Preparing Educators for Inclusive Bilingual Education: A Boundary-Crossing Laboratory Between Professional Groups

• In Event: Permeable and Dynamic Contexts and Ecologies of Learning and Development

Abstract

Teacher education programs prepare candidates for bilingual, English as a second language, or special education as separate professionals. This creates challenges when teaching bilingual children with disabilities. There is a need to cross boundaries combining expertise and preparing teachers for children’s uniqueness. Responding to this need, we facilitated a Boundary Crossing Laboratory, with 14 professors and two State consultants. We explored boundary locations, and creative actions for boundary crossing in transcribed meeting audio-data. Analyses revealed three boundaries addressing mostly the artifacts needed for productive collaborative work. The process evolved from defending/maintaining to questioning boundaries, with emerging efforts to transforming them. Our study widens the understanding of possibilities for taking shared educational responsibility through boundary crossing between professionals in preparation programs.

Authors

• Angela Maria Lopez-Velasquez, Southern Connecticut State University

• Patricia Martínez-Álvarez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Anu Kajamaa, University of Helsinki