Elementary ESL Teachers' Advocacy for Emergent Bilinguals: A Third Space Perspective

• In Event: Advocacy for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students: Perspectives on Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study examines how three elementary-level ESL conceptualized their role as an advocate in support of emergent bilinguals and negotiated tensions in their practice of advocacy within and across institutional boundaries. Informed by third space theory, the analysis shows that the three teachers’ conceptualization of their advocacy (i.e., peripheral, occasional, active) were related to dialectical tensions that they encountered in their engagement in advocacy acts (i.e., critically oriented advocacy as core versus marginal ideas; advocacy beliefs versus actions; advocacy as ideological alignment versus misalignment). Negotiation with these dialectical tensions is found to be a crucial part of their advocacy work. This study is an important illustration of how advocacy work can be actualized through teachers’ negotiations with institutional tensions.

Author

• Jihea Maddamsetti, Old Dominion University