This study examined the English literacy skills of children in an immersion school, some of whom were enrolled in a French program and some in a Spanish program. The English literacy skills of the children enrolled in the Spanish program were consistently better than the English literacy skills of the children enrolled in the French program. In…

This study explores the postsecondary pathways of Latino language-minority young adults in the United States. Using data from the Texas Higher Education Opportunity Project (THEOP) and controlling on background characteristics as well as high-school academic achievement, this study explores the social and linguistic integration of immigrant and…

This multisited ethnography followed nine successful Latino high-school students enrolled in a college-preparation program to examine their development of college aspirations and identify factors that contributed to their successful preparation for a 4-year university. It also explored these students' "multiple worlds" of home, school, community,…

Public-school policy and federal law both emphasize parental involvement, yet there is insufficient research guiding meaningful collaboration between school practitioners and immigrant parents. This article reports on results gleaned from a larger study of school-based adult ESL classes, focusing on the role that these classes could play in…

As the increasing number of Latino and Asian immigrants to the Atlanta area has escalated tensions over occupational, residential, and educational resources, research has begun to examine opposition to bilingual education as an extension of anti-immigrant prejudice and as a measure of perceived threat. This study uses content analysis to compare…

Although explicit grammar instruction has been a source of considerable debate in second-language teaching, increasingly educational linguists assert instruction in academic language is critical, given the current assessment reform in K-12 contexts. Of particular concern is that contemporary English-Language-Learner (ELL) instruction focuses on…

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated home-school communication practices from two school districts in north Florida. Specifically, this study focuses on communication between education professionals and Spanish-speaking parents who were immigrant and migrant farmworkers. In this paper we use the term…

This article draws from a larger study based in South Texas that examines the professional and personal narratives of 63 Latina/o preservice educators preparing to teach in bilingual classrooms. Using qualitative methods, we collected data where participants' voices and opinions regarding U.S. immigration issues were documented during classroom…

This study explores the role that language plays in the academic and social transition of Haitian children and parents to urban U.S. schools across multiple school settings, demographic groups, and languages. Semistructured individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with groups of 12 Haitian American teachers, 12 Haitian parents of…

The K-12 population has increased dramatically over the past 20 years with regard to cultural and linguistic diversity, thereby creating a critical need to prepare teachers for this diversity. This study conducted an analysis of teacher characteristics vis-a-vis their attitudinal beliefs about language-minority students. Using multivariate…

This qualitative case study examines the literacy practices of an emerging bilingual child in a preschool classroom comprised mostly of recent Mexican immigrant students. It describes how political pressures after the passage of Proposition 203 in Arizona alter the language of instruction in the classroom, even when preschools do not have to…

This study focuses on the characteristics of discourse between Latino immigrant children and their teacher during science instruction. Peer interaction was analyzed to identify the use and importance of the native language (L1) for the development of content knowledge during group collaboration. In addition, the interaction between teacher and…

In recent months the United States scrutinized the reauthorization of two critical pieces of legislation--those of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Law and the No Child Left Behind Act--and disagreed on many of the issues involved in these two pieces of legislation. We believe this is an opportunity to engage in a deeper examination of the…

This study investigated the relationship of first language (L1) grammatical knowledge to English second language reading (ESLR), with the objective of understanding this relationship in the context of the transfer of L1 skills to second language (L2) academic processes. Fifty-five adult, native Spanish-speaking English-language learners were given…

Within the language socialization framework, the second language (L2) classroom would constitute a powerful context of secondary socialization, particularly when it exists outside the learners' culture of origin. In this paper, first year Korean-as-a-Foreign-Language (KFL) classrooms are viewed as L2 socializing environments in which students are…