This study was developed because there is very little research covering the topic of bilingual teachers. Literature that describes how bilingual teachers view their role within the whole school environment, what makes their career unique from other teachers, their perspectives on bilingual education, their needs, and the issues most affecting them, was lacking. Therefore, this study attempts to fill that gap within the literature. Through qualitative in-depth interviewing, the participants in this study were encouraged to discuss the issues and topics most relevant to them from a set of interview guide questions. Two groups of participants, former bilingual teachers and teachers currently working in a bilingual program, were selected to add breadth and depth to the research findings. The literature review chapter sheds light on what little data is available that is relevant to the target group and brings forth gray areas which need to be studied. Further, this chapter provides an overview of multiple issues which affect the field of bilingual education, but which do not currently consider the perspectives of bilingual teachers. This section was incorporated in order to provide solid background information as well as to allow the participants to give their views on some of the topics. This study documents the following general findings about bilingual teachers at Westpoint School District: (1) Most people who pursue a career in bilingual education are native speakers of the language in which they teach and have previous teaching experience in their native land. (2) Political threats to bilingual education are causing former bilingual teachers to leave their program, seeking job security. (3) Bilingual teachers' workloads are greater than average because of the lack of resources, the absence of support personnel, dual language teaching, student-related issues, the lack of student academic support programs, and having to implement the goals of the program. (4) A bilingual teacher's role entails performing the duties customarily performed by support personnel as well as implementing the goals of bilingual programs and student academic support programs. (5) Participants in this study perceive a lack of professional equality between bilingual teachers and other educators.

African refugee children in the US public school system struggle with adjusting into the main stream school culture. Their troubling life experiences and cultural background are different from their U.S. peers as well as school personnel. Given the case of African refugee high school students' (ARHSS) cultural backgrounds, their diverse learning experiences are different from that of U.S. school system. These students struggle to understand what is taught and even the norms of the school system. The lack of adequate understanding of the cultural differences, learning needs of the ARHSS, and appropriate skills to work with these students will affect their learning and possible career paths. Therefore the purpose of this study is to investigate the implications of the cultural factors and how the ARHSS learning needs could be appropriately addressed. Using a phenomenological approach, ARHSS, individual professionals, and parents were investigated to gain insight into learning how cultural factors influence ARHSS' learning, and how to use approaches working with these students. This research produced a number of key findings: the data confirmed that due to the cultural factors, there are significant differences in terms of ARHSS' placement in grade levels based on age while their educational background is very limited; lack of students' accountability in order for students to be responsible for their own actions and learning; lack of cultural balance to improve the teaching and learning preference and approaches; language barrier also presented miscommunications, and a subsequent vacuum of relationship among ARHSS, parents, teachers, and school staff; lack of parental involvement because of their illiteracy issue and cultural perceptions of parents not to interfere in teachers business; cultural misunderstandings that take place in the classrooms; lack of academic need fulfillment that is relevant to ARHSS; and the need of separate programs for the ARHSS to learn basics for onward courses. The main conclusions drawn from this research were that current approaches to educating ARHSS are underprovided. The public school system failed to comprehend these students' needs which demand finding appropriate approaches to help them adjust and learn. Sadly, premium is placed on maintaining the status queue of the main stream cultural emphasis, and this enhances a lack of communication between students, parents, U.S. teachers, and administrators. This view reflects a hold up to finding relevant approaches to help the ARHSS academic and probably social development. Given this background, this research suggests several approaches to reduce ARHSS struggle in U.S. school system. These approaches would involve in assisting them first to learn their own language to succeed learning second language; to be provided a curriculum relevant to their abilities; assign a specific time to acquire and comprehend U.S. culture to ease their adjustment; and schools must find a way to reach out parents in order to connect parents to their children's education.

