This dissertation conducted a qualitative case study of the Texas Coalition for Bilingual Education (TCBE) to discover how it worked to promote and protect bilingual education programs and by extension educational opportunities of English Language Learners (ELLs) with particular attention to how members coalesced to mitigate the sociopolitical contextual factors that impacted bilingual education policy in Texas. The historical legacy and present creation and administration of policy, legislation, funding and implementation, including monitoring were included. The ELL population continues to rapidly increase while effective and additive bilingual education policy is on the decline; the academic achievement of ELLs is deteriorating in the face of substantiated civil rights violations, growing antiimmigrant sentiment and a contentious legislative atmosphere. My research indicates that bilingual education policy in Texas faces a wellfinanced threat from Structured English Immersion (SEI) proponents who try to justify the funding inequity for bilingual education. A court-ordered monitoring system for bilingual education has been replaced by a No Child Left Behind Act (2001) mandate that neither secures nor ensures equal education opportunity for ELLs (Pompa, 2006). Current bilingual education training programs are underfunded and under-populated when the growing enrollment of immigrant students, creates a critical demand. I employed a constructivist/interpretivist framework in this qualitative single case investigation. Additionally, Critical Race Theory framework (Noboa, 2002; Dicker, 2003), was utilized to demonstrate how racial identity, Latino leadership, coalitional strategies, social justice goals and political organizations addressed the issue of bilingual education policy reformation in Texas. I also employed the "weak ties" "strong ties" lens (Granovetter, 1973; 1983) to examine how these organizational representatives worked within and without the coalition to maximize limited resources. I collected data through interviews, court transcripts, observations of public meetings and trial proceedings, videos, archived documents and web casts. This research has implications for educational practices and future research because of the vulnerability of the ELL population and the devastating impact the present path will have for them and for all of Texas. Today's scholars, particularly Latinos, must be expert investigators in order to support the "best practices" in bilingual education, its attendant funding, policy, implementation and enforcement.

The purpose of this study was to describe the actual implementation of the transition process as observed in bilingual classrooms, and in particular, to examine the critical components (policy, curricular, and instructional characteristics) of the Spanish-to-English reading transition policies implemented in bilingual education programs in elementary schools in the Denton Independent School District in Texas. Four research questions drove this study. To investigate these questions, a multidimensional, descriptive research design was employed. The researcher used questionnaires, interviews, and field observations. The 11 educators, 6 bilingual teachers, 2 school-site principals, 2 school-site coordinators, and 1 district bilingual coordinator, were asked several types of questions (open response and closed response) using different types of instruments (questionnaires and interviews). Also, the six bilingual teachers were observed using two types of instruments (field notes and video tapes).

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Language education policy and its implementation have been controversial and ongoing issues throughout the United States, especially in the border state of Texas, with its large population of students who are learning English. This dissertation reports two studies, the first of which was a frame analysis of problems and solutions as represented by the five bills amending the Texas Education Code with regard to bilingual education and English as a second language programs. These laws, passed in 1969, 1973, 1975, 1981, and 2001, have been enacted since 1968, the year the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) was passed. The problem framed consistently by these state policy documents was inadequate instruction for children who come to school speaking languages other than English. More variability was seen in the framing of solutions, with approaches changing from the authorization of instruction in languages other than English, to the establishment of mandated bilingual programs, to the extension of special language programs, and to the establishment of dual language immersion programs. The primary ideology influencing the policy documents was the monolingual English ideology; however, alternative ideologies are apparent in the policies that allow for dual language immersion programs. Geographic information systems (GIS) analysis was used in the second study to investigate the geographic locations of particular programs and the demographics of students they served. Choropleth maps showed variability in program distribution across the state with distinct patterns apparent in only two programs. The maps indicated that districts with high percentages of student enrollment in one-way dual language programs tended to be located in and near the major metropolitan areas, whereas many districts offering early exit transitional bilingual programs tended to be located along the Texas-Mexico border. Despite the literature on bilingual/ESL program effectiveness, the predominant program in the border region of Texas is among those considered least beneficial to students learning English. This pair of studies illustrates the influence of monolingual English ideology on educational practice and policy through the implementation of programs by districts as well as the framing of bilingual education in legislation.

This dissertation is a qualitative study that focuses on ten pre-service teachers as students in an undergraduate teacher preparation program at a 4-year university in Texas and follows four of them into the classroom as novice teachers. The primary data consists of paired (auto)biographical dialogues, oral (her)story interviews, ethnographic classroom observations, and participant interviews. Cross-cultural insights provided by this work aim to inform multicultural approaches to teacher education and novice teacher induction by providing tools for identifying and integrating the cultural resources of maestras in school contexts. Participants in this study learn to become maestras in the home at an early age by contributing to the household and caring for others in various ways, including as bicultural brokers, translators, surrogate parents, and by tutoring relatives, family friends, and neighbors. The term maestra includes both Latina bilingual education pre-service (student) teachers and Latina novice (first- and second-year) teachers. Analysis indicates that the maestras draw upon their "funds of knowledge" or cultural resources as they formulate their philosophies of education in making decisions about majoring in bilingual education. This study also found that they relate their "pedagogies of the home" or cultural strategies for survival and lived experiences to the academic theories learned at the university and the knowledge gained through their classroom student teaching as they decide whether or not to pursue a career as bilingual education teachers after graduation. I argue that maestras are receptive to becoming critically conscious educators as they articulate their situatedness as gendered, raced, and classed Latinas. However their situatedness is not integrated with their teacher preparation or their novice teacher induction. U.S. public school culture does not understand or facilitate processes for maestras to create transformative practices. Thus the maestras in this study create their own on-the-ground consciousness raising. Implementing opportunities for maestras to uncover, reflect, discuss, and act upon their varied perspectives allows them to formulate culturally sensitive pedagogies for affirming diversity at every level in schools and in the larger society. Retaining highly qualified maestras is critical to increasing Latina/o students' opportunities for academic access and success through the Pre-K--16 educational pipeline. / text

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This dissertation focused on the study of the Spanish academic language proficiency of novice bilingual teachers during the act of teaching mathematics in elementary grades. Four first year teachers in a large urban school district in central Texas participated in the study. At the time of the study two participants were fully certified and had attended four-year teacher preparation programs. The additional participants had completed all certification requirements including content examinations and the Texas Oral Proficiency Test (TOPT); they were completing their certification requirements through alternative certification programs. The study sought to identify the moments in their teaching of mathematics in Spanish when their instruction broke down, i.e. when they appeared unable to communicate ideas to students, and the reasons for these breakdowns. Findings revealed that the teachers in the study demonstrated linguistic and/or pedagogical breakdowns and that certain factors influenced their knowledge and language competencies. Linguistic breakdowns were manifested when teachers switched to English, used repetitive language when teaching, or provided limited academic language. Pedagogical breakdowns were identified as a lack of: student talk or discussion, effective teacher questioning, or diverse presentation of content. Overall, the teachers struggled with limited language in Spanish and limited pedagogical reasoning skills while teaching mathematical concepts to their students. These limitations were exacerbated by the pressures of high stakes testing and countered by the fact that all four teachers shared linguistic and cultural affiliation with their students. This collective case study was conducted from within a constructivist theoretical framework focusing on theories of academic language, communicative competence, and Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective of learning. Recommendations for future training and practice of bilingual teachers are provided specifically on the importance of Spanish language proficiency of this group of educators. / text