How Dual Language Bilingual Education Preservice Teachers Draw Upon and Develop Students' Sociocultural Competence

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Centering the Knowledge and Language Practices of Bi/multilingual Students and Families in Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

Connecting to students’ family, community, and cultural knowledge/practices supports learning and satisfies dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs’ goal of sociocultural competence, but little is known about how preservice teachers (PSTs) do this. We quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed 82 videos of instruction and 76 lesson plans from 9 Latinx PSTs placed in Spanish DLBE classrooms across three years. In planning and instruction, PSTs focused on students’ interests or background knowledge, rather than specific family/community and/or cultural practices. Few lessons incorporated culturally relevant/sustaining literature (even though emphasized throughout PSTs’ coursework). Findings help teacher educators consider contextual constraints in teacher preparation and ways to better support PSTs in recognizing and building on their own and their students’ family, community, and cultural knowledge/practices.

Authors

• Lisa Domke, Georgia State University

• Laura A. May, Georgia State University

• Melody Kung, Georgia State University

• Gary E. Bingham, Georgia State University

• Rosalyn Harvey-Torres, Georgia State University