Early Childhood and Elementary Education Faculty Publications

Drawing on ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, this article examines how comprehension strategies aligned with goals in a classroom oriented toward culturally relevant teaching. Findings indicate that (a) two distinct sets of comprehension were taught in the room and (b) one set aligned more easily with culturally relevant teaching than the other.

The article discusses Educating Early Childhood Preservice Teachers about Dual Language Theory and Practices. It mentions that many teachers are fearful or unsure about how to include literacy instruction in their curricula to affirm their students' multiple languages. It informs that Massachusetts had been one of the few states in the country that had eliminated, or highly restricted, bilingual education by law.

Teachers and researchers have found that having writing materials in all play centers in early childhood classrooms makes it easy for children to experience and work with print as they play with names. Children’s interest in their own names can be used as a tool for increasing their awareness of and experiences with print awareness and writing.

Certainly, teaching about politics can be daunting, especially as the political climate in the United States becomes increasingly partisan as a result of heated political rhetoric amplified through a variety of media outlets. However, elementary teachers can help students develop the respectful dispositions they will need as young adults living in an increasingly pluralistic society. These dispositions can be fostered only if teachers are willing to engage their young learners in discussions of politics as part of the curriculum. In this article, the authors discuss ways in which teachers can promote political tolerance and respect during coverage of a presidential election, a high-profile event that social studies educators Mary Haas and Margaret Laughlin describe as "the quintessential example of teaching social studies." Here, the authors also describe instructional strategies designed specifically for the upper elementary grades, although they note ways in which teachers can adapt these strategies for younger learners as well.

American publishers have published numerous children’s books about Barack Obama over the past several years; most take the form of informational biographies. This article reports on a research project aimed at how these books incorporate sociohistorical narratives, particularly those related to the civil rights movement. Though the features of the books might cause the reader to presume political neutrality, the books link readers to distinct Discourses (Gee, 1996), suggesting particular ideologies. In this article, we identified the following differences: (1) specific happenings from Obama’s life were included in some texts while omitted in others; (2) when the events were included, how they were framed differed; and (3) the narrative constructions of the events varied. We use the differences amongst these texts to argue for the importance of critical literacy in elementary classrooms.

This article describes the classroom interactions surrounding teacher read-alouds of nonfiction texts in the classroom of a teacher who strived for cultural relevancy. Participants in this study were one European American teacher and her upper- elementary students who lived in the surrounding working-class neighborhood; all but two students identified as Latino or African American. Data were collected for two consecutive school years using ethnographic and discourse analytic methods. Analyses showed that the teacher took up three social positions (i.e., cultural advocate, facilitator of classroom interactions, and teacher of reading) by animating texts and students.

Reading, writing, and discussing biographies provide unique opportunities for teachers and students. Critical thinking can be developed through questioning, predicting, and analyzing various biographical mediums--texts, photographs and illustrations, book reviews, websites, films, news articles, etc.--to learn more about an individual's life experiences and choices. Decision making skills can be enhanced when students juxtapose their perceptions of heroes and role models to that of a change agent, even considering how their own life experiences and choices may be contributing to larger actions of change. In this article, the authors discuss six biographies that could be used with young people in the elementary classroom to study change agents. The authors carefully selected and organized their literary choices into four categories: (1) familiar historical figures, (2) familiar living persons, (3) less familiar figures, and finally (4) students and teachers themselves--because they can act as change agents today on a local and personal level.

This article reports on a study investigating the experiences of family media practices during the pandemic. The article is based on questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 39 parents in South Korea and the United States who have children aged between 4 and 11. The article employs a framework developed by Livingstone and Blum-Ross to consider different “genres for ‘digital parenting’” (2020: 11). The article argues that although children’s screen time increased dramatically, parents continued to mediate it and make deliberate decisions about children’s media use. In particular, the analysis reveals parents’ decisions about different purposes for children’s media use, embracing many purposes they had previously resisted. These findings indicate that parents are making more nuanced decisions than previously employed when they followed indiscriminate screen time rules.

