In teaching newcomer students, educators must envision how to provide opportunities for language use and development through age-appropriate content instruction. This article describes a design research study, in which we developed and piloted 5th grade science units and studied the participation of two newcomer students in sense-making…

This study explores the captivating world of toy unboxing videos as a space for emergent bilingual children to engage in translanguaging practices. Through the lens of translanguaging, which encourages the unrestricted use of full linguistic repertoires, this research examines the experiences of two five-year-old immigrant and emergent bilingual…

This dissertation investigates how feminist and LGBTQ undergraduate students involved in activism on UC Davis use language to construct their identities, focusing on two gender and sexuality-based resource centers (the women's center and LGBTQ center). It seeks to address two research questions. First, how do cisgender, trans, and nonbinary…

All disciplines have particular ways of knowing, common practices, and means of using language that mediate and potentially support engagement with the discipline. For multilingual learners, language demands of a discipline can be a closed door or a facilitated entryway. Drama and theater arts, the focus of our article, are often marginalized in…

Identities are dynamic, constantly shifting processes of self-understanding mediated by local and institutional repertoires, behaviors, resources and enacted through one's positioning in practice. This definition considers identities as both ideas, as well as actions in terms of how the learner becomes a participant in activities. A tension in…

Purpose: Situated within a complex social-political and developmental context marked by racialization and identity formation, this research aims to illuminate the nuanced ways Latinx youth navigate their bilingual experience amidst varying educational models and linguistic environments. The overarching goal of this dissertation is to investigate…

The Language Interaction Snapshot (LISn; Sprachman et al., 2009) was used to measure the quantity and quality of language interactions in English and Spanish in 143 preschool classrooms serving Spanish-speaking dual language learners. Both teachers (n = 112) and assistant teachers (n = 92) were included in analyses with a total of 461…

Verbal Fluency (VF) task total scores are widely used in language attrition studies, but they do not provide insight into the processes underlying optimal performance. We analyse the efficacy of clustering (subcategories within a category) and switching (shifting between these subcategories) strategies in phonemic (PVF) and semantic (SVF) tasks.…

The present study conducted a critical discourse analysis and a visual analysis on 12 beginner-level Spanish textbooks. The goal of the study was to examine the representation of Afro-Latinxs and the ideologies behind these representations. The frameworks that guided the study were Fairclough's framework for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and…

Out-of-school time (OST) science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs have gained recognition for their potential to enhance youth engagement, motivation, and skills by addressing young people's needs for autonomy, competence, and connection (Faust & Kuperminc, 2020; Hoffman et al., 2021; Mulvey et al., 2023; Yu et al., 2022; Yu…

Based on practical reflections on the role of language educators and Portuguese language learners in diasporic communities in the state of California, this short-form article shares academic contributions from the Luso-Brazilian Studies Program at the University of California, Davis, to underrepresented groups in Lusophone communities amidst the…

Adolescent newcomer students bring a wealth of linguistic and cultural resources to their learning environments--resources that become even more dynamic when combined with those of their peers. While a significant body of research has explored students' deployment of multilingual resources through translanguaging, most of this work does not…

This study points to ways in which the amount and complexity of teacher talk in two preschool classrooms during transitions between activities differed from instructional activity settings throughout the day. What emerged were language characteristics that suggest not all transitions are created equal. In fact, as shown by qualitative excerpts of…

Wide and persistent gaps in math achievement separate English learners from their English-proficient peers. The consequences of these gaps are severe and long lasting. Without a solid foundation in math, students are less likely to access and excel in college preparatory math and science classes in high school. Without high-level math classes in…

This study describes a strengths-based blended personalized learning model, the implementation of the model over a 4-year period, and the results of an impact study focused on measuring its effectiveness. The model includes many commonly-used features of personalized learning, including (a) competency-based progressions, (b) flexible learning…