The following thesis will examine how a city library manages its multilingual facilities. I am interested to explore the challenges and problems librarians face, and how the library helps in integration. This has been studied through several qualitative interviews with librarians, major immigrant organization’s representatives who use library multi-language services, as well as steering plans of the city library and international library of Stockholm.The results of the study indicate that the city library has ambitious plans for providing multi-language facilities to people from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The library has multi-lingual literature in more than 60 languages and is trying to reach out to people through a variety of programs including “cultural weeks” and “languages days”. While it is always challenging for the library staff to buy literature in various languages, the library has started to acquire literature by creating user profiles and via a cross-referenced group responsible for such activities.The study also revealed that while user groups were positive about the library’s ambitions for multi-cultural activities, they were critical regarding a lack of acceptable and useful literature in their own languages, especially for children.The analysis method for this study was Roth’s theory of integration. The main aim of the library is to provide a platform for cultural exchanges between people of various ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, these results provided interesting insights if these activities are leading towards a positive vicinity, and distance between them or not. / Program: Masterprogram: Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, Digitala bibliotek och informationstjänster

The public school system in the Philippines adopted a multilingual policy starting in school year 2012-2013. Implemented as the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education program, the policy localizes the language of early literacy and instruction, the content of the curriculum, and the support systems. This signals a shift away from the country’s long history of standardized curriculums with their one-size-fits-all approach and Western, colonial paradigms, and language policies with their preferential treatment of the colonizer’s language (English) and/or national language. This dissertation describes and assesses how the program was implemented in its first year. The focus is on resources or capacity to implement the program since the literature on implementation studies identifies the availability of these as a factor affecting the passage from policy to local practice. Using the case study design in qualitative research, one division and two elementary schools under it were purposively selected for this inquiry. All Grade 1 teachers in the two schools along with their curriculum consultants or instructional leaders (namely, their principal, district supervisor, and the division supervisor) comprised the study participants. Semi-structured interviews and document review were conducted over a period of one year to generate data. Theory-generated typologies from the conceptual framework as well as emergent themes or categories from real-life data guided the process of data organization and analysis. The findings suggest patterns that tended to reinforce institutional continuities rather than institutional shifts. Critical resources or capacities for change were not productively provided to the local implementers. Additionally, the resource or capacity gaps appeared to be underpinned by a lingering command or hierarchical structure. To get past the weight of this status quo, recommendations are offered. These include policies aimed at strengthening the practice of teacher expertise and instructional leadership, and at modifying the administration of the program to align the school language with the home language.

The purpose of this study was to explore how minority students are prepared to counsel White clients in two Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Engaging in a critical exploration of the experiences of minority students allowed the personal stories to create a consciousness which could lead to programmatic change. The paucity of research addressing the minority counselor/White client dyad lends viability to this study. This study used methods consistent with the critical research, including individual interviews and artifact collection. All data were analyzed through the lens of Critical Race Theory and Whiteness in an effort to conceptualize the role of race and racism on the minority student's preparation to counsel White clients. Data analysis revealed nine themes suggesting collectively that relevant curriculum focusing on the minority student/White client dyad is lacking, and that a colorblind curriculum is used to address cross-cultural interactions. Data also revealed that minority students in counseling experience microaggressions in the form of racial stereotyping, racism, and being silenced in their programs. Consequently, the students must often resort to conforming to White norms, altering how they communicate, and trying to be a model minority when working with White clients. to address these difficulties, the participating minority students and faculty members explained that minority students need to find counter spaces and programs need to increase cultural sensitivity of white faculty members. These themes allowed for the emergence of an understanding of minority students preparation to counsel White clients at two PWIs.

The problem of this study was to determine if differences exist in the self-concept scores between Anglo children and Chicano children. A secondary problem was to determine the level of correlation between self concept scores and academic averages. The Martinek-Zaichkowsky Self Concept Scale for Children was used to determine self concept scores and grade point averages reported by the students' classroom teachers were used for the academic averages. The findings of the study warranted the following conclusions: (1) Anglo, first grade children have a significantly higher total self concept than do Chicano, first grade children. (2) Chicano, third grade children have a significantly higher total self concept than do Anglo, third grade children. (3) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Anglo, sixth grade children as compared to those of Chicano, sixth grade children. (4) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Anglo, first grade children as compared to those of Anglo, sixth grade children. (5) No significant differences exist between total self concept scores of Chicano, first grade children as compared to those of Chicano, sixth grade children. (6) Significant, positive correlations between total self concept and total academic average were found only at the first and sixth grade levels for Chicano children.

No description available.

No description available.

