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- Creators: Arizona State University
- Creators: O'Connor, Brendan
Description
Children’s language proficiency, teacher’s language ideologies, and language practices such as code-switching have been previously investigated, but almost no research has explored young children’s understandings about language(s) nor their impact on social relationships. Researchers have not investigated children’s reflection of their own language use and identity. I conducted an ethnography regarding language practices, knowledge, and identity construction, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with students and teachers in a Montessori preschool classroom. I decided to focus upon a few specific students in the class because of their varying linguistic backgrounds. Linguistic identity formation occurs mainly through self-assessment and language practices and processes (such as authentication vs. denaturalization, adequation vs. distinction, and authorization vs. illegitimation) (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). Understanding and knowledge about language(s) displayed by students allowed for nuanced identity construction through conversation with teachers and peers. The language ideologies and practices by teachers in this classroom contrast that of the broader social and cultural systems in place, and also support children’s language knowledge and social development.
ContributorsHait, Ryleigh (Author) / O'Connor, Brendan (Thesis director) / Berstein, Katie (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This thesis examines heritage language learning and loss, and revitalization. It stems from my initial interests in Indigenous language revitalization and sustainment, bilingual education, and specifically dual language education in the United States. In this thesis, I describe my inquiry journey through narratives of the significant experiences and people I met and the scholarship I engaged in, particularly through visiting Keres Children’s Learning Center at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, and attending the La Cosecha Dual Language Education conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In these narratives, I also reflect on what I have learned, how I was personally impacted by what I was learning and my thoughts and ideas about particular issues. These narratives helped me gain a deeper understanding of and expand my knowledge of heritage learning, bilingual education, dual language education and critical issues of language development and promotion (or non-promotion) in our country’s schools and families. Equally important is the knowledge I gained about dual language pedagogy and its critical importance to language revitalization programs serving Indigenous children, and their families and communities. I begin my thesis with a review of literature followed by a description of my methods and then move on to my narratives of significant learning moments, chronologically, and then summarize my key findings. I end with, ironically yet crucially with the most important lesson I learned through my inquiry journey—an understanding of my linguistic self.
This thesis examines the questions of
1. To become a Dual Language Education expert, researcher, or scholar, what does it take?
2. In what ways can a non-Native help Indigenous communities engaged in indigenous language revitalization and sustainment (ILRS)? What would they need to learn or know?
Some significant findings of my thesis work include
1. The strength, versatility, and challenges of the dual language education model in a national context
2. Culturally-sustaining pedagogy and strategies for adapting lessons to local culture
3. The centrality of tribal sovereignty and tribal control over the Indigenous language in order to grow and maintain an IRLS effort
4. Ways in which a non-Native can help an ILRS initiative
5. Respect for native communities’ right to say no to research
This thesis examines the questions of
1. To become a Dual Language Education expert, researcher, or scholar, what does it take?
2. In what ways can a non-Native help Indigenous communities engaged in indigenous language revitalization and sustainment (ILRS)? What would they need to learn or know?
Some significant findings of my thesis work include
1. The strength, versatility, and challenges of the dual language education model in a national context
2. Culturally-sustaining pedagogy and strategies for adapting lessons to local culture
3. The centrality of tribal sovereignty and tribal control over the Indigenous language in order to grow and maintain an IRLS effort
4. Ways in which a non-Native can help an ILRS initiative
5. Respect for native communities’ right to say no to research
ContributorsWelsh, Jacqueline Rose (Author) / Romero-Little, Eunice (Thesis director) / Tidwell, Jacqueline Hettel (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This study examined and compared language ideologies and attitudes among dual language program (Spanish-English) graduates regarding their use of Spanish and perceptions of their bilingual education experience through surveys and semi-structured interviews. Drawing from the theory of ideology, data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Surveys were divided into two sections and contained 30 Likert-style items related to participants’ attitudes regarding Spanish, English, bilingualism and their experiences in the dual language program. Interviews, which were 40-60 minutes in length, were coded in two cycles based on general themes related to dual language graduates’ experiences in the dual language program and language attitudes and ideologies. Patterns among codes were identified, analyzed and compared with quantitative findings to create major themes. Findings reveal that graduates generally consider themselves bilingual and had both positive and negative experiences in the program. Additionally, dual language graduates exhibit conflicting attitudes and ideologies regarding monolingualism, standardization and the value of bilingualism. Finally, results indicate a difference in the experiences of the Latinx and non-Latinx students, which have implications regarding the equity of the dual language program. Findings from this study give insight into the experiences of dual language graduates, an area that has received little attention, and provides insight into the issues regarding educational and attitudinal outcomes in bilingual contexts, specifically in dual language programs. Pedagogical implications are discussed as related to the most salient themes identified in this research.
