No description available.

The purpose of the study was to investigate fully English proficient (FEP) students in an elementary maintenance bilingual bicultural program. Specifically the study examined oral language proficiency in Spanish, academic achievement levels, and attitudes of FEP students who attended a bilingual education program over a period of five or six consecutive years. Levels or oral acquisition in Spanish were measured on the Student Oral Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM); levels of student academic achievement were measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills; and student attitudes were measured by an attitude inventory designed by the researcher. A questionnaire for parents of FEP students provided additional information about students and influential factors affecting the parental decisions to enroll FEP children in a bilingual education program. The research design was a descriptive case study involving twenty-seven FEP students in two fifth grade bilingual classes and the parents of these students. Proficiency ratings on the SOLOM, stanines on the ITBS, and attitudes expressed on the inventory were examined to determine if FEP students developed L2 proficiency (or bilingualism) in this program, if the academic achievement of the FEP students was affected by the development of bilingualism, and student attitudes toward Spanish and the minority culture or community. Parents of the FEP students responded to a written questionnaire inquiring about their children's development in speaking Spanish, in scholastic achievement, and in attitudes. Parent interviews were conducted to confirm and expand the written responses. Results indicated that FEP students developed oral proficiency in Spanish along with positive attitudes toward learning to communicate in Spanish. Attitudes toward Mexican culture and the Mexican-American community were also positive. There was no evidence of negative or positive correlation between the development of bilingualism and academic achievement. The information obtained from the parent questionnaires and interviews reinforced the data collected on site about the students, and indicated that the most influential factors for enrolling their children in this bilingual educational program were: (1) to encourage the development of bilingualism and biculturalism in the students; and (2) to provide the children with an excellent curriculum. In conclusion, the findings suggested that maintenance bilingual bicultural programs can result in majority language student development of bilingualism and positive attitudes toward minority languages and cultures, with no detrimental effects on L1 or on academic achievement in English.

The model for observation is a "package" of salient dimensions of an ideal computer-supported language learning environment: (1) opportunities for learners to interact and to negotiate meaning; (2) an authentic audience; (3) authentic tasks; (4) opportunities for exposure to and production of rich and varied language; (5) opportunities for learners to formulate ideas and thoughts; (6) learner intentional cognition; (7) an ideal-anxiety atmosphere, and (8) learner control. Learner perceptions of these factors are captured via questionnaires before and at the end of two computer-supported interventions. Responses answer the following questions: How do adult community college ESL learners perceive their classroom environments? When computer technology is added to support a drill-and-practice environment or to create a cooperative environment, how do the learners perceive these new environments? To what extent and how do the patterns of perceptions and the relationships between variables change from the initial to the intervention environment? Multi-dimensional scaling constructs maps of learners' perceptions in the pretest and posttest conditions; this systemic analysis shows changes in relationships between the factors and provides an overall picture of these changes. Repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance are used to determine significant differences both between and within the participant groups for each factor; this analytic data complements that of the MDS maps. Results indicated that learners perceive their learning environments in unexpected ways and that the technology has an impact on these perceptions in that it allows the classroom to be "individualized" in ways not possible without it. Also discussed are implications for task construction and grouping and the importance of learner perceptions to an understanding of the language learning environment.

No description available.

Bringing Memory Forward: Teachers' Engagements with Constructions of "Difference" in Teacher Literature Circles" explores ways in which teachers can recognize and address their constructions of "difference" individually and collectively. The study invited practicing teachers to discuss multicultural children's and young adult literature in monthly book clubs, write a literacy autobiography and engage in monthly interviews. Four literature circles were formed from the eighteen elementary and secondary teachers who elected to join; one circle was composed entirely of Aboriginal teachers. In all, twenty-one circles and seventy-two interviews occurred between January and June 2003. Departing from related studies, the dissertation combined and gave equal weight to the literature circle, literacy autobiography and the interviews instead of focusing solely on the literature discussion. This equal weighting was necessary because the primary purpose of the research was to find ways to involve teachers in reflecting on their constructions of "difference" such that the teachers would engage in that reflection for themselves. All three elements of the study worked together to "bring memory forward." In the literature circle, teachers discussed children's and young literature. The selections for the literature circle arose out of the teachers' writing and discussion of their literacy autobiographies such that literature familiar to teachers was juxtaposed with literature that was less familiar. In the interviews, teachers reflected on the relationship between the literature discussion and their literacy autobiographies, with the researcher "reflecting back" to teachers' their own words, prompting to elicit thinking and probing to encourage reflection on connections between literary response and lived experience. The title of the dissertation, "Bringing Memory Forward," draws attention to the role of teachers' memories and histories in multicultural literacy teacher education. The study begins from the hypothesis that memory, imagination and action are connected. Memory is explored through teachers' literacy history. Imagination is investigated through teachers' constructions of "difference" embedded in literary response. Action is what can follow for teachers from an awareness and recognition of the significance of memory and imagination to individual and cultural formation. Memory, imagination and action are admittedly broad concepts. In the study, they are made concrete through two related conceptualizations of the teacher: the teacher as learner and the teacher as "storied intellectual." As learners, teachers can become aware of their own "landscapes of learning" (Greene, 1978a) by asking questions such as: Where do my assumptions come from? Where can I go and who can I listen to in order to find out about perspectives other than my own? While teachers learn against the background of their own "landscapes," that landscape includes the teacher's broader role in society, which is to "transmit, critique and interpret" cultural knowledge (Mellouki & Gauthier, 2001, p. 1). The cultural knowledge most closely concerned with literacy is knowing which stories are important to tell. As the mediators of cultural knowledge, inservice teachers need to be in the forefront of societal changes. This conclusion challenges the current focus on preservice education. Moreover, initiatives at the school level are more likely to come from practicing teachers. However, if teachers feel as if they are being told what needs to be done or how to interact with one another or with texts, they will be less than forthcoming in their commitment. This study represents a departure from other studies and approaches in the area of multicultural literacy education by specifying which learning strategies and approaches teachers drew on in identifying their constructions of "difference," which settings supported their learning and why, and the role of the researcher in furthering teachers' learning processes. The study has implications for professional teacher development as well as preservice teacher education. It also contributes to scholarly literature in education on the role of memory in learning.

