This inquiry into teacher education explores the potential for using multicultural children's literature to broaden preservice teachers' orientation toward the value of multiculturalism. The setting for this collaborative exploration was a College of Education course on Children's Literature during the 1992 spring semester. Literacy experiences with multicultural literature were created to provide preservice teachers with an opportunity to critically reflect on their awareness and understanding of multiculturalism. Weekly small group literature discussions, roving dialogue journals among three students and the university teacher, and end-of-semester interviews with each student were the primary sources of data collected during the semester. Findings from the analysis of data indicate the need for multicultural children's literature that accurately and authentically presents unique, diverse, and universal characteristics of a specific culture. Of equal importance to the selection of multicultural literature is the multicultural experience with these books which creates a critical consciousness among children and teachers. Evidence of the generative nature of dialogic experiences was seen where a multiplicity of voices pushed preservice teachers' awareness, acceptance, and appreciation of multiculturalism. As students reflected on their perspectives on culture that extended far beyond ethnic or racial perspectives, understanding of their own and other cultures was broadened. The results of this inquiry indicate the need for teacher education that is multicultural. A teacher's critical consciousness of the value of multiculturalism can transform her/his work with children in classrooms. Teacher themselves need opportunities to expand their orientation toward learning and living in a pluralistic society in order to foster critical students/citizens who actively participate in the nation's democracy.

This dissertation presents the linguistic ecology of a Spanish-English, bilingual first grade classroom. The term linguistic ecology refers to the communicative behaviors of a group, as well as the physical and social contexts in which their communication occurs. In addition, a linguistic ecology includes the reciprocal influences of persons and environment on each other. Two questions guided this study: (1) How do the children interpret the roles of English and Spanish in their classroom environment? and (2) What resources, human and material, are made available to support the development of both languages in this bilingual classroom? Three over-arching categories were used to describe and analyze the linguistic ecology as viewed by the children: (1) the materials available in the school to support Spanish development; (2) the staffing for bilingual instruction; and (3) the dynamics of language use within the school, especially within one first-grade classroom. The results of this inquiry study strongly suggest that children of bilingual classrooms discern that (1) more time is devoted to English instruction; (2) more communication occurs in English; (3) few teachers have high levels of Spanish proficiency; (4) the personnel of bilingual schools utilize more English than Spanish in the school environment; and (5) Spanish language resource materials are fewer in number and often less appealing than their English-language counterparts. In effect, this case study documents and interprets the social and educational processes through which bilingual children in one U.S. school come to appreciate the prestige and power of English versus Spanish.

Federal bilingual education policy generally has been characterized by inattention to research findings in second language acquisition theory. Studies have shown that learning English takes from five to nine years, and that providing students with substantial amounts of primary language instruction neither interferes with nor delays their acquisition of English. Nevertheless, the federal Bilingual Education Act has funded an increasing number of programs which do not use the student's primary language. This trend has been influenced by arguments concerning the notion of "local flexibility," or the idea that school districts are best suited to selecting the kinds of programs serving their language minority limited English proficient students. The present study sought to determine whether a similar trend was evident in a local school district in the American Southwest on the border with Mexico. After a pilot study concluded that research in bilingual education played no role in the development of the district's educational policies toward language minority students, this study was conducted to explore other influences which, in the absence of research findings, contributed to the district's current policy. The study also explored how the notion of "local flexibility" was played out in a local setting. Policy influences included Title VII funding fluctuations (and district inability or unwillingness to continue programs previously supported by the federal legislation); community apprehension (native language instruction was unnecessary and stigmatizing); local politics (frequently related to personal conflicts arising between individuals or groups); teacher recruitment and retention (still serious obstacles to adequately staffing bilingual and ESL programs). However, the most important influence on district policy was a district-wide compliance review of alternative language programs by the federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The OCR investigative team's reaction to the linguistic character of the community--which district officials and others interpreted as an endorsement of ESL over native language approaches--resulted in the establishment of a K-12 ESL program. The new program has direct consequences for the district's declaration that every student will graduate "bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate." Under the current ESL policy, this goal would appear to have little chance of success.

