This article explores the connection of teacher self-efficacy beliefs in promoting student resilience to teaching practice and support of Latino students. Results suggest that efficacy beliefs related to resilience are linked to building important relationships through connecting with students, building on their experiences and knowledge, and understanding the issues they confront. In particular, important to strengthening the academic resilience of Latino students are teachers' views of their use of Spanish as an asset in their learning as well as the sensitivity teachers displayed around the added stressors Latino students face, such as discrimination and immigrant status.

Literature can be a powerful resource for adolescents' psychosocial development as it provides opportunities to experience the world through the perspectives of others and juxtapose these with one's own experiences. However, access to these perspectives requires going beyond literal words on the page to explore interpretive meanings. This mixed methods case study addresses the need to better understand how adolescent students learn to interpret literary works. Specifically, ninth grade students participated in a five-week instructional module focused on symbolic interpretation and coming of age themes in texts with a variety of sources of complexity. The primary data sources were an intentional sample of classroom discussions and essays written pre-and post-instruction. Analyses indicate that students learned to make interpretive claims around symbolism. Textual evidence to support these claims was evident in whole class discussions but less so in the written essays. Students also struggled to reason about why evidence supported particular claims and how the interpretive claims were related to understanding the characters and their worlds. Discussion focuses on the value of symbolic interpretation as a starting point for engaging adolescents in interpretive practices but that developing facility with literary interpretation takes concerted effort over longer periods of time.

No abstract

No abstract

This article focuses on the accounts by teachers who are positioned and who position themselves as "effective." It draws on the relational aspects of positioning theory with respect to a determination of how the "effective teacher" position necessarily positions students. Findings suggest that students are positioned as (a) individuals within a sociocultural context, (b) fully capable of academic achievement, and (c) responsible for their school success. The third position of students suggests the presence of a seemingly disjointed belief and understanding of students. This work moves beyond simplistic explanations of how this belief may reinforce a competitive and individualistic ideology, suggesting that the presence of seemingly disjointed beliefs and understandings are important to consider in relation to who holds those views, the purpose of such views, and the social context in which those views are advanced.