ContributorsLenz, Ashley (Author) / Beaudrie, Sara (Thesis advisor) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / Gradoville, Michael (Committee member) / Kaveh, Yalda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation study investigated how Somali refugee families living in Nairobi, Kenya experience and negotiate their religious and secular identities through literacies. This study provided detailed experiences and reflections of individuals––children and parents about their literacies. The children in this study learned to read in English and Kiswahili in school, and they learned to read in classical Arabic—three languages they do not speak at home. The study explored Qur’anic schools which literacy researchers have long overlooked, yet these are spaces that shape many children’s rich multilingual, multiliterate, and multiscriptual repertoires while, at the same time, shaping and negotiating their fluid identities. Three themes, literacy as social practice, liturgical literacy, and funds of knowledge offered a complimentary lens through which this community was studied. Literacy, as a social practice, demonstrates how certain social groups use specific socially constructed literacies within specific contexts to achieve various goals. The concept of liturgical literacy foregrounds how minority languages, such as Classical Arabic, have great symbolic value for communities, including those who neither speak nor understand the language, while funds of knowledge conceptualize the knowledge and related activities present in homes that have the potential for contributing positively to children’s learning. Using the ethnographic methodology, this inquiry spanned six sites and focused on participants during their interactions with literacy, orality, and text for eight months. The study occurred in three homes, two Dugsis, and one school site. A rich description of the community was achieved by presenting language and literacy practices in a multi-sited ethnography. This dissertation ultimately also offers contemporary relevance: investigating a community whose literacies are invisible, minoritized, and marginalized, and aimed to inform educational researchers, policymakers, and teachers who are devoted to rethinking what counts as literacy, for whom, in what contexts, and with what kinds of consequences. In a time of increased movement of people across borders, this research has important implications for teacher preparation, theories of language learning, and literacy education.
ContributorsMohamed, Saida Hussein (Author) / Bernstein, Katie (Thesis advisor) / Warriner, Doris (Thesis advisor) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
In this three-article dissertation study, I examine the educational experiences of students from refugee backgrounds (SRBs) and the teachers that serve them in an urban high school in Arizona. Through a year-long ethnographic study, I attempt to contribute to the existing literature by exploring three salient issues that mediate experiences for participating teachers (n = 3) and SRBs (n = 32) in three classrooms. The participating SRBs came from a wide variety of home countries and spoke a combined 15 different home languages. In the United States, where the instruction of SRBs is generally framed by language policies, English as a second language (ESL) teachers play an crucial role in SRBs’ schooling. In the first article, I examined how teachers’ language ideologies shaped their implementation of structured English immersion (SEI), the authorized language policy in the state of Arizona. Findings describe how the teachers enacted agency to appropriate authorized language policy and create new, unauthorized policies that met the perceived needs of SRBs in their classrooms. I also examined the identity construction of SRBs in figured worlds of resettlement. Once resettled, SRBs are legally tied to their status as refugees, which may operate as a mechanism of oppression in the host country. These individuals are often stripped of all identities but one—that of being a refugee—which essentializes their vulnerability and perpetuates deficit-oriented perspectives that may limit learning opportunities for SRBs. Findings describe how participating teachers constructed SRBs’ identities and how SRBs constructed refugee-ness for themselves, highlighting the strength and resiliency of this student population. Finally, I used phenomenology as a methodological frame from which to interpret SRBs’ experiences with SEI and the policy-related barriers they described as negatively impacting their education. As refugees flee their countries of origin, educational systems in their countries of resettlement have struggled to provide quality education to their children. Themes summarizing participants’ collective experiences highlighted specific challenges related to SEI policy mandates, including SRBs’ isolation, limited opportunities to interact with English-speaking peers, and low graduation rates.
ContributorsAmbroso, Eric Patrick (Author) / Anderson, Katherine T (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Liou, Daniel D (Committee member) / Warriner, Doris (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Currently, there are few quality tools available to screen for developmental language disorder (DLD) in Spanish-speaking children despite the continued increase of this population in the United States. The lack of valid and reliable screening tools may be a factor leading to difficulties with the identification of and delivery of services to these children. This study plans to improve upon the screening of Spanish-English bilingual children.The Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children (SSLIC) tests Spanish oral language skills in Spanish-speaking children. It measures language skills through morphology elicitation of Spanish clitics, prepositions, derivational morphemes, subjunctive verb tenses, and articles and repetition of nonwords and sentences, which have all been shown to be affected in Spanish-speaking children with DLD.
