An Empirical Model of Linguistic Conscientization: Teachers' Work With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

• In Event: 79.012 - Teacher Education for Social Justice and Culturally and Linguistically Relevant Pedagogy: Four National Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of our study is to articulate an empirically-based model of linguistic conscientization that answers the research question: What must teachers do in schools with culturally and linguistically diverse students? Specifically defined in relation to our work in the US South, the term culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLDSs) refers to both immigrant students who are English learners and Black students in the Southern US who speak varieties of African American English. Recent immigration patterns complexify diversity and language landscapes by situating new cultural and linguistic resources within historical social contexts of Black-White segregation in the US South.
Our research study draws on empirically-based conceptual research in the emancipatory education sciences that are currently at the center of teaching and learning with CLDSs: critical conscientization (Freire, 1970/2001), culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies (Ladson-Billings, 2014) and pedagogical content and language knowledges (Bunch, 2013).
In this mixed-methods study, we focus on teachers from diverse backgrounds in the New Destination South as they engage in extended professional development targeting CLDs. Qualitative data collection and analysis followed tenets of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) which include the simultaneous involvement in data collection and analysis phases, the creation of analytic codes and categories from data, and the development of mid-range theories to explain behavior and processes. Quantitative data consisted of pre/post scores from the Professional Beliefs about Diversity Scale (Pohan & Aguilar, 2001). This quantitative dimension provides a picture of the group and their openness to diversity in educational contexts as part of professional learning processes.
Findings are presented through vignettes that describe three teachers, their conscientizing experiences, and their school-based interactions. Representative of participants’ reported practices, the vignettes illustrate three emergent tenets of what we are calling linguistic conscientization:
(1) Advocating for language minority students in the community,
(2) Providing linguistic scaffolding for English subject area learning,
(3) Critical language instruction.
One overarching finding is that the strongest example of practice comes within Black communities with established resistant traditions of study that informs teachers’ practice.
Our study articulates an emergent empirical model that focuses on what teachers must do in schools with culturally and linguistically diverse students. Incomplete in its articulation, nonetheless, the empirical model emphasizes critical praxis that includes: advocacy, linguistic scaffolding, and critical language teaching.

Authors

• Alisa Leckie, Georgia Southern University

• James C. Jupp, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley