“They come with nothing:” How professional development in a culturally responsive pedagogy shapes teacher attitudes towards Latino/a English language learners

‘Good, deserving immigrants’ join the Tea Party: How South Carolina policy excludes Latinx and undocumented immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility

“…An additional school barrier relates to the language support that newcomer undocumented and Latinx immigrants receive upon arriving in the New Latino South. ESOL programs do not meet the needs of individual schools, lack certified teachers, and employ deficit-based approaches toward second language development (Mellom, Straubhaar, Balderas, Ariail & Portes, 2018;Tarasawa, 2013). Insufficient second language programs are unsurprising given southern policy attempts to craft deleterious "English-only" policies aimed at rapid "Americanization" (Beck & Allexsaht-Snider, 2002).…”

Supporting EAL students in regional education contexts: “It creates a huge workload and often times disappointment”

“…There has been an increasing emphasis on mainstream teachers' beliefs about English as an Additional Language (EAL) Supporting EAL students in regional education contexts: "It creates a huge workload and often times disappointment" students (Mellom, Straubhaar, Balderas, Ariail, & Portes, 2018;Pettit, 2011;Reeves, 2006;Sharkey, 2018;Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004), particularly given the trend to place EAL students in mainstream classrooms as opposed to providing them with specific EAL instruction (Cross, 2012;de Jong, Harper, & Coady, 2013;Edwards, 2014;Harper & de Jong, 2009;Sharkey, 2018;Somé-Guiébré, 2016;Torff & Murphy, 2018). However, the majority of studies on mainstream teacher beliefs capture the views of teachers teaching in metropolitan areas which geographically tend to have more exposure to linguistic and cultural diversity (Mellom et al, 2018;Pulinx, van Avermaet, & Agirdag, 2017). With the recent push for regional settlement in countries, such as Australia (Golebiowska, Elnasri, & Withers, 2017;Taylor, Bell, & Gerritsen, 2014), there is a need to explore teacher and principal beliefs regarding EAL students in schools in regional areas to ensure that incoming EAL students have access to adequate support.…”

“…Exploring teachers' beliefs provides a lens into their practices (Mellom et al, 2018;Pettit, 2011), as beliefs "drive classroom actions and inf luence the teacher change process" (Richardson, 1996, p. 102). Pettit (2011) argues that beliefs inf luence how teachers think about the content they teach and the choices that they make within the classroom.…”

“…The literature suggests that negative attitudes, in particular, are often shaped by monolingual bias (and/or multilingual ignorance) (Mellom et al, 2018;Pulinx et al, 2017) which may be inf luenced by a lack of exposure to language diversity (Pettit, 2011). Pulinx et al, (2017) explored the beliefs of 775 teachers across 48 secondary schools and found that the participating schools observed the strict language policies that encouraged the exclusivity and promotion of Dutch.…”

“…In addition to exposure to language diversity, the literature suggests that teachers' understanding of second language acquisition (SLA) is also a strong predictor of teachers' beliefs. The literature suggests that teachers' lack of SLA knowledge leads to misconceptions that can promote negative views towards EAL students (Edwards, 2014;Mellom et al, 2018;Pettit, 2011;Reeves, 2006;Walker et al, 2004). For example, several studies have revealed that mainstream teachers believe that EAL learners should be f luent in English within 1-2 years within a US classroom (Reeves, 2006;Walker et al, 2004), when most research suggests that it typically takes anywhere from 4 to 7 years to develop English language proficiency (Creagh, Kettle, Alford, Comber, & Shield, 2019;Thomas & Collier, 2002;Thompson, 2017).…”