed. Students take up the narratives of their past through the stories and experiences of the present. It is a cultural recovery. Voice denoted the relationship between identity and difference. By retelling and accepting individual past experiences as valid, students' voices emerged. Beliefs about authority suggested that meanings are produced within relations of power that narrate identities through history, social forms, and mode of ethical address. In regard to positionality, respondents suggested that students who study their own ethnicities and histories gain some sense of those complex and diverse cultural locations that provide them with a sense of voice, place, and identity. They addressed the systemic violence of racism and difference by making ethnicity a site of differences in which identities are structured in relationship to the shifting terrains of history, experiences, and power. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)