The representation of Mexican American migrant farmworkers in children's literature has increased over the past 15 years, making visible a group that previously was rendered invisible in the U.S. landscape. Classifying stories about migrant agricultural laborers under the literary category of multicultural children's literature further marginalizes this population by portraying their social circumstances as private, personal, and cultural. While these stories bring the reader up close to the poverty that families endure as migrant farmworkers, they leave the socioeconomic circumstances with the families, in many ways, unlinked to power relations. In this study, I theorize a critical multicultural analysis of children's literature, which creates a space for adult and young readers alike to rethink power (i.e., inserting class into the critical dialogue on race and gender) and recognize their own social construction. Reading class, race, and gender together in children's literature about migrant farmworkers leads to reading how power is exercised in U.S. society as well as how we are implicated in its circulation: It's a waking up from the American Dream. My text collection functions as evidence of U.S. power relations of class, race, and gender—children's literature as social transcripts because a large part of U.S. ethnography is in literature (Ortner, 1991). I read these books against the history and scholarship of multicultural children's literature and the historical and sociopolitical context of migrant work in the United States. I historicize these current representations of Mexican American migrant workers within the developments of the Mexican American experience as it is rendered in children's literature. Since many of these titles fall under the genres of nonfiction and realistic fiction, I consider how these genres textually reconstruct reality by examining the discursive construction of characters and the ideological implications of how the stories close. The theoretical constructs of discourse, ideology, subjectivity, and power function as analytical tools for examining how power is exercised among the characters to locate how class, race, and gender are enacted in text, while revealing how story characters dominate, collude, resist, and take action collectively. A critical multicultural analysis of children's literature about Mexican American migrant farmworkers is a microanalysis of U.S. power relations, an examination of how power is exercised, circulated, negotiated, and transformed.

"Ms. Cowhey, I have a text to world connection!"-Gabriella, first grader, is a critical ethnographic account of a highly successful and nationally visible white teacher, and her first grade students who named themselves the Peace Class during the autumn of 2002 when the United States declared war on Iraq. The study examines the teacher's use of critical pedagogy as it relates to Freirian concepts of dialogue and revolution, and her use of critical intertextuality as I call it, and the academic achievement and agency of her students. The teacher, who is the main participant of this study, is committed to issues of equity and academic excellence. She is engaged in an interest convergence that promotes success for the teacher, her students, and the larger school community. Ms. Cowhey is an excellent white multicultural educator and ally. This critical ethnography includes findings from data collected over a full school year of research. The teacher featured in this study retained her students as they looped from first to second grade, providing a rare opportunity for further research. It is a hopeful study with implications for teacher preparation programs, professional development and white teachers who want to gain the understanding and skills needed to respond to a changing demographic landscape and who are committed to social justice issues in education.

This thesis examines the development of an undergraduate course about intercultural transitions for students returning from study abroad and for international students at a U.S. liberal arts college. The curriculum design is informed by theories about intercultural communication, cultural identity, intercultural transitions, and intercultural competence. The instructional plan includes theory-into-practice pedagogy, and application of intercultural theories to students' personal experiences and to the literary narratives presented throughout the course. This thesis explains the choice of theories and literature in the context of developing a course syllabus. The methods used during the study include a review of the literature, a summary of the curriculum planning process, a faculty curriculum workshop, a pilot course, and an evaluation by students enrolled in the pilot course. A review of other reentry programs and an interview with another instructor provide additional perspectives on the course design.

