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Transformative Civic Education with Elementary Students: Learning from Students and Their Teacher in a Bilingual Classroom

Somerville-Braun, Jessica
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-791X
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586022394389801

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
This study contributes to the paucity of research on transformative approaches to civic education in elementary school classrooms. In this dissertation, I explore how culturally and linguistically diverse fourth graders and their teacher in a Spanish-English two-way bilingual education (TWBE) classroom engaged in transformative civic education. Drawing on a five-component transformative civic education framework and ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, I examined how the students and teacher engaged in transformative civic education interactions across both social studies and Spanish language arts classes. I found that, across their social studies and Spanish language arts classes, students: (1) built civic knowledge for active equity-oriented civic engagement, (2) incorporated their own civic knowledges and experiences into classroom learning, (3) engaged in critical questioning of dominant civic discourses, (4) conceptualized U.S. American civic identities in more inclusive ways, and (5) engaged and expanded their bilingual linguistic repertoires as part of civic learning. I also found that the teacher fostered students’ engagement in transformative civic education through a number of key pedagogical moves at the interactional level of classroom talk as well as at the curricular level of lesson planning. Teacher interactional moves such as fielding students’ questions, encouraging students’ intertextual relationships, and affirming students’ contributions to discussions facilitated student-centered space in which culturally and linguistically diverse students challenged dominant civic discourses and expanded on mainstream curricula. A discourse analytic approach to civic education research allowed me to produce transcript-level examples of teacher and student interactions that I argue can assist elementary teachers in identifying and incorporating curricular and interactional pedagogical moves that support transformative civic education into their repertoires of pedagogical practice.
Sarah Gallo (Advisor)
Christian Faltis (Committee Member)
Peter Sayer (Committee Member)
Michiko Hikida (Committee Member)
237 p.
Bilingual Education; Elementary Education; Social Studies Education; Sociolinguistics; Teaching
civic education; elementary education; bilingual education; dual language; translanguaging; immigrant students; ethnography; discourse analysis

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Somerville-Braun, J. (2020). Transformative Civic Education with Elementary Students: Learning from Students and Their Teacher in a Bilingual Classroom [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586022394389801

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Somerville-Braun, Jessica. Transformative Civic Education with Elementary Students: Learning from Students and Their Teacher in a Bilingual Classroom. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586022394389801.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Somerville-Braun, Jessica. "Transformative Civic Education with Elementary Students: Learning from Students and Their Teacher in a Bilingual Classroom." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586022394389801

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1586022394389801
387
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.