Dialogic Social Justice Teaching for English Learners: Using Critical Action Research to Connect Concepts and Classroom Practice through Sustained Professional Learning
Open Access
- Author:
- Kolb, Andrea
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 22, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Uju Anya, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Uju Anya, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Amy C Crosson, Committee Member
Elizabeth A Smolcic, Committee Member
Sharon Smith Childs, Outside Member
Mayra Bamaca-Colbert, Special Member
Kimberly Anne Powell, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- teacher professional learning
social justice pedagogy
English learners
inquiry
culturally responsive teaching
translanguaging
teaching with primary sources
critical action research - Abstract:
- English learners (ELs) are one of the fastest growing populations of K-12 students in the United States. However, a majority of teachers have limited to no formal preparation to teach ELs. This qualitative critical action research study examines middle and high school content teachers’ and ESL Specialists’ shifts in attitudes and actions in instructional design and delivery while participating in Power of Perspectives, a ten-month, job-embedded professional learning program. Particularly, the study includes two primary foci: designing and implementing (1) language-rich instruction for ELs that leverages ELs’ primary+ languages and (2) social justice pedagogy. Findings reveal that teachers continue to maintain deficit-oriented views of ELs which often support a pedagogy of pity, but that sustained professional learning has potential to disrupt deficit perspectives and, to some degree, replace them with asset ones. Findings also reveal that educators need greater preparation in understanding language and linguistics, culture as a cognitive scaffold, and instructional materials for facilitating social justice discussions. These are essential understandings for educators to effectively leverage students’ cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge and modify the language demands of grade-level instruction while maintaining high expectations and academic rigor. Finally, a discussion of the potential of dual capacity-building frameworks in which teachers and administrators are simultaneously engaged in sustained professional learning is discussed to address the potential threats to pedagogical innovation that result from a lack of strong alignment between teachers’ and administrators’ understandings, commitments, and practices.