The dominant analytical approaches to Lingua Franca English interactions are largely influenced by a structuralist orientation that prioritizes verbal resources in localized face-to-face contexts. This article argues that recent developments in globalization, mobility, and digital communication call for a more complex orientation to the focus and…

Though California's English Learner (EL) policies were developed in response to civil rights struggles for language access and equal educational opportunity, they are also conditioned by the history of U.S. settler and overseas conquest. This article presents a Critical Policy Analysis (CPA) of the California EL classification policies and…

Unprecedented levels of global mobility mean that culturally homogenous classrooms are now increasingly rare. This brings with it challenges for teachers and raises issues about what constitutes quality teaching and teachers. Professional standards are commonly seen as a key policy instrument through which teacher quality can be enhanced. This…

I analyze two bills from the state legislatures of California (SB 1174) and Arizona (SB 1242) that propose to expand bilingual education where English-only education was previously the default. Using a critical discourse analysis lens to conduct a directed content analysis, I ask who bilingual education is for, why it is offered, and how the…

In this essay I conduct a Critical Discourse Analysis of the language surrounding the California State University (CSU) Chancellor's Office latest plan to curb remediation, the Early Start program. I consider Early Start in the context of what I argue is the evolution of three major frameworks for Basic Writing in the CSU: the CSU Chancellor's…

David Bleich's exploration of language conflicts in the university in "The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics, and the University" helps explain the ongoing struggle over basic writing as between two radically different understandings of language. Progressive educators and writing teachers see language as rhetorical and…

This article brings to light discourses that constituted the education of Asian-American children in California in the second half of the nineteenth century. Guided by Foucaultian ideas and critical race theory, I analyze California public school laws, speeches of a governor-elect and a superintendent, and a report of the board of supervisors,…

Across the United States, community colleges are facing severe funding reductions and surging enrollment, resulting in a condition of impaction in which demand for coursework exceeds financial or physical capacity. In turn, impaction is necessitating changes in enrollment management policies, including rapid evolution in registration priority…

Background/Context: Little research has been done on higher education for women during the 1930s, even though scholars have pointed to this period as a turning point because the proportion of female students declined during this decade. The decline was only relative, however, as men's enrollments skyrocketed while women's increased more slowly.…

The present paper explores middle-class fathers' educational work by studying how they and their partners are involved in their children's education at home, in school, and how they investigate school options and make decisions about educational issues. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of 30 dual-earner couples in the Greater Los Angeles…

This study examines two successive days of U.S. television news coverage of the May 1, 2007, immigration rights rally in Los Angeles. As thousands of demonstrators appealed peacefully for comprehensive immigration policy reform, they were assailed by 450 police officers firing munitions and using truncheons. We evaluated fifty-one television news…

This article explores how incarcerated young men talked about the future. I use theories of cultural capital and methods informed by critical discourse analysis to analyze interviews with 15 young men and a series of essays about the future written by 10 different young men. It suggests new directions for analysis and programmatic use of…

Focusing on identity development explorations enables a greater understanding of contexts that affect immigrant adolescents. Utilizing thematic and grounded narrative analysis of 46 journal writings, during a one-month period, from first and second generation Vietnamese adolescents ranging in age from 15 to 18 (26 residents of a culturally and…

This article examines how an ethnically diverse group of youth critically debriefs their facilitation of diversity workshops for other youth. Using naturally occurring tape-recorded conversations and a critical ethnographic and discourse analysis perspective, the article examines youth's contributions towards a participatory process of learning,…

This study explores task-based, synchronous oral computer-mediated communication (CMC) among intermediate-level learners of Spanish. In particular, this paper examines (a) how learners in video and audio CMC groups negotiate for meaning during task-based interaction, (b) possible differences between both oral CMC modes and traditional face-to-face…