The purpose of the study is to provide preliminary validity evidence of the SSLIC. Children's results on the SSLIC were compared to other validated measures. Fourteen Spanish-English bilingual students were recruited: 11 children with typical language development (TD) and 3 with DLD. The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment and the Dynamic Measure of Oral Narrative Discourse were used to establish preliminary validity evidence. Pearson correlations were run to determine if SSLIC scores correlated with other validated measures. Significant correlations were found between the SSLIC’s scores and scores on the BESA. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine mean differences between groups. No significant mean differences for SSLIC scores were found between children with typical and atypical language. Yet, effect sizes suggested group differences. Point to point analysis revealed that the SSLIC has excellent inter-rater reliability.
Despite a small sample size, this study serves as preliminary evidence that the SSLIC is both valid and reliable and supports that the SSLIC has the potential to be used as a screening tool for DLD for Spanish-speaking kindergarten and 1st grade students with further validation, which should continue.
ContributorsSmith, Brandon Earl (Author) / Restrepo, María A (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Brown, Jean C (Committee member) / Moen, Theresa C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
In this critical ethnographic dissertation, I explore the expropriation of bilingual education and the cultural (re)production of eliteness through prestige trilingual education by immersing myself for ten months in a small, suburban, charter elementary school called Desert Language Academy (DLA) in the U.S. state of Arizona. Desert Language Academy uses a trilingual immersion model with Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English as languages of instruction for all students in Kindergarten through sixth grade, and primarily caters to White and English-privileged families who live in the local suburb of Heavenly Hills. Desert Language Academy’s suburban location, private school history, and one-way world language orientation are unique factors that shape the school’s implementation, and are seen as products of Arizona’s legacy of restrictive, English-Only educational language policy and the state’s minimally-regulated “Wild West” school choice environment. A kaleidoscopic theoretical framework integrates social-cultural (re)production theory, neoliberal and neoconservative education policies and policymaking in Arizona, and raciolinguistic ideology in order to critically explore the experiences of students, teachers, and school administrators amid the school’s implementation and growth.The findings interrogate social, cultural, and linguistic processes, as well as political pressures, which have shaped the school’s evolution from private to public charter status, as well as its present implementation of a one-way world language model that prioritizes additional language learning and idealizes global citizenship for White, English-privileged, and affluent students. I specifically attend to the resistive language policymaking of racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically minoritized students and teachers who creatively used language and appropriated language policy in order to contest the construction of DLA as an elite school that excludes and Otherizes racialized peoples while White and English-privileged students are distinguished as elite, cosmopolitan, global citizens. This study critiques the role of multiscalar education and language policies in (re)producing the expropriation of bilingual education and its social, cultural, linguistic, and educational impacts on multilingual students, teachers, and administrators. In sharing these stories, I also intend to illuminate the discursive processes through which racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically minoritized students and teachers hope and demand for inclusive curriculum, instruction, and language policies.
ContributorsBuckband, Cory (Author) / Cervantes-Soon, Claudia G (Thesis advisor) / Kaveh, Yalda M (Committee member) / O'Connor, Brendan H (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This three-article dissertation is a qualitative exploration of language ideologies and discourse regarding the English language’s role in Puerto Rico’s (PR) education, politics, and culture. Centering the perspectives of civically engaged youth (CEY) and adhering to critical and decolonial theoretical frameworks, I explore how Puerto Ricans conceptualize the English language and its value at macro, meso, and micro levels. The first article provides a history of English language policies in PR. I perform a thematic analysis of archival newspaper data, political platforms, and politician and educational professional discourse to gain a nuanced understanding of the historical and current sociolinguistic discourse around English in the archipelago. I find that PR politicians use English as a bargaining tool to garner support, while they ignore the citizenry’s educational needs. Many educators, parents, and researchers have first-hand knowledge of the public education system’s dire needs that must be addressed to ensure successful language education programs. This knowledge is ignored by PR’s politicians.
To explore language ideologies regarding English from a mid-level view, I interviewed twelve CEYs to understand their perceptions, ideals, and experiences regarding English language use in PR. I then interpreted the language ideologies that inform CEYs’ interactions with, and perspectives of, the English language. I find that CEYs have complex, fluid, and nuanced beliefs about the English language. With these beliefs, they make room for resisting the traditional dichotomous views between English/Spanish that constrain us to Western ways of thinking, and they create opportunities to affirm their own knowledge and experiences as legitimate.
In the third article, I explore English language use at a micro-level. This involves examining English language use in activism and community work organizations’ official websites and social media platforms. I find that organizations use English not only in nominal ways (to refer to technology terms, United States (US) institutions and more) but also in complex and engaging ways such as citation of Black and Decolonial scholars and disseminating protective language.
