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This study examined the development of bicultural voice in Latina/o preservice teachers. Researchers used survey, interview, and observational data to probe students' knowledge, beliefs, and orientations related to teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. The researchers found that the bilingual cohort courses afforded students with opportunities to juxtapose personal narratives with broader social contexts, thereby allowing students to examine and critique the ideology and curricula of schools. The authors assert that cultivating social justice orientations in bilingual-bicultural preservice teachers is crucial to the empowerment of bilingual-bicultural teachers and their students.

In this article, we examine the social networks of immigrant Latinas from two women's groups in northwestern North Carolina. We explore how participants built social capital and confidence in self through sharing knowledge and experiences in intimate, mujerista spaces. We argue that traditional analyses of social capital, framed in terms of cost–benefit obligations, are insufficient for understanding the complex relationship of commitment and trust, or confianza, that characterized the social networks the women developed.

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This qualitative study examined the development of bilingual and bicultural preservice teachers' beliefs and attitudes about social justice and its role in the education of language minority children. Fraser's in Redistribution or recognition: a political-philosophical exchange. Verso, New York, (2003) perspectival dualist framework, which calls for the consideration of both the distribution of resources and the recognition of cultural identity, was applied to the investigation of participants' social justice claims. In addition to observing these preservice teachers in their courses and conducting interviews, the researchers also analyzed the teaching practices of their bilingual-bicultural professors. Findings indicate that bilingual teacher candidates need to have space and support for reflecting upon the conflicting meanings they might ascribe to experiences and insights gained through the occupation of different identity positions. Bilingual-bicultural university professors' ability to recognize and legitimate the experiences and perspectives of bilingual/bicultural teacher candidates was significant and empowering.

This qualitative study examined writing instruction in two linguistically diverse fourth-grade classrooms in order to determine the genres taught and the instructional practices favored by teachers. Researchers observed writing instruction and interviewed teachers in a culturally and linguistically diverse elementary school in Southern California to study how teachers worked with children to develop their capacity to negotiate different writing tasks. Findings revealed that students were engaged in content-area expository writing, and the writing assignments were influenced by assessment requirements. Both teachers evidenced explicit instruction of academic language, attention to genres, and scaffolding for writing. Observations revealed that teachers tended to focus their feedback on word and sentence level discourse during classroom instruction. For lengthier pieces, teachers used mentor texts and heavy scaffolding to ensure that every student in the class would be able to produce the writing required. Implications for professional development are discussed.