In this article, we explore digital storytelling as a community-engaged pedagogy to create students' immigration stories in Maryland as part of the project "Intercultural Tales: Learning with Maryland's Immigrant Communities." Stories highlight students' lived experiences of immigration, language, and identity. By envisioning themselves…

This paper examines the literacy results of English language learners (ELLs) in two California schools following either the 50/50 or the 90/10 dual language (DL) program model. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of dual language programs with an analysis of two schools' websites and literacy assessment data in order to…

The purpose of this article is to counter widespread deficit discourses about Latino parental involvement in their children's education. In particular, we show Latino immigrant parents' views and understandings of curricular and pedagogical practices in elementary school, especially in mathematics. Using data from the Agency and Young Children…

This article examines the culminating activity--"la cosecha" or the harvest--in a yearlong project in which teachers at a bilingual afterschool program and staff from a citywide environmental advocacy group taught students to plant, harvest, and sell produce grown at the school site. The authors show how students are socialized to become…

This study investigated structural features of a newcomer program housed within a comprehensive high school and language practices among newcomer students and their teachers. Findings indicate efforts to provide newcomer students with "safe spaces," opportunities for language and literacy development in English and Spanish, and access to…

An extensive body of research documents the successes of immigrant groups in establishing community language schools. Studied within this tradition, Latino immigrant communities appear to come up short, because of the scarcity of such schools for Spanish-speaking children. However, as we show in this paper, Latino immigrant communities do have…

California's Proposition 227, or the Unz Initiative, had as its main focus the requirement that English learners be taught only in English, based on the belief that these children could learn English in one year. This led to the dismantling of many bilingual programs in K-12 schools across California. A team of faculty from California State…

There has been a growing concern about how best to address the needs of dual language learners with language impairments. Most dual language programmes have been evaluated with children with typical language development (TLD) and as a result, very little is known about the effect of these programmes on children with language disabilities. The…

The cultural competence of 13 parenting education programs for Latino families with young children was examined in this study. Based on our analyses, we make several recommendations for improving the cultural competence and effectiveness of parenting education programs for Latino families with young children. Specifically, we recommend the…

Achievement motivation is something that all members of the school community want to support in students, however few may recognize that it is influenced by culture. The very meaning of "achievement" is culturally variable, and the motives that students have for achieving may be quite different, depending upon their cultural background.…

This article presents the outcomes of a biliteracy project designed, following an action-learning methodology, to supplement the district-mandated literacy programs with afterschool reading cooperatives where 100 families whose children were enrolled in an elementary school located in the Imperial Valley, California, and teachers dialogically read…

Schools in America, especially in communities far from urban centers, are working harder to find highly qualified and culturally proficient staff to prepare students successfully for an increasingly interconnected world. Apart from offering teachers more professional development and hiring educators with international travel experience, public…

Thousands of students in California learn English as a second language in schools that utilize exclusively monolingual--English Only--literacy programs. With such programs students do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge of their first language in order to acquire and master their second language. The project of cooperative bi-literacy…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…

A bilingual multicultural education program was implemented to solve the language and communication problems of the non-English and limited-English speaking students at Winton Junior High School. A needs assessment identified broad program goals as well as individual student performance objectives. The program evaluation and follow-up functions…