Family and Consumer Science Teachers, English Learners, and a Neglected Democratic Corner of High School

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Latina/o Families and Democratic Schooling: The Role of Schools, Families, and Leaders

Abstract

High school family consumer science classrooms (FCS) have twin origins in the insertion of domestic arts education into schooling and the premise that the comprehensive high school should teach democracy in part through student selection of electives, but now FCS classes increasingly serve an unanticipated third purpose—as an early venue for ‘mainstreaming’ English learners (ELs). This qualitative study of 8 FCS teachers, who were purposefully selected because of the high EL enrollments in their urban and rural ‘New Latino Diaspora’ high schools, considers their accounts of their preparation for and practice with ELs, concluding that, ready or not, FCS teachers have a significant role in actual high school responses to ELs.

Authors

• Edmund T. Hamann, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Emily M Manning, University of Nebraska - Lincoln