Grounded in positioning theory, this study examined regular classroom teachers’ views of their roles with regard to English language learners (ELLs) and the relationship between their teaching approaches and the students’ reactions and positioning of themselves in the classroom. Findings suggest that the teachers’ views of their roles varied based on their positioning of themselves as teachers for all students, as teachers for regular education students, or as teachers for a single subject. The teachers’ different approaches were related to the ELLs’ different levels of participation and their positioning of themselves as powerful or powerless students. The study breaks important ground in our understanding of the complex interactional classroom dynamics that influence the teaching and learning of ELLs.

Over 50 years of articles related to the middle school movement in the United States were examined and analyzed in order to uncover the movement's primary themes associated with practice, research, and policy. Using a qualitative content approach, researchers created themes to represent the movement decade by decade. The years 1963-1979 were identified as the beginning of the Middle School Movement and its search for an identity. The next decade, 1980-1989, was a time of advancement and progress, and the movement became identified with practices, such as team teaching, interdisciplinary curriculum, and advisory. The years 1990-1999 saw pressure on the movement advancing from national policies, but the movement persisted with a sense of hope. To combat challenges to the middle school movement's core beliefs and practices, an era of research on middle school practices emerged, and this research focus characterized 2000-2009. The current decade continued the research focus with an international perspective and efforts to identify and describe a "signature" middle school pedagogy. From this historical perspective, it was determined that core middle school practices must continue to grow and thrive in order to meet the social and academic needs of future generations of young adolescents.

After examining the teachers of sixth‐grade English‐language learners (ELLs) in their regular classrooms, the authors of this study found that the ELLs' active or passive participation was much influenced by the teachers' approach to the students but not by the teachers' use of specific methods only. While the teachers' focus on American monoculturalism provided little room for the ELLs' participation in the cultural discourse, the teachers' approach based on the students' cultural and social needs promoted the students' participation. The study aims to help reading teachers be aware of their roles and teaching practices as supports or constraints on ELLs' active participation in the mainstream classroom.

Using the framework of multicultural education, this article presents an analysis of multicultural picture books that depict the features of assimilation ideology. The findings suggest that assimilationist ideas are presented through the main characters' identities in the resolution of the story and through the portrayal of a glorified dominant culture. These findings contribute to the literature by exploring the assumptions that multicultural texts are indeed “multicultural” and that they promote cultural pluralism. Additional criteria for selecting multicultural texts that critically examine underlying ideologies are included, as well as suggestions for promoting critical reading practices to support multicultural education.

In this global era, the importance of promoting global and cross‐cultural perspectives is receiving more attention in the field of literacy education. A specific instructional framework that teachers can use across the curriculum is crucial for adolescents’ literacy learning and life. However, the details on how to promote these perspectives to enact adolescents’ agency as critically conscious global citizens are severely lacking. This article responds to the gap by providing diverse instructional classroom examples guided by a newly developed instructional framework of critical global literacies. The authors aim to move literacy education toward global literacy education with a critical lens in this dynamic interconnected society.