Deficit Thinking and Additional Language Learners in Exceptional Education

In the 2018–19 school year, additional language learners (ALL) represented 10% of total student enrollment K–12 schools with over 5 million ALL learners enrolled in U.S. schools. Additional language learners are the fastest growing population in education in America. There is a disproportionality in the number of ALL learners referred to exceptional education programing in the U.S. instead of being taught in culturally responsive ways specifically to develop language skills in additional languages. Teachers often refer for Exceptional Education assessments ALL learners who are not progressing as fast as students with English as their home language for a learning disability. This chapter aims to identify the acculturation process and best practices for teaching English as an Additional Language specifically in the acculturation period for learners. This chapter will give an overview of ALL learners, culture, acculturation, and differentiation in instruction and assessment for ALL learners in working towards more appropriate and effective programming for ALL learners in American schools.

“I Assumed It Was a Much Safer Place Than It Really Is”: Nonbinary Educators’ Strategies for Finding School Jobs

People who are nonbinary—one of many kinds of trans identity that do not fit neatly within a man/woman binary—face particular challenges when seeking employment in P–12 schools, which have historically been places where rigid gender norms are strictly enforced. This paper draws on semistructured interviews conducted in 2018 to explore how 16 nonbinary educators navigated the process of finding, securing, and keeping jobs in Canadian and American schools. I found that most participants were concerned about securing a job or potentially losing their job or their safety at work because others might be inhospitable to their gender identity or expression. At the same time, participants had strategies to ensure that they found and kept jobs they were comfortable with, such as investigating a school’s support for queer and trans people, forging positive relationships with administrators and staff, and presenting their gender in particular ways during the hiring process. This study illustrates the limitations of individualistic, tokenizing forms of trans inclusion and reveals the continued prevalence of gender normativity in schools, despite a rapidly shifting gender landscape. While trans inclusion, at least on the surface, may be a selling point for some schools, trans people continue to face barriers when the underlying structures that privilege White, middle-class, cisgender, and heteronormative gender expression remain intact. I argue that, if trans people are to be fully supported in the education workplace, an intersectional and broadly transformative approach to gender justice is necessary.

Improving school performance and student academic orientation: the role of safety-oriented knowledge management and diversity

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the implementation of safety-oriented knowledge management (KM) processes and student diversity acceptance in schools and the interaction effect of safety-oriented KM processes and student diversity acceptance over school performance and student academic orientation. Design/methodology/approach Responses of 977 American schools available in the database of the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed using hierarchical regression analyses. Findings Results show that implementation of safety-oriented KM processes and diversity acceptance in schools have varying effects on school performance and student academic orientation. The impact of knowledge acquisition from parents on the academic achievement of students is positive and stronger in schools that are low in student diversity acceptance than schools that are high in student diversity acceptance. Originality/value This study adds value to the KM literature by exploring how KM processes are executed in American schools to improve their performance and students’ academic orientation and how diversity among students alters the strength of the relationships.

Identification and classification of facilities managers functions: a proposal validated by Latin American experts

The functions performed by facility management practitioners and their classification have evolved over the last decades. The practice of Facility Management integrates many professions; however, certain authors have pointed out that heterogeneous views are generated by those responsible for the facilities and this has caused confusion about the understanding of the discipline in recent years. In addition, different attitudes about the discipline have been presented depending on the vision of the British or American schools of FM, which face the objectives and tasks throughout these years in different ways. This causes diffuse areas that prevent the identification of the entire spectrum of functions related to support activities in a facility management system. The objective of this research was to identify and classify the functions performed until the present time by facility managers in the literature to establish the scope of a facility management system. In this work, the authors carried out a review of the literature and an analysis of the different documents that gave rise to a proposal of the different functions performed and their classification into main areas. Later, a validation of the proposal was requested through an expert consultation in facility management in Latin America, which reached 94% approval. The validated proposal is composed of at least 37 functions performed by facility management professionals, and these functions can be classified into six main areas: Asset and Maintenance Management; Real Estate and Property Management; Energy and Sustainability Management; Corporate Project Management; Workplace Management; and Facilities Services Management.

Building Emotionally Resilient Schools and Educators During Crises

This teaching case study illustrates the increasing need for school leaders to offer and foster adult social emotional learning (SEL) in schools, particularly in the context of crises. This scenario takes place in an urban high school that is representative of many other American schools. In particular, I examine the challenges educational leaders commonly face when they do not take SEL for adults into consideration prior to implementing SEL for students. This teaching case study aims at encouraging meaningful conversations about adult SEL, equity, and leadership in times of crisis. The hope is to better understand how school leaders can lead and embrace adult SEL during crises. I also pose questions designed to prepare prospective and current educational leaders for similar situations.

Italian-American Literature

The earliest Italian American writers were immigrants who learned English and responded to their experience in America through poetry and prose, more often than not found in the early Italian language newspapers. Few had mastered the English language, and so their contributions to literature were not considered to be American. In fact, early-20th-century immigrants from Italy to the United States were hesitant to even to refer to themselves as Americans. The literature produced during this period provides great insights into the shaping of American identities and into the obstacles that these immigrants faced in pursuing their versions of the American Dream. The rise of Fascism in Italy of the 1920s–1940s would have a tremendous effect on those identities. One of the earliest Italian Americans to voice his opinion of Italian Fascism in his poetry was Arturo Giovannitti, who, with Joseph Ettor, had organized the famous 1912 Lawrence Mill Strike. National awareness of writers as Italian Americans would not begin until the likes of John Fante and Pietro di Donato published in the late 1930s. Fiction published prior to World War II primarily depicted the vexed immigrant experience of adjustment in America. The post–World War II years brought the arrival of more immigrants as serious producers of American art. Among the early writers were returning soldiers, such as Mario Puzo and Felix Stefanile, often the first of their families to be literate and attend American schools, especially with the help of the GI Bill. While many of the writers were busy capturing the disappearance of the immigrant generation, others were continuing the radical traditions. Government investigations into Communism through the House Committee on Un-American Activities sparked the ire of many Italian American artists. Increased mobility through military service and education in American schools brought Italian American writers into contact with the world outside of Little Italy and opened their imaginations and creativity to modernist experiments. Those who would gain recognition as members of the “Beat movement” responded to an apolitical complacency that seemed to set in directly after the war by fusing art and politics profoundly to affect America’s literary scene. During a time when the very definition of “American” was being challenged and changed, Italian American writers were busy exploring their own American histories. America’s postwar feminist movement had a strong effect on the daughters of the immigrants. Social action, the redefinition of American gender roles, and the shift from urban to suburban ethnicity became subjects of the writing of many young Italian Americans who watched as their families moved from working- to middle-class life. Fiction produced in the 1980s and 1990s recreated the immigrant experience from the perspective of the grandchildren, who quite often reconnected to Italy to create new identities. Contemporary Italian American literature demonstrates a growing literary tradition through a variety of styles and voices. Critical studies, beginning with Rose Basile Green’s The Italian American Novel (1974), reviews, the publication of anthologies, journals, and the creation of new presses are ample evidence that Italian American culture has gained understandings of its past as it develops a sense of a future.

A Place of Hope and Healing: Culturally Relevant Teacher Education at a Tribal College

This article draws upon original research about a teacher education program at a Tribal College located in rural Montana that integrates culturally relevant pedagogy across its coursework and clinical experiences while calling attention to widespread trauma in Native communities based on a history of forced assimilation. We end with recommendations for how all teacher education programs can better prepare candidates to work in Native American schools and communities.