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theses

This dissertation project represents a 2.5-year ethnographic study in a second-grade bilingual classroom and the homes of seven emergent bilingual children of Mexican-origin. This study examines how educational assessment policies shape the ways in which emergent bilingual children are socialized to express social and academic identities during literacy events. The data includes school-based artifacts such as assignments and benchmark assessments, over 200 hours of audio-recorded interactions during routine activities such as independent writing at school and homework completion at home, and informal interviews with administrators, teachers, Mexican-born mothers, and the focal children. The findings of the study show that elementary-school administrators and teachers implement classroom-based assessments and develop “pedagogical remedies” aimed at monitoring student progress and increasing student achievement on federal- and state-mandated tests of academic performance. Pedagogical remedies have two important features: first, they are informed by ideologies regarding effort and intelligence related to language learning; and second, they are enacted through classroom pedagogy and school language policy. The analysis specifically tracks the ways in which teachers and emergent bilingual students, along with their peers and immigrant parents, interpret and implement pedagogical remedies such as homework assignments and peer groupings. As teachers, parents, and students interpreted and implemented pedagogical remedies during routine classroom and household activities, they socialized the second-grade emergent bilingual students to express identities as ‘hard-working’ and ‘smart’ students. These remedies were rooted in conflicting values of individualism and cooperation, ideologies that prioritize speed and the mechanics of written English literacy, and school language policies that position Spanish as an instructional tool but not a linguistic and academic goal. Seeking to fulfill teachers’ expectations for performance on assessments, immigrant mothers drew upon bilingual resources to socialize children to develop test-taking behaviors during homework completion. Second-grade emergent bilingual students engaged meaningfully in peer helping routines by translating and giving bilingual directives, but resorted to copying English texts to insure accuracy when help was unavailable or denied. This study helps to identify how educational assessments and classroom-level interventions can limit or provide opportunities for meaningful teacher-student, peer-peer, and parent-child interactions. With the recent federal authorization of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states have been granted greater autonomy over assessment and accountability measures. This study can inform state-level educational policymakers, school administrators, and educators to make decisions about which assessments and interventions best support emergent bilinguals’ language and literacy learning.

ETD_8080

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Meredith Clay McConnochie

doi:10.7282/T3CN76SH

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.