The emphasis on testing in Texas public schools has shaped literacy instruction in many classrooms. This article details how one Special Education teacher resists this testing mentality. She refuses to use the multiple-choice practice tests and prescribed programs that dominate the classrooms of many other teachers in her school; instead, she endorses authentic assessments and informed individualized instruction as a way to engage her students in the world of reading and writing.

In this study, I investigated language ideologies in a state-funded International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school in the United States. I conducted ethnographic observations, focus groups, and interviews in a fourth grade classroom in one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the country. Findings indicate that although the school positioned bilingualism as linguistic capital, the linguistic repertoires of multilingual refugee students were made invisible by three inter-related processes: linguistic tokenism, linguistic subordination, and linguistic compartmentalization. These results highlight the urgency for schools offering the IB PYP to implement language policy, curriculum, and instruction that explicitly support immigrant and refugee children’s multiple linguistic backgrounds.

This study explores how early childhood preservice teachers use technology in PreK-3 classrooms, focusing on the alignment between their intentions and actual practices. Using the ‘Technology Integration as a Spectrum (TIS)’ model, the study identifies four types of technology use. Findings reveal that preservice teachers primarily use technology for adult- or software-driven goals, which often contradict their pedagogical beliefs. Although they advocate for child-centered learning approaches, their technology use predominantly reflects these more structured methods, resulting in misalignments between intended purposes and actual practices. This study highlights the need for diverse technology use, including Free Use, and recommends critical reflection on technology practices to ensure alignment with pedagogical goals for effective implementation.

This ethnographic case study explores Nicaragua–Costa Rica cross-border dynamics, one of the most important South-South migration flows in the Central American region. I identify practices that prevent Nicaraguan children in a Costa Rican classroom from consolidating transnational identities and networks during the school day. Specifically, I examine three types of disruptions—historical, social, and linguistic—as well as various ways in which students and teachers contest those disruptions.

This article presents an integrated systematic review of scholarship related to preparing preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach multilingual learners in U.S. schools. We drew from cultural-historical activity theory to investigate how teacher educators who focus on preparing PSTs to work with multilingual students attended to the linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) framework. We identified three distinct activity systems, each linked to specific LRT dimensions. The ways in which the components of each activity system integrated LRT have implications for both theory and practice. Specifically, our findings highlight the need for program-wide coherence in teacher preparation and for comparative analysis examining teacher education across diverse policy contexts.

English teaching programs, particularly in foreign language contexts focus on linguistic and methodological aspects rather than on ideological ones, in spite of their importance to examine the political nature of teaching and learning English because it connects language classrooms to larger social dynamics. Critical applied linguistics is an approach that addresses “questions of power, difference, access, and domination,” and how they are produced. This articles explores the social, national, and global forces that shape English language teaching in Costa Rica.

English teaching programs, especially those for teaching English as a foreign language, focus on linguistic and methodological aspects; not ideological ones, despite their importance for analyzing the relationships between pedagogical aspects and more extensive dynamic social processes. Critical applied linguistics studies "questions of power, difference, access and domination" and the way in which these elements are produced. The social, national and international forces that shape the teaching and acquisition of English in Costa Rica are explored.

In recent years, scholarly conversations and debates have emerged on the distinctions among various approaches to address diversity in modern pluralistic societies. Yet, most of the literature written in English on diversity paradigms in the Americas comes from an Anglo-American perspective. In this article, I address this gap in the scholarship by examining the historical and sociocultural context of North American multiculturalism and interculturalism, alongside that of Latin America's interculturalidad. In so doing, I expand the conversation to include the voices of underrepresented Latin American scholars. Although researchers often pit the three diversity paradigms against each other, I argue that instead, each paradigm should be looked at as serving a purpose within the particular contexts and needs from which they emerged and in which they have evolved.

The emphasis on testing in Texas public schools has shaped literacy instruction in many classrooms. This article details how one Special Education teacher resists this testing mentality. She refuses to use the multiple-choice practice tests and prescribed programs that dominate the classrooms of many other teachers in her school; instead, she endorses authentic assessments and informed individualized instruction as a way to engage her students in the world of reading and writing.