"Strength in Numbers": Collaborative Advocacy of Teachers to Provide Linguistically Responsive Teaching for Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: Collaborations in Advocacy: New Research on Advocacy Work for Equitable Education of Immigrant-Origin Youth

Abstract

This paper examines the collaborative forms of advocacy that a group of four public school teachers took for their emergent bilingual students in one public school district. Previous findings on the advocacy work of bilingual and ESL teachers have shown that while teacher advocacy takes many forms in and out of the classroom, much advocacy work is done by individuals and less by collective action (Dubetz & deJong, 2011). As a result, individual teachers risk isolation or marginalization in their school contexts when they advocate for immigrant youth. This paper is intended to contribute to the bilingual field’s documentation and understanding of teachers’ advocacy work as a collaborative act.
The increase of ELs in US classrooms (US DOE & NCES, 2018) and a corresponding lack of teacher preparation to meet the needs of ELs (Lucas & Villegas, 2013) has motivated the training of educators in linguistically responsive education (e.g. ESL, sheltered English instruction [SEI], bilingual education). Drawing from Lucas and Villegas’ (2013) framework of linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) for preparing educators, we trace the linguistically responsive advocacy work of four teachers in a superdiverse New Jersey district. We apply multiple case study to track how teachers’ discussions on advocacy during a teacher preparation program led to collaborative actions in their daily teaching lives in and out of school. Data collected includes online discussion forums, course assignments, video/audio recordings of classroom teaching, and audio recordings of individual interviews and three focus groups.
The findings demonstrate that the teachers’ understanding of advocacy developed through collaborative partnerships formed in the teacher preparation program and grew into active forms of collaborative advocacy in their teaching practice in and out of school. The teachers formed multi-level partnerships with teachers, families, community members, policymakers from the local government, and educational researchers to advocate for their emergent bilingual students by planning advocacy events such as new family orientations, professional development for general education teachers on the topic of linguistically responsive instruction, and family nights hosted by the district.
The findings support previous findings of the types of advocacy work in which teachers engage (pedagogical, curricular, out-of-school work) and provide new evidence of collaborative advocacy work by a group of engaged educators, which, to date, has been limited in the advocacy literature (see Dubetz & de Jong, 2011). The paper highlights the increased agency and effective advocacy of teachers through teacher education and partnerships, and suggests a need for more research on collaborative forms of teacher advocacy for emergent bilinguals.

Authors

• Catherine Michener, Rowan University

• Sora Suh, Fairleigh Dickinson University