While the academic and social success of two-way immersion programs in the public school sector is widely documented, little research has been conducted on how US Catholic school leaders have managed this whole school reform. Through an exploratory case study, the motivations and perceptions of 28 Catholic school administrators and change…

This dissertation covers the purpose, findings, and implication of a 10-week ethnographic research study in a dual language immersion (DLI) third-grade classroom in the northeastern U.S. The purpose was to promote a better understanding of the processes and products of identity development in a DLI setting. Sense of belonging and language…

Queensland second language immersion programs have been in existence for three decades, and are part of a growing number of additive bilingual education programs in Australia. Most prominently, many new Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programs have been established particularly in Victoria over the past few years. This focus on…

In this study, we examined the bilingual language development among Korean American first-graders in two southern California cities and explored the opportunities for language use available to them in various spaces: at school (one dual language immersion school and one traditional English-only public school), at home, and in the community. Data…

This research study examines the assumptions of creating bilingual scenarios to promote English language learning for 384 students of ninth, tenth and eleventh grade of a public school in Monteria Colombia. An action research methodology was carried out in this study. The findings of this research suggested that the creation of bilingual scenarios…

As dual language immersion (DLI) programs experience unprecedented growth, the need for school administrators that understand DLI structures and philosophy, in order to methodically initiate them and effectively sustain them, becomes critical. In this study, DLI refers to educational programs that provide literacy and academic content instruction…

This comparative case study (based on observational, interview, and picture-sort data) examines how teachers and students talk about cultural, linguistic, racial, and socioeconomic difference in two elementary Spanish-English two-way immersion programs. In addition, I analyze how those discourses are associated with both contextual conditions and…

Implementing policies relies on their design, the will and capacity of implementors, the organizations within which implementation occurs, and individuals' interpretations. Despite the fact that families' decisions are critical to the successful implementation of educational programs, however, few studies examine their sense-making processes.…

Dual language (DL) programs aim to create additive bilingual learning environments where the dominant language and the minority language are given equal status at the program, curricular, and instructional level. While several studies have documented the effectiveness of DL programs and classroom-based practices, few have considered how the…

Some families, parents and children included, may not be fully prepared or aware as they enter into the commitment of a dual-immersion language elementary education experience. One factor crucial for a dual-immersion program to meet its objectives, parents and students must commit to a minimum of five to six years of their elementary education to…

The present study examines the nonroutine problems that eight Anglo-American principals encountered in managing three elementary bilingual immersion schools in the Northwest United States. Using qualitative inquiry to collect data, I employed the multisited ethnographic research model. The principals reported nonroutine problems in the following…

Two-way immersion (TWI) programs teach English Learners (ELs) and native English speakers in the same classroom using both languages in an immersion approach. Studies suggest that TWI programs result in greater student integration, thus providing a promising alternative for Spanish speaking ELs, who are frequently concentrated in high poverty,…

This practitioner issue brief outlines successful strategies and recommendations for state-level policymakers, administrators, schools, and districts that are based on a 5-year evaluation study on the learning environment for ELLs in the state of California. This brief offers four critical building blocks that should be in place to effectively…

The authors were asked to find out whether "On Our Way to English" ("OWE"), a supplementary, text-based product to help elementary school students learn to read and speak English was more effective in a California and a Texas school district than the materials the districts already had in place. They conducted an experiment…