Much of the literature dedicated to the academic achievement of African American males focuses on failure, obstacles, negative influences and explanations of factors that negatively impact their academic success. This qualitative research study provided an opportunity for African American male students at the high school level to articulate their experiences and speak to the factors that they perceived as contributing to their academic success. The constructs of identity and cultural capital were offered by this researcher as a conceptual framework into the insight of factors that impacted the academic achievement of this student group.;Through interviews, a classroom observation and document review, the perceptions of six African American male seniors from two public high schools located in southeastern Virginia were collected and analyzed. The themes derived from the data showed that these young men were successful due to the support they received from their teachers, parents and peers, their approach to challenging and difficult situations, and the opportunities that they were afforded that led to their use of the educational process to reach their goals and dreams.

This study traces the relationship between language policy activity and multilingual social identity development through schools and homes in a public school district implementing an English Language Learner (ELL) program. The social impacts of language policies cannot be fully understood without consideration of how they impact social identities and opportunity for the populations they affect (Johnson, 2013; Shohamy, 2006; Tollefson, 1991). Power in language policy processes is seen as multi-layered (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), with teachers at the heart. However, there has been little attention to the powerful role of those whose language practices policy is meant to regulate: students and parents. Using data gathered in the schools, homes, and communities of multilingual students over the course of two years, this critical ethnographic study provides ethnographic understanding of language policy, language use, literacy learning, and policy negotiation on the part of parents as they relate to social identity development. Ultimately, the work extends exploration of the layers of policy activity to the homes and communities of multilingual students and their families, uncovering implications about the role of language policies in shaping equitable educational opportunity. Findings show how multilingual parents can and should be positioned as powerful negotiators in language policy processes, leading to implications for transformation in theory and practice.

Language students must learn to communicate effectively in cross-cultural settings, avoiding unwitting violations of culturally determined norms of behavior. This study compares German learners of English ( GEs) with native speakers of English ( AEs) and German (GGs), studying pragmatic transfer associated with the face-threatening speech act of refusal. Data elicitation involved a written role-play questionnaire composed of twelve refusal situations, including four refusal stimulus types (requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions) and interlocutors of higher, lower, and equal status. Response strategies were identified and classified, and the three groups were compared in terms of frequency and content of strategies chosen. Overall, the findings suggest that the AEs strove for friction-free interactions, while the German subjects tended to be candid. The AEs opted for inoffensive, routinized responses, emphasizing face-protection, and eschewing expressions of unwillingness. The AEs generally provided only vague excuses, relying extensively on positive forms aimed at preserving rapport. Social distance affected AE levels of politeness. By contrast, GG response patterns were situation-specific. Toward unjustified requests or unwelcome suggestions, the GGs exhibited directness, outspokenness with critical remarks, and willingness to risk confrontation, regardless of relative status. In more neutral situations, status and social distance influenced levels of politeness. The GEs appeared to assess situational factors in much the same way as the GGs; however, GE responses were consistently more tempered. Both groups of Germans were more open with expressions of unwillingness than the AEs. They tended to provide solid justification for refusals, while maintaining a more aloof stance. When there was no cause for irritation, the GEs recognized the need for greater tactfulness in English (probably responding according to explicit teaching). When aggravated, however, they lapsed into pragmatic patterns of their native language, following their "gut reactions." Sometimes GE efforts to exceed German native speaker levels of politeness led to "hyper-correction" (i.e., going beyond the AEs' degree of politeness).Occasionally, the GEs transferred German native speaker strategies for increasing politeness. In situations of potential conflict, the GEs might startle native speakers with unexpected candor, the shock exacerbated by cultural proximity and the GEs' near approach of native speaker norms on other levels.

The aim of this study is to identify the use of metaphor in university-level introductory engineering textbooks. Engineering is an important field of study for foreign students in the United States. In order to determine the linguistic and cultural problems foreign students of this field may have, two introductory engineering textbooks are examined for occurrences of metaphors. Two corpora of 20,000 words each drawn from introductory textbooks used at two four-year, public universities are examined for occurrences of metaphor. A combined semantic and pragmatic test for metaphor is applied to each word used in the corpora to determine if the use is metaphoric. Each word used metaphorically is given a typesto- tokens ratio to determine if it is used only once or many times. The words used metaphorically are grouped according to metaphor themes and source domains for classroom use. The types-to-tokens ratios show that many words in the corpora are used only once. Some words, however, are used many times in both corpora. These words include many of the prepositions and words from particularly prevalent metaphor themes and source domains. The results suggest that some concepts such as process, discipline, and time are metaphorically described in English. Knowledge that concepts are metaphorically described is an important explanatory tool for the teacher of English to speakers of other languages.