This dissertation describes a qualitative research study about the educational experiences of Cambodian American students conducted in a community in the northeastern United States from January to November of 2003. The study investigated the experiences of fourteen Cambodian American young people, ages 16–23, in a small college community using both individual and group interviews as the primary source of data collection. The study examined how the participants' cultural identities and family expectations influenced their interaction with the school system and how teachers' practices and institutional policies affected the young people's striving for academic achievement. This study contributes to understanding why schools are not providing successful educational experiences for Cambodian American students as suggested by their disproportionate rates of dropping out and classification as learning disabled, and by views held by their teachers and sometimes themselves that they are low achieving students. The participants reflected the diversity among Cambodian American students: some were still in school; some had graduated; some had dropped out. They included males and females, those who had been born in Cambodia or in refugee camps and those who were born in the United States. They all presented their perspectives on both the supportive aspects of school and those aspects that had hindered their success. The study described in this dissertation explored the participants' experiences through the theoretical perspectives of multicultural education, culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory. An important aspect of this study was the centering of the young people's voices as the primary source of knowledge. This study generated a number of significant findings that emerged from the data. One finding illustrated the extensive influence their families and cultural teachings exerted on the students' lives, most relevantly in the school context. Another finding portrayed the dynamic nature of the students' identities in their lives as adolescents and bicultural border crossers. Other findings depicted the school experiences that supported the students in their educational journey as well as the obstacles that hindered their progress.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the effects that multicultural and diversity training had on preservice teacher perceptions with low-socioeconomic minority and urban students on the secondary (middle and high school) level. Eleven middle- and high- school student teachers of disadvantaged or minority students were purposefully selected as participants. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, direct observations, detailed field notes, and reflective journals kept by participants. Document data such as lesson plans, student work samples and classroom and district curricula were also collected. All data, including field notes and reflective journals, were analyzed according to Strauss and Corbin's (1990) grounded theory method. Responses for each research question were coded and categorized inductively. Results are discussed in light of literature on the effects multicultural and diversity training has on preservice teacher perceptions and dispositions with culturally diverse and minority youth on the secondary level. These findings have implications for informing new directions in teacher education, multicultural education, teacher preparation and teaching effectiveness.

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This study examines the impact of microteaching techniques toward the development of the thinking process from simple to complex skills. The study was conducted with twenty-three Spanish-speaking students in the Springfield (Massachusetts) Public Schools who were enrolled in the Special Education Program for children with specific learning disabilities. The students attended Van Sickle Middle School and Chestnut Middle School. Two groups were utilized in this study: Group A received treatments with microteaching techniques, while Group B did not receive any treatments with microteaching. Both groups were submitted to pre/posttests. Group A's teacher was trained with microteaching techniques, while Group B's teacher was not. Group A was subjected to three pre/posttests for the purpose of manipulation of a variety of treatments. Group B was submitted to a pretest/posttest. This was the test used to compare the results of both groups at the end of the study. This exploratory study did not deal with hypothesis testing. It set the basis for the formulation of hypothesis to be tested in future research endeavors. The instruments used in this study were in Spanish and consisted of three pretests/posttests used to evaluate simple and complex thinking skills. The pretests/posttests consisted of short readings in order to: determine the order of details using pictures; identify issues related to the main character in the study; express ideas that were not explicit in the stories; and find the central idea, order of successes, imply ideas, imply cause-and-effect, and main idea. The following microteaching techniques were used in the development of simple and complex thinking skills by the teacher that worked with Group A: diagnostic, introduction to learning, multiple reference markers, the art of formulating questions, and contra-interrogatory. The teacher who worked with Group B did not use the microteaching technique. Results indicated that Group A, after having used microteaching techniques in the posttests ("The Greedy Bear" and "The Wave That Wanted to Travel"), obtained 69 percent control in the following skills: order of successes, details, personal characteristics, imply ideas, imply cause-and-effect, and main idea. According to the results, after having utilized the test "The Wave That Wanted to Travel", it was found that the students from Group B were not able to master the simple and complex thinking skills. With Group B, the microteaching technique was not used. Based on the results mentioned, recommendations were formulated for administrators and teachers, as well as for future work and research in the field of Special Education with Spanish-speaking students.

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The author uses a framework developed by J. Victor Baldridge (Power and Conflict in the University, John Wiley, New York, 1971) to present a case study of equal opportunity programs in the United States Navy. The study is presented in the context of a complex systems change effort. For organizations attempting to create a healthy EO climate the author suggests that the most important part of any strategy for long term effect is to identify the primary means of power and control in the organization and to address EO through that channel, secondly she suggests that EO is a political phenomenon and must take into account the political dynamics of the organization. In addition she recommends attention to the following; organization culture and environment; systems perspective; on going assessment and strategic planning; long term planning; historical patterns of change in the organization; the need for strong leadership; and defining EO to include selection and inclusion assimilation and integration into the mainstream of the organization. Finally she concludes that an organization has accomplished an EO climate when it has spanned the "program" stage and EO efforts are replaced by efforts of good management.