UCLA

This three-study dissertation investigates the impact sociopolitical and school contexts have on teachers' and students' multilingual and psychosocial development.Study 1 explores what motivated Union Community School bilingual teachers to pursue a bilingual teaching career and teach in a Spanish maintenance bilingual program. Utilizing developmental theories and an intersectional perspective, this phenomenological study examined teachers’ semi-structured interview transcripts (N = 13). Inductive and deductive coding techniques were applied to the data. Findings reveal teachers’ experiences of ethnic-racial prejudice had long-term impacts on their well-being. However, developmental assets, such as ethnic-racial identity, critical consciousness, and bilingual acquisition, provided teachers with tools to process prejudice as adolescents and adults. These assets coupled with opportunities to engage with their ethnic-racial social group in positive ways cultivated teachers identity-based motivation for transformative justice. Study 2 employs an embedded sequential mixed-methods design, such that a qualitative strand is embedded within a quantitative design. Quantitative, longitudinal descriptive analysis and calculations of proportions of students exceeding certain benchmark values were examined to identify overall patterns of English and Spanish reading change for different bi/multilingual student groups of predominantly Latinx and Indigenous heritage (N = 393). Additionally, using a smaller sample size (n = 230), student psychosocial covariates (i.e., motivation, socioemotional self-concept) were examined using descriptive analysis across two time points (fourth and fifth grade) to explain overall reading patterns. Qualitatively, portraiture analysis was utilized to further explore two students' perspectives about their reading growth over a two-year span (fourth to fifth grade). Findings suggest that strong Spanish reading competence in the first-grade (spring) supports modest Spanish-reading growth, and greater English-reading growth by the end-of-the fifth grade, even though most students, as kindergarteners, began reading below grade level proficiency in Spanish. Furthermore, the school was effective at supporting English and Spanish reading development: The proportion of students reading at or above grade level in Spanish and English at fifth grade (spring) increased across student cohorts, and students’ motivation to learn Spanish and English increased between the fourth (spring) and fifth (spring) grades. The qualitative findings found that students’ investment in developing their home/heritage languages depends on the language modality (e.g., reading versus speaking). By the end of the fifth grade, students described having a more complex understanding about their bilingualism that goes beyond language preference and performance. Study 3 utilizes phenomenological epistemology, and perspectives on language teaching and learning, to examine the adaptations bi/multilingual teachers made to their practice and knowledge base to meet diverse students’ needs and leverage their assets. Inductive and deductive codes were applied to teachers’ semi-structured interview transcripts (N =13). Findings reveal that teacher-led professional development and student feedback were central to teachers' adaptation process. Furthermore, teacher adaptation did not end in the moment. Teachers reflected on the adaptive experience afterwards, which often led them to further modify instruction and/or curriculum.