multilingual learners teacher beliefs teacher preparation inclusion belonging language
Abstract:
The rise of negative rhetoric surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States has begun to enter classrooms through policies and perspectives. This impacts multilingual learners and curricula as their foundations are under attack. Demonstrated in book bans and more, topics outside of a narrow realm are being censored. Previous literature has found teacher beliefs to influence practices used in the classroom, amongst other literature that has found teacher beliefs to influence student success. Literature also suggests an unpreparedness of pre-service teachers for working with multilingual learners. We use interviews with current teaching professionals to examine the perspectives of educators on multilingual learners and incorporating multilingual curricula. This research finds lack of preparation for teachers to work with multilingual learners, along with little to no use of languages beyond English in the classroom. Simultaneously, teachers interviewed also demonstrated attempts for inclusion of multilingual learners that had been parts of their classroom communities. This information primarily presents a need for better preparation both before and during an educational career for teaching multilingual learners.