<p> The purpose of this grounded theory study of diversity leaders, in the context of U.S. coeducational independent schools, is to construct a theoretical model that explains what contributes to the development and implementation of effective diversity leadership&mdash;thereby ensuring education equity for students from diverse class, race, and ethnic backgrounds. The study was guided by the following central research question: How does school leadership ensure educational equity for all students from diverse class, racial, and ethnic backgrounds enrolled in U.S. independent schools? (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)</p>

<p> The concept of multiculturalism has traditionally referred to visible racial and ethnic cultural differences among people, and has expanded to include other marginalized and oppressed populations in the United States in the past 25 years. However, in the context of counselor education, there appears to be an incomplete understanding of what constitutes multicultural competence, the characteristics a competent counselor embodies, and how counselor education programs are evaluated for their efficacy in cultivating multicultural competence. The hypothesis guiding the current study was that there are shared characteristics between a mindful counselor and a multiculturally competent counselor such as cultural humility, increased awareness, genuineness, cultural empathy, and a non-judgmental disposition. To explore this further, the researcher used a mixed method research methodology to explore the phenomena of multicultural counseling competence and mindfulness. The qualitative aspect of this study involved the use of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to correlate the attributes that are shared between these two phenomena, while the quantitative aspect involved using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and Everyday Multicultural Competencies / Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy to statistically measure the magnitude of the correlation between mindfulness and multicultural competence. A grounded theory for the cultivation of multicultural counseling competence is presented in the final chapter as a synthetic outcome of this study.</p>

To determine learner attitudes toward an alternative assessment, additional washback effects, and possible relationships between cultures of learning and learner attitudes, a mixed methods study was conducted in an advanced multicultural EAP (English for Academic Purposes) class in the USA, where a poster project was implemented as a summative assessment. Qualitative and quantitative data from a pre- and post-test questionnaire as well as classroom observations and an interview with the instructor were used to investigate learners' attitudes towards the assessment. The twenty-four participants representing five cultures of learning from the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia expressed largely positive attitudes prior to completing the poster project. After the project presentations, there was minimal change in their attitudes. The researcher identified six positive and three negative washback effects of the poster project: positive attitudes toward the poster project, self-confidence, accurate identification of the learning goal, awareness of learning, community building and cultural exchange, deeming the assessment useful, negative attitudes toward the poster project, misidentification of the learning goal, and deeming the assessment not useful. Although there was no relationship between participants' cultures of learning and their attitudes toward the poster project, their prior experience with alternative assessments may be related to their attitudes.

This case study is a phenomenology to explore the experiences of African American men in the Call Me MISTER program at one university. The purpose of the study is to understand the program components and experiences of these men in the program to identify the neutral, positive, and negative phenomena. These are categorized into the program design, deciding to become a MISTER, experiences within the program, and reactions to the program design. Qualitative interviews were conducted individually with eight men currently enrolled in the Call Me MISTER program. A qualitative focus group interview was then held for seven of the eight interviewees. The emergent themes from these interviews were that 1) the admissions design provides motivation for men to join the program 2) the program’s financial aid offerings are an incentive to join/stay in the program 3) the cohesion of the group is a dynamic that attracts and retains MISTERs 4) the faculty support contributes to the MISTERs’ program satisfaction 5) the coursework design contributes to the MISTERs’ program success and 6) the MISTERs credit the Call Me MISTER program with their career path choice. The mission of the Call Me MISTER program is to increase the number of minority men entering the field of education. This goal is accomplished with each Call Me MISTER graduate that enters the field of education.

Magíster en Educación / La presente investigación tiene por objetivo develar cómo los significados que le otorgan algunos los académicos nacionales y extranjeros a la Educación Multicultural, median la construcción de una propuesta pedagógica de Educación Multicultural que propicie una pedagogía crítica y transformadora en Chile. Para llevar a cabo la investigación se trabajó con una selección de libros, papers, y documentos de autores nacionales y extranjeros, además se realizaron entrevistas en profundidad semi estructuradas a académicos nacionales, expertos en educación intercultural y multicultural. El análisis del corpus se llevó a cabo mediante el método de análisis de contenido, donde se trabajó con dos niveles distintos desde donde emergieron unidades temáticas, unidades de análisis, y la construcción y cruce de ejes de calificación. Finalmente, la investigación revela que los significados que le otorgan los académicos nacionales a la educación multicultural, efectivamente median la construcción de una propuesta pedagógica de educación multicultural a futuro que propicie una pedagogía crítica y transformadora, según los aspectos y actitudes que asocian con la educación multicultural. Sobre esta base teórica se esbozó una Propuesta Educativa Curricular para la Construcción de una Propuesta Pedagógica de Educación Multicultural en Chile, que esté orientada a todos los educandos y que promueva una educación que considere la diversidad cultural del país, y tenga como principio la igualdad y la no discriminación. Por lo tanto, fomentará la equidad, una educación cívica sólida, y el respeto de la diversidad cultural