ContributorsRodríguez-Martínez, Sara (Author) / Anderson, Kate T (Thesis advisor) / Sampson, Carrie (Committee member) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Carroll, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
ABSTRACT
This study examines the language and literacy experiences of Kurdish minority children during their first year of mainstream schooling in a southeastern village in Turkey. I employed ethnographic research methods (participant observation, multi-modal data collection, interviewing, and focus groups) to investigate the language practices of the children in relation to language ideologies circulating in the wider context. I focused on the perspectives and practices of one 1st grade classroom (14 students) but also talked with seven parents, three teachers, and two administrators.
A careful analysis of the data collected shows that there is a hierarchy among languages used in the community—Turkish, English, and Kurdish. The children, their parents, and their teachers all valued Turkish and English more than Kurdish. While explaining some of their reasons for this view, they discussed the status and functions of each language in society with an emphasis on their functions. My analysis also shows that, although participants devalue the Kurdish language, they still value Kurdish as a tie to their ethnic roots. Another key finding of this study is that policies that appear in teachers’ practices and the school environment seemed to be robust mediators of the language beliefs and practices of the Kurds who participated in my study. School is believed to provide opportunities for learning languages in ways that facilitate greater participation in society and increased access to prestigious jobs for Kurdish children who do not want to live in the village long-term. Related to that, one finding demonstrates that current circumstances make language choice like a life choice for Kurdish children. While Kurds who choose Turkish are often successful in school (and therefore have access to better jobs), the ones who maintain their Kurdish usually have only animal breeding or farming as employment options. I also found that although the Kurdish children that I observed subscribed to ideologies that valued Turkish and English over their native language, they did not entirely abandon their Kurdish language. Instead, they were involved in Turkish- Kurdish bilingual practices such as language broking, language sharing, and language crossing.
This study examines the language and literacy experiences of Kurdish minority children during their first year of mainstream schooling in a southeastern village in Turkey. I employed ethnographic research methods (participant observation, multi-modal data collection, interviewing, and focus groups) to investigate the language practices of the children in relation to language ideologies circulating in the wider context. I focused on the perspectives and practices of one 1st grade classroom (14 students) but also talked with seven parents, three teachers, and two administrators.
A careful analysis of the data collected shows that there is a hierarchy among languages used in the community—Turkish, English, and Kurdish. The children, their parents, and their teachers all valued Turkish and English more than Kurdish. While explaining some of their reasons for this view, they discussed the status and functions of each language in society with an emphasis on their functions. My analysis also shows that, although participants devalue the Kurdish language, they still value Kurdish as a tie to their ethnic roots. Another key finding of this study is that policies that appear in teachers’ practices and the school environment seemed to be robust mediators of the language beliefs and practices of the Kurds who participated in my study. School is believed to provide opportunities for learning languages in ways that facilitate greater participation in society and increased access to prestigious jobs for Kurdish children who do not want to live in the village long-term. Related to that, one finding demonstrates that current circumstances make language choice like a life choice for Kurdish children. While Kurds who choose Turkish are often successful in school (and therefore have access to better jobs), the ones who maintain their Kurdish usually have only animal breeding or farming as employment options. I also found that although the Kurdish children that I observed subscribed to ideologies that valued Turkish and English over their native language, they did not entirely abandon their Kurdish language. Instead, they were involved in Turkish- Kurdish bilingual practices such as language broking, language sharing, and language crossing.
ContributorsGokalp, Ayfer (Author) / Warriner, Doris S (Thesis advisor) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Matsuda, Aya (Committee member) / Swadener, Beth B (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The English language is taught all over the world and changes immensely from place to place. As such, both L1 and L2 English Language Users all utilize English as a tool for creating meaning in their existence and to also form perspectives on how the language ought to be. What is interesting about this is that the language being used to do that is one birthed from a culture that many English speakers across the globe are separated from; that is, Anglo-Saxon culture. Since learning and using language is also learning and participating in culture the question is, then how separated are American English speakers from that of the culture that created the language they speak? Does Anglo-Saxon culture impact how worldviews are formed in contemporary English speakers? I propose that the first step to finding some answers is by investigating the language ideologies that American English speakers have through the inquiry of meanings that they prescribe to English words that derive from Old English and subsequently have Germanic origins. The following work details a study examining the language attitudes of American English speakers in hopes of shedding new light on these questions.
ContributorsHickman, Paris Weslyn (Author) / Bjork, Robert E (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen L (Committee member) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016