Current educational reform represented by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) symbolizes the summit of neoliberal reforms initiated more than three decades ago with the A Nation At Risk report (ANAR). The so called progressive plea of 'leaving no child behind' has brought poignant changes to US education in general providing an unprecedented impetus for new privatization schemes that disproportionably affect school districts serving large population of minority, low-income students in urban areas. This study provides a macro-micro framework for analyzing teachers' recontextualizations in the context of current reforms and demands.At the macro level, the study analyzes focal intertextual thematic formations (Lemke, 1995) in two cornerstone educational texts, namely, the ANAR report and the NCLB act. Particular historical aspects related to of the assemble of relations (Gramsci, 1971) that overdetermined the production of these texts are also examined. The study then uses the insights gained from this analysis of what is called the "cultural-pedagogic reservoir" as an entry point into analyzing in detail the "individual-pedagogic repertoire" of an experienced middle-school teacher as intertextual thematic formations particular to the focal texts re-emerge and are recontextualized in the interactions constructed in an intervention program for mostly Latino struggling readers. More specifically, the study analyzes the linguistic organization, and pedagogic genre of an experienced teachers' academic recontextualization and how these are accomplished in interaction in underperforming schools intervened by America's Choice, the district's "turn around" private partner.The specific Critical Discourse Analysis approach used draws purposely on analytical tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics theory and Genre theory (Halliday and Martin 1993; Martin, 2000; Martin and Rose 2003). This applied linguistic approach is complemented by the emancipatory agenda of critical ethnography and the overdeterminist class analysis of postmodern Marxism. Findings from linguistic analysis of policy texts reveal that the notions of risk, and crisis advanced by the ANAR report are taken into an unprecedented technocratic level in the No Child Left Behind Act that promote a new privatization (Burch, 2006) as the products and services of private companies are marketed not only as aligning to the law, but being "scientifically proven." The focal teacher working under this conditions was found to consistently use of a patterned and specific purposeful, goal oriented, and staged pedagogic genre organized through ideological principles that responded to a particular and context-bound way of alignment: "Strategic Alignment." Such a Strategic alignment represents an ideological framework that expands the frame of accountability to all stakeholders of the educational process, and not only to those most interested in promoting fidelity with standards and mandates. The teacher not only simultaneously and flexibly responded to standards and mandates represented by the "turn around" company (America's Choice), but also aligned to the needs, rights, and backgrounds of students, and to the thought collectives (Ramanathan, 2002) of the teaching profession. Even though the language of Strategic Alignment was found to be realized as a culturally relevant academic co-constructed linguistic space and a nurturing environment for Latino low-income struggling readers in an urban middle school and because it happens in the context of this new privatization scheme, such responsive pedagogical practices may well be co-opted and used as arguments to dismantle public schooling altogether.

The problem examined in this research is that South Africa practices a system of education that sorts people in a way that makes Blacks receive unequal and separate education. The closer people are to the white power structure, the better their education and the farther away they are, the poorer their access to opportunities for a quality education on equal terms. In other words, it seems that the more white you are, the more opportunities and benefits you receive. This system of education does not appear to help students, especially black children and youth, learn at high levels of accomplishment. Rather, it creates long lasting problems in people's lives and as such may need to be restructured in a way that permits students of all backgrounds to receive a quality education on equal terms. The purpose of the study was to understand reasons selected black South Africans seem to oppose their education system. More specifically, perceptions of these black people were helpful in suggesting the directions in which educational reform in South Africa ought to go. Specifically, the study was guided by two major research questions: (1) What are the perceptions selected black South African adults in the United States have toward their experiences in the apartheid education system in South Africa? (2) What are the recommendations of selected black South African adults in the United States for improving the education system for children and youth in South Africa? To answer these questions, interviews were used to collect data. Seven black South African adults were interviewed and their responses were analyzed, organized and thematically presented. One finding of the study is that apartheid education seems responsible for making respondents feel inadequate, incapable, less human, unable to think critically, inferior, anxious to venture in life beyond school, helpless, uneasy, and dubious to participate in class related activities. The findings of the study show that the education of black people in South Africa deserves speedy attention and major reform. The study concludes that apartheid education is an intolerable system of education that should be eliminated. The form of education to be created is a matter for intense discussion and wise decision making which may lead to quality education for all South Africans. The study recommends that black people should understand their historical underpinnings to help restore their confidence, to dispel negative fabrications, and to become contributors in the development of quality education in South Africa.

