The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of possible factors that
lead to academic success for African American children who participated in two-way
immersion programs. In order to examine the perceptions, the following areas were
explored: 1.) The evolution of the academic achievement gap that exists between African
American and Anglo children and the reasons theorists gave as to why the gap exists, as
well as the importance of this connection to two-way immersion program participation
2.) The evolution of the modern two-way immersion language program via its
development through bilingual education, and 3.) The development of Canadian twoway
immersion language programs, and how political, economic, and cultural factors
have impacted their successful implementation.
The research method consisted of purposeful sampling of six African-American
children in fourth and fifth grade who are participants in an elementary two-way
immersion language program and their primary caregivers. The interviews were audio
taped with notes taken for clarity. The data revealed that the primary caregivers perceived the participation of their
children in a two-way language immersion program to be an educational move which
would enhance the lives of their children economically, educationally and socially. The
primary caregivers maintained involvement in the education of their children through
facilitating homework completion in Spanish, communicating with teachers on a regular
basis, participating in PTO, and facilitating structured and unstructured extra curricular
activities with family and friends. The children perceived positive teacher interaction to
play an important role in their academic success. They had positive experiences speaking
Spanish with friends, family, and persons that they did not know.
The primary caregivers perceived that the school and the district did not provide
enough additional support to facilitate Spanish language acquisition for their children.
This would indicate that more support from the school and the district is needed for
future groups of African-American children in two-way immersion language programs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2488 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Boone, Sonia Kay |
| Contributors | Young Hawkins, LaVerne |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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