Teachers' Planning, Implementing, and Reflecting About Sociocultural Competence in a Dual-Language PLC

• In Event: Defining and Operationalizing Sociocultural Competence in Dual-Language Education

Abstract

Objectives
This paper examines the responses of seven teachers in a Spanish-English dual language program regarding sociocultural competence in their classrooms, as expressed by them in a rubric as part of a professional learning community (PLC) focused on equitable instruction. The research question asked: How did seven dual language bilingual education (DLBE) teachers understand sociocultural competence concerning their lesson planning, teaching practices, and reflection during a PLC?

Conceptual Framework
This paper focuses on the traditional definition of sociocultural competence in DLBE that includes identity development, cross-cultural competence, and multicultural appreciation (Author, 2018). In this paper, sociocultural competence includes a focus on minoritized students’ ability to navigate two or more sociocultural environments along with the dominant culture (Darder, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 2006), including students’ mediation “between the dominant discourse of educational institutions and the realities that they must face as members of subordinate cultures” (Darder, 2012, p. 45). Lastly, sociocultural competence is understood as an intentional goal that needs to be planned and integrated with instruction to truly meet the sociocultural needs of minoritized students.

Methods
This study was conducted at an urban school with a majority of Latino students. The data collected in the year-long PLC included interviews, group sessions, video-recorded lessons, reflective teaching documents, and teaching rubrics. The method used for this paper focuses on nine teaching rubrics that seven of the DLBE teachers completed as part of their teaching in the PLC. One teacher was Latina, and six were white. With a focus on sociocultural competence, the rubrics included four sheets: lesson planning, what worked well, barriers, and what they would have done differently. Data were analyzed through emergent and a priori thematic coding approaches (Saldaña, 2009).

Findings
The first group of findings on sociocultural competence showed teachers planned and implemented sociocultural competence at the local and international levels. At the local level, some of the rubrics focused on classroom discussions on neighborhood ethnic grocery stores, efforts in recycling and taking care of the Earth, and a discussion on immigration limited to validating students’ immigrant experiences. At the international level, sociocultural competence included discussions on topics such as international cuisine, countries’ contributions to science, and landforms in students’ heritage countries.
Second, there were three themes as the result of teachers’ reflections of what they could have done differently in the classroom: (1) the need of partnering with families in the development of sociocultural competence at the local and international levels, (2) an acknowledgment that they could have avoided superficiality and been more explicit for inclusion of students’ heritage cultures, and (3) a need to focus on immigration from a social justice and activist approach.

Scholarly Significance
Among the core goals of DLBE, sociocultural competence is the one that has received the least attention (Authors, 2014). This paper sheds light on how with the support of a teaching rubric, DLBE teachers were able to plan, implement, and reflect on the implementation of sociocultural competence as an intentional goal in DLBE.

Author

• Juan A. Freire, Brigham Young University