Structured English Immersion Teacher Preparation: “The Arizona Department of Education Needs Quality Training…So They May Have to Do an Investigation”

• In Event: Roundtable Session 124
  In Roundtable Session: The Impact of a Restrictive Language Policy on the Education of English Language Learners

Abstract

Purpose and Objectives

Arizona’s Proposition 203 passed in 2000, the same year that a key case related to language minority schooling, Flores v. Arizona (1992), resulted in the Flores Consent Order, requiring that the state provide adequate funding for English learners (ELs). The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has since required that all certified education personnel complete both Provisional and Full Structured English Immersion (SEI) Endorsements by taking professional development. The legislature appointed an ELL Task Force, assigned to review research by experts in the field and outline a “model” of SEI in Arizona. This paper examines the discourse emerging through language policies as a result of Proposition 203.

Theoretical Framework

Partly drawing on Yanow’s (2000) notion of interpretive policy analysis, this paper examines the sociopolitical and sociohistorical nature of SEI in Arizona vís-a-vís ideologically-driven interpretations of English-only. The value-laden nature of discourse regarding language policies affecting language minority students in the states became evident in four areas: the Flores Consent Order and the legislature’s refusal to adequately fund programs for ELLs; the ADE’s Curricular Frameworks for teacher SEI training; SEI trainers’ interpretations and implementation of SEI based on the Frameworks; and ELL Task Force meetings and findings. These interpretive communities include, but are not limited to: the state legislature; the ADE; the ELL Task Force; and SEI trainers from four backgrounds. Trainers from distinct backgrounds, often with potentially contentious priorities, were deemed comparable and suitable for providing teacher professional development to fulfill the state’s SEI training requirement. Additional analyses investigated the extent to which trainers from each of the four organizational backgrounds, perceptions of SEI varied. Implications of trainers’ varied perspectives regarding the ADE’s definition of SEI and how to deliver the required professional development is situated using notions of storytelling, specifically majoritarian and counter narratives as derived from Critical Race Theory (Delgado, 1984, 1989; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002a, 2002b; Yosso, 2006).

Methods

Methodology included the collection of policy statements made by the ADE regarding SEI; the state-mandated professional development curricula for SEI training; documents compiled and presented by the ELL Task Force; interviews and observations of fourteen SEI trainers representing the four organizations (see above). Data was analyzed using Yanow’s (2000, p. 22) framework for interpretive policy analysis, in which symbolic artifacts (language, objects, acts) and communities of meaning/interpretation/speech/practice relevant to SEI in Arizona were identified and then aligned as representative of either majoritarian or counter narratives (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002a; 2002b). Next, discourses and points of conflict reflecting different interpretations from communities were identified, highlighting the implications of interpretations for policymaking and SEI implementation.

Results & Significance

This study contributes to policy literature by providing an informed understanding of policy implementation as viewed through this methodological lens. Findings demonstrate that language policies in Arizona can be unmasked when researchers view the role and function of power structures and politics as well as those negotiating policies for practitioners. Each interprets policymaking and expresses certain narratives regarding SEI training, based on membership in distinctive communities of meaning and practice.

Author

• Sarah Catherine K. Moore, Center for Applied Linguistics