Latinx Immigrant Children's Beliefs About Learning in Three U.S. Classrooms

• In Event: 45.025 - Looking at Motivation Across Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

This study uses Gutiérrez & Rogoff (2003) and Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti’s (2006) interpretations and application of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Learning Theory to consider relationship between the classroom learning experiences offered to young children from Latinx immigrant families and their beliefs about learning. Using qualitative methods informed by grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), we analyze ethnographic classroom observations of children’s learning experiences and video-cued interviews of first grade students and their teachers about their beliefs about learning. Our findings characterize classroom learning experiences, children’s beliefs about learning, and consider the similarities and differences in learning beliefs across three classrooms that offer three different types of learning experiences.

Authors

• Molly Ellen McManus, The University of Texas at Austin

• Marie-Anne Suizzo, The University of Texas at Austin