Bilingual Learners And Social Equity

This volume explores how educators conceptualized and implemented critical approaches to systemic functional linguistics that support bilingual students in appropriating and challenging dominant knowledge domains in K-16 contexts. The researchers exhibit a shared commitment to enacting a culturally sustaining SFL praxis that validates multilingual meaning making, pushes against social inequity, and fosters creative re-mixing of available semiotic resources. It should prove a valuable resource for students, teachers and researchers interested in applied linguistics, education and critical theory.

This comprehensive account of bilingualism examines the importance of using students’ native languages as a tool for supporting higher levels of learning. The authors highlight the social, linguistic, neuro-cognitive, and academic advantages of bilingualism, as well as the challenges faced by English language learners and their teachers in schools across the United States. They describe effective strategies for using native languages, even when the teacher lacks proficiency in a language. This resource addresses both the latest research and theory on native language instruction, along with its practical application (the what, why, and how) in K–8 classrooms. Key features include: Examples of programs that address the needs of learners from diverse language backgrounds, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Bengali, and Russian. Teaching strategies, activities, and student tasks geared toward current academic standards. The role of primary language in ESL, dual language, special education, and general education programs. “At last, a book that focuses on the development of students’ bilingualism from the point of view of their home languages and not simply English! Rodríguez, Carrasquillo, and Lee lead teachers in uncovering the treasure of the home language in bilingual learning.” —Ofelia García, professor, The Graduate Center, City University of New York “I highly recommend The Bilingual Advantage . . . an essential tool to achieve equity and social justice as these evidence-based practices promote the high achievement and success of English learners within our schools.” —Jose Luis Alvarado, associate dean, College of Education, San Diego State University “This book brings together the latest research on the advantages of children learning in two languages and two cultures.” —From the Foreword by Margarita Calderón, professor emerita, Johns Hopkins University

In schools serving high concentrations of bilingual learners, it can be especially challenging for teachers to maintain commitments to equity-minded instruction while meeting the demands of new educational policies, including national standards. This book details how one school integrated equity pedagogy into a standards-based curriculum and produced exemplary levels of achievement. As the authors illustrate, however, the school’s dual commitment to bilingual education and standards-based reform engendered numerous complex tensions. Specifically, the authors describe teachers’ attempts to balance demands for rigor and content coverage within their high-performing school and with their diverse student population. They identify specific tensions that emerged around the following issues: the degree of academic struggle that is generative for student learning and the point at which such struggle becomes counterproductive the holding of high expectations for all learners and the provision of differentiated, student-centered learning experiences the CCSS emphasis on engaging students around more complex text and the contested determination of what constitutes complexity in text and in teaching the influence of high-stakes accountability on school norms and practices, including teachers’ interpretations and enactment of new national standards the performance pressures placed on teachers in today’s educational policy context This timely book illustrates what can happen when a school’s teachers embrace equity pedagogy while navigating policy-related pressures. It offers a cogent counternarrative to traditional accounts of standards-based reform, especially for emerging bilingual students.

Social justice language teacher education is a response to the acknowledgement that there are social/societal inequities that shape access to learning and educational achievement. In social justice language teacher education, social justice is the driving force and primary organizational device for the teacher education agenda. What does “social justice” mean in diverse global locations? What role does English play in promoting or denying equity? How can teachers come to see themselves as advocates for equal educational access and opportunity? This volume begins by articulating a view of social justice teacher education, followed by language teacher educators from 7 countries offering theorized accounts of their situated practices. Authors discuss powerful components of practice, and the challenges and tensions of doing this work within situated societal and institutional power structures.

This book brings together research from six different countries across three continents where teacher educators and policy makers are addressing the under-preparation of content teachers to work effectively with multilingual learners. By highlighting this relatively young field of research at an international level, the book advances the research-based knowledge of the field and promotes international research relationships and partnerships to better support the education of multilingual learners and their teachers. The chapters represent high-quality empirical qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies about pre-service and in-service teachers. Comprising four sections, each represents a critical aspect of the equitable teaching of multilingual learners. All the research was conducted in countries that belong to OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) enabling the reader to compare contexts and outcomes. This book will be of particular interest to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of language education, teacher education, and education for multilingual learners. It will be of great value to anyone concerned with equity and social justice for multilingual learners whose languages, cultural practices, and resources are often overlooked and/or marginalized in the schools they attend.

This book honors the impactful contributions of Guadalupe Valdés toward equity in multilingual schools and communities. As one of the first language education scholars to examine the vibrant language practices of bilingual users in the US Southwest, her work marked a departure from traditional foreign language approaches and sparked a movement focused on valuing heritage languages and creating more equitable educational systems for young people from linguistically minoritized backgrounds. Influenced by the work of Professor Valdés, the contributors to this book draw on multiple aspects of her research to look at new ways of addressing equity and social justice for multilingual users in schools and communities. Chapters focus on three major areas of her work: the nature of languages and literacies in multilingual contexts, language development in classrooms and communities, and equity and access. At the end of each section, short interludes describe contributors’ personal experiences of learning from and with Professor Valdés, providing insight into the practices of mentorship and professional development within the field. This volume will appeal to students and researchers across bilingualism, applied linguistics and education, offering an overview of developments in these fields and directions for future research on equity in multilingual educational settings.

Using an interdisciplinary perspective to discuss the intersection of language development and learning processes, this book summarizes current knowledge and represents the most critical issues regarding early childhood research, policy, and practice related to young bilingual children with disabilities. The book begins with a conceptual framework focusing on the intersection between the fields of early childhood education, bilingual education, and special education. It goes on to review and discuss the role of bilingualism in young children’s development and the experiences of young bilingual children with disabilities in early care and education settings, including issues of eligibility and access to care, instruction, and assessment. The book explores family experiences, teacher preparation, accountability, and policy, ending with recommendations for future research which will inform both policies and practices for the education of young bilingual children with disabilities. This timely volume provides valuable guidance for teachers, administrators, policymakers, and researchers.

Over the past 40 years, Jim Cummins has proposed a number of highly influential theoretical concepts, including the threshold and interdependence hypotheses and the distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency. In this book, he provides a personal account of how these ideas developed and he examines the credibility of critiques they have generated, using the criteria of empirical adequacy, logical coherence, and consequential validity. These criteria of theoretical legitimacy are also applied to the evaluation of two different versions of translanguaging theory – Unitary Translanguaging Theory and Crosslinguistic Translanguaging Theory – in a way that significantly clarifies this controversial concept.