Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [67-68]). Also available in print.

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Vocabulary plays an important role in language and literacy development. However, little is known about vocabulary development in young children who need to learn an official or majority language, in addition to a minority language spoken at home. This dissertation concerned English (majority) and Armenian (minority) vocabulary development in young bilingual children. First, a parallel bilingual vocabulary test was developed, which included picture identification and picture naming tasks to assess listening (receptive) and speaking (expressive) vocabularies in the two languages. Then, the vocabulary test was used to compare bilingual vocabulary growth and examine individual differences in vocabulary performance. Twenty Junior and twenty-two Senior Kindergarten bilingual children were tested twice on the vocabulary tasks over a six-month interval. Information was also obtained on environmental (parental education, Armenian/English language exposure) and child characteristics (nonverbal cognitive abilities, phonological short-term memory) related to vocabulary development, as potential predictors of individual vocabulary performances. Children showed growth over time in all four vocabulary tasks. However, less growth was observed in Armenian expressive than in Armenian receptive, English receptive, and English expressive vocabulary. Children had high exposure to Armenian at home; however, consistent with their exposure to English through peers, most were proficient in English vocabulary. The findings suggest a preference to use English and the influential role of English language exposure on higher proficiency in English vocabulary. These findings imply a potential risk for Armenian language maintenance, which warrants future studies. English language exposure and phonological short-term memory were both unique predictors of English vocabulary, whereas Armenian language exposure was the only unique predictor of Armenian vocabulary. Therefore, providing additional minority language exposure might be the best way to enhance and maintain minority vocabulary and language. This dissertation had three novel contributions. It provided a sound and replicable method to develop a bilingual vocabulary test in other minority languages. The vocabulary test made it possible to compare performance across minority and majority languages directly and confidently for the first time. Finally, the relative values of four different characteristics were examined in predicting individual differences in minority and majority vocabulary performances.

Bilingual speakers cannot suppress activation from their dominant language while naming pictures in a foreign and less dominant language. Previous research has revealed that this cross-langauge activation is manifested through phonological facilitation, semantic interference and between language competition. However, this research is based exclusively on highly proficient bilinguals. The present study investigates cross-linguistic activation in Swedish learners of Spanish, grouped according to their length of Spanish immersion, and one of the groups is in its very inital stages of learning. Participants named pictures in Spanish in two picture-word interference experiments, one with only non-cognates, and one including cognates. This study addresses the following research questions; (1) do the two groups of participants differ significantly from one another in terms of cross-linguistic activation, (2) what does cross-language activation look like in initial stages of L2 acquisition, (3) how does cognate status affect cross-linguistic activation and does this differ between participants depending on length of immersion? The experiments show that cross-linguistic influence is dependent on length of immersion. The more immersed participants performed very similarly to what is usually the case in highly proficient bilinguals while the less immersed participants did not. The results of the less immersed participants are interpreted as manifestations of lexical processing in initial stages of L2 acquisition. Since this type of learner has never been tested before, there are no previous results to compare to. The results are discussed in relation to the large tradition of offline research which has shown that beginning learners predominantly process their L2 phonologically, and that conceptual processing is something requiring more L2 development. Furthermore, the cognate word induced longer naming latencies in all participants and it turned out that the cognate words were highly unfamiliar. Hence all participants are sensitive to word frequency effects, and this sensitive is greater in early stages of learning. Finally this study suggests that more research must be conducted to establish cross-linguistic influence between the many languages of multi-lingual subjects, even when these languages may not be present in the testing situation.

A central question in racial and ethnic politics is whether bureaucratic representation benefits minorities. The theory of bureaucratic representation suggests that passive representation—representatives sharing characteristics of the represented—can lead to active representation—acting in a manner that represents the interests of the represented group. A growing body of empirical research has found that bureaucratic representation leads to improved policy outcomes for minorities. Most of the evidence for active representation, though, comes from representation by street-level bureaucrats. We do not know the impact of representation by upper-level bureaucrats, however. In this dissertation, I examine the impact of school superintendents on the generation and distribution of resources to English language learner programs. In particular, I investigate whether the presence of Latino superintendents leads to greater resources for these programs. Additionally, I also explore the impact of these programs on the Latino dropout rate. Using data from the Texas Education Agency, U.S. Census, and National Association of Latino Elected Officials, I find that upper-level bureaucrats do actively represent the needs of represented groups. Specifically, Latino superintendents distribute more resources, in the form of teachers, to English language learner (ELL) programs. Additionally, Latino superintendents are more likely to distribute resources to bilingual programs relative to English as a second language programs. In regard to the impact of different types of ELL programs, I do not find evidence that program type predicts Latino dropout rates. However, I do find that serving the needs of limited English proficient students, regardless of program type, helps to decrease the Latino dropout rate.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1139. Adviser: Bradley A. Unger Levinson.

Thesis--PlanA (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

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.

Determining teacher job satisfaction has become a critical focus for public school administrators due to the codification of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Recruitment and retention of quality teachers is both beneficial for continual student achievement and cost effective for school districts. The job satisfaction of those teachers often determines the retention rates. The purpose of this study is to determine key factors that impact job satisfaction of teachers in three urban public elementary schools who have remained in their positions five or more years. This qualitative study was conducted by administering an initial survey to determine qualifications for participation, individual interviews and a focus group. The target population of teachers was from three urban public elementary schools. All data collected were synthesized to identify patterns and/or reoccurring themes in the participant’s responses during the interviews and focus group. All transcripts were cross-referenced with field notes taken during interviews and the focus group. Results were placed in a matrix in order to organize the data based on various coding categories. Based on the data analysis of the emergent themes. the researcher identified three dominate themes: positive student-teacher interactions, participative leadership, and teacher training. The first dominate emergent theme of positive student-teacher interaction was a direct correlation to three out of eight variables chosen for this research design. Those three variables are (a) school size, (b) student achievement, and (c) student discipline. The second dominant emergent theme of participative leadership has a direct correlation to three other variables of the eight chosen for this research design. Those three variables are (a) class assignment, (b) collegial support, and (c) principal behavior. The third dominate emergent theme of teacher training has a direct correlation to the remaining two variables of the eight chosen for this research design. Those two variables are certification method and preparatory programs.