Teachers typically underutilize the home knowledge and sociocultural strengths students bring to school with them. Ethnographic home visits provide a mechanism by which teachers can learn to mediate between students' spontaneous home knowledge and formal school concepts. This is a teacher-researcher study in which I assumed both roles. I discuss transformation of the teaching and learning context resulting from ethnographic home visits conducted by me in the homes of five U.S. Mexican¹ students. Methods of investigation included ethnographic interviews and participant observation. Data sources were field notes, student journal entries, anecdotal data, video tape recordings, and a research journal. Chapter six presents mediation theory as it relates to classroom instruction. Teachers mediate between actual zones of development (AZD) and the proximal zones of development (PZD) in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) through use of tools including concrete objects, pictures, written and oral language, and other human beings. The principal finding in this work is that ethnographic research conducted by teachers has a transformative effect on teachers and students while informing pedagogy. ¹Although the subjects in this study were born in Mexico, the term U.S. Mexican is used to distinguish Mexicans residing in the U.S. from Mexicans residing in Mexico. This designation is consistent with other literature referring to persons currently residing in the U.S. who are either native born in Mexico or of Mexican parentage born in the U.S., regardless of generation.

This multiple-case study describes the literacy events that occurred during play in three holistic preschool classrooms over a four-month period. The data includes field notes from observations and from discourse with participants, audiotape transcriptions, interviews, and writing samples. Analytic induction was used for the analysis. Within play, literacy was used as: a support for play themes, a frame for play themes, and as an extraneous aspect of play. Literacy events involved transactions with print, as well as social transactions. Social transactions within literacy events were analyzed for whether they involved: self-construction of meaning, joint construction of meaning, direct instruction, or challenge. The data show that in print-rich environments, where reading and writing materials are accessible, and where literacy is an expected way of life, teachers can meaningfully facilitate literacy development. The teachers capitalized on the many teachable moments that arose during play by carefully observing children and making relevant literacy-related contributions. The children explored and developed their own understandings about literacy, and at the same time, nurtured literacy development in their peers; literacy development was both personal and social. By themselves, and with support from peers and teachers, the children explored the functions and features of written language, they tested their hypotheses about written language, and they developed strategies used by successful readers and writers. Play was found to be a meaningful and effective medium for facilitating literacy development.

This ethnographic study examines the unique schooling experiences of Yaqui students in an urban public school setting in Tucson, Arizona. The dissertation focuses on life narratives as a means of understanding how contemporary Yaqui adults view formal education, the struggles they endured to maintain their cultural identity within a mainstream educational environment, and Yaqui-defined factors contributing to the diminished and differential school success experienced by present-day Yaqui youth. The study enlisted 10 Yaqui individuals who resided in Old Pascua at the time of their elementary and secondary schooling, and who represented a range of ages and schooling levels. Old Pascua was chosen because it was established as the first Yaqui community in Tucson and because of Yaqui student attendance in specific schools. Critical theory provides the study's theoretical framework. Such a framework illuminates both the institutional practices and policies which contribute to the limited success of minority students, and the means of transforming those limiting conditions. Yaqui oral narrative accounts serve as the primary documentation and critique of existing educational institutions. The individual and collective struggles revealed in these first-hand accounts, as well as the social, political, and historical factors impacting the lives of Yaqui individuals, are examined. This documentation and a thematic analysis of the accounts suggest several institutionally produced factors that contributed to Yaqui students' lack of school success: the hidden curriculum of school; family support for education; and perceptions related to success. These themes are explored relative to the lives of Yaqui individuals, to research literature, and to critical theory. Finally, participant-generated recommendations for institutional change are discussed. These include changes in school and community relations, relevance of schooling, and economic factors. This study provides insights into the uniqueness of Yaqui school experiences and extends the current body of literature on American Indian/Alaska Native education by considering schooling from a neglected perspective--one informed by Yaqui individuals themselves. By examining the complex array of factors contributing to Yaqui students' diminished school success, the study also joins microethnography, macroethnography, and critical theory in a unified, systemic approach.

Language maintenance investigations have, for the most part, been limited to the study of the effect that socio-cultural factors have on language preservation. Unfortunately, language maintenance has been studied in tandem with language shift. Language shift has generated more interested from scholars than has language maintenance. This dissertation is an attempt to open up new ways to look at the study of language maintenance by presenting a theoretical framework whereby the domain of language use is the principal focus of study. I studied the domain of religion, subdivided into several dimensions. One dimension, that of ideology, is at the center of my study. The main objective of the dissertation was to identify ideological themes within the doctrinal body of the church selected for the study. Twenty-five such themes were identified and analyzed to determine the ways in which the themes influence language maintenance among the church members. The case study approach and the use of several ethnographic data collection methods were employed to assist us in having a better understanding of the phenomenon of language maintenance and to pave the way for future language maintenance studies.