Literacy as a process has been the object of study in different languages. Research has also been devoted to literacy development in bilingual settings both in native and second languages. Early bilingualism, has also been studied. However, the research in the area of biliteracy development, is scarce. This is the case study of a bilingual kindergarten child's journey through a year as she tries to accomplish biliteracy although formal literacy instruction was not provided in both languages. The data was gathered through participant observation at home, where Spanish was spoken, and at school, where English was the language of instruction. Informal and formal interviews where also used. Reading Miscue Inventories in English and Spanish were administered twice in the study. Parallels were found between the child's biliteracy development and the studies on literacy with monolingual children implying that literacy as a process is the same across and among languages. Through the process of constructing and reconstructing, through experimentation, creating and confirming hypotheses we observed the child's movement from nonstandard to standard spellings along with the exploration of different genres, styles and uses of writing. The child's strategies developed parallel across both languages, however where the languages differed, the strategies differed too. The child used decoding as an initial Spanish reading strategy because of an early exposure to a phonics approach to English reading, which she transferred to Spanish reading. When the child was exposed to other English reading strategies, she began to use these for Spanish reading. Finally, this study suggested that research findings in the area of bilingual language acquisition are congruent with the study of biliteracy development. Features such as language differentiation, influence of the environment over the language choice, audience sensitivity and the transfer of strategies from one language to another, are present in this study. The use of different theoretical approaches to literacy instruction, along with the need for maintenance programs of bilingual education where holistic theories of literacy instruction are exercised are educational practices recommended by this study.

As the minority student population in the United States has grown, so has the number of non-native English-speaking students in higher education. However, many of these students are not meeting with success, and they are leaving school, often during their first semester of 'mainstream' classes. This study focused on the developmental English class and examined what happens to students as they leave ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and enter the mainstream of the community college. This ethnographic study used both emic and etic perspectives to show some of the factors that come together to influence participation and engagement of non-native English-speaking students in the developmental English class. It involved an exploration of the theories that have traditionally explained minority student failure in school, as well as a discussion of the importance of interaction to learning. Through ethnographic means, this dissertation has described the experience of teaching and learning in the developmental English classroom, and shows that students need to enter into meaningful interaction with instructors if they are to be successful. Through ethnographic interviewing and participant observation, a picture has emerged of relationships between teachers and students that can be characterized by apprenticing or gatekeeping. Teacher-student relationships can be undermined by Discourse mismatch. Students' primary Discourses are not traditionally valued by society, and they may not be valued in the college. This can cause resistance on the part of students. This study suggests that there are many factors that come together to influence the participation of non-native English speakers in the community college developmental English classroom. These include teacher and student preparation, class atmosphere, the use of contextualization cues, apprenticing or 'hand holding', and the use of content which relates to students' background knowledge. It also suggests that English proficiency may not be the most important factor influencing student participation of non-native English speakers, and recommends that developmental education be reexamined by those in this critical area.

The proposed goal of this research was to take the data gathered and implement it in analyzing the potential reformation of programs in need of evaluation, assessing the potential benefits of further development in the field of bilingual education in the United States as a nation. Using data collected in the Central Florida region as a microcosmic example of how existing programs function in the modern elementary educational system, the purpose of this study was to demonstrate through the conduction of interviews with local teachers and currently available research that a more suitable standard for bilingual education is both necessary and valuable for our school systems and for the future of our students as productive and capable adults. As a survey of the current state of bilingual education in Central Florida elementary schools, this research sought to establish a clearer panoramic view of the ways in which our system is perceived as observed directly through those participating and facilitating it firsthand in local classrooms. Classroom observations and data gathered from educational professionals within the participating elementary school system, inclusive solely of those implementing a bilingual program as a method of assimilation for a high population of Spanish-speaking students transitioning to a targeted language of English, were the primary basis of this research, supplemented by existing psychological and educational research in the field of language acquisition and development in young children. Results have suggested that current methods of bilingual instruction are based upon the integrated standards of three existing models: transitional bilingual education, immersion, and English as a Second Language.; The three appeared to be functioning in such a way that does not fully allow for a wide range of learning needs to be met, and that furthermore does not fully support a directed initiative toward a future in consistently dynamic and progressive research in the bilingual field, such that a standardized system flexible enough to encourage the needs of a diverse population might be realized. With further standardization and research, bilingual education might itself become a standard of American education for all students, native and non-native.

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