Improving Policies to Support Multilingual Learners Through a Research-Practice Partnership (Poster 6)

• In Event: Centering Equity in Research-Practice Partnerships

Abstract

Objective: With growing numbers of suburban school districts serving racially and linguistically diverse students across the United States (Diamond et al., 2020), school district leaders and researchers have focused on how suburban schools could support multilingual students. There is some emerging research on how suburban school districts support teacher professional development for working with multilingual learners (Lowenhaupt, 2016; Hopkins et al., 2019). However, less research exists on the policies in suburban school districts that influence multilingual students’ opportunities and outcomes.

To address this gap in the literature we worked in a research-practice partnership (RPP) that explored school districts’ efforts to change their policies and practices aimed at promoting equitable outcomes for multilingual students. We present the findings from two studies exploring the policies and practices that influence trajectories of multilingual learners across nine suburban school districts. Then, we discuss the equity-centered processes used within the RPP to support research production and research use.

Theoretical Framework: In this proposal, two theories influence our research and work in partnerships. First, we rely on Farrell and colleagues (2021) updated definition of RPPs which includes a focus on education improvements or equitable transformation in RPPs, with special attention to power differences. The other theory focused on the concept of how school systems define what we term multilingual students, who are often referred to with the bureaucratic label of English Learner (EL). As Martinez (2018) describes, we theorize these terms - ELs - limit people’s beliefs about multilingual students.

Methods and findings: The two studies involve a mixed methods approach. One study analyzes administrative data from the school districts and collects and analyzes interview and observation data from students and classrooms. The researchers found some policies acted as barriers for multilingual students' access to math coursework and ultimately to high school graduation. The other study analyzes school district administrative data and examines the trajectories of various subgroups of multilingual students and their subsequent access to core courses and attainment of high school graduation. The researchers found that if ELs were not reclassified as English proficient by the time they transitioned to high school, they were less likely than their non-English learner peers to graduate from high school.

Then, we discuss the conditions within the RPP influencing the use of these two research studies within the school district leaders decision-making about policies related to multilingual learners. We describe the processes in the RPP like building collective goals across nine districts and the researchers, and co-development of research and subsequent school district leaders’ use of the research to change a policy.

Significance: There are calls for research from the academy to be more relevant to practice and policy (Snow, 2016), and research supporting equity in its outcomes and processes of development (National Academies, 2022). This proposal will share research developed in an RPP focused on both equity of outcomes - multilingual student outcomes in particular - and equity of process - centering educational leaders' ideas and engagement in the development of research in an RPP.

Authors

• Laura P. Wentworth, California Education Partners
  Presenting Author

• Amy R Gerstein, Stanford University
  Presenting Author

• Guillermo Solano-Flores, Stanford University
  Presenting Author

• Diana Bernbaum Wilmot, Santa Clara County Office of Education
  Presenting Author