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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field-name-title gmail-field-type-ds gmail-field-label-hidden"><div class="gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-field-item even"><h1>Pursuing Social Justice in Language Education</h1></div></div></div><div class="gmail-field gmail-field-name-featured-media gmail-field-type-ds gmail-field-label-hidden"><div class="gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-field-item even"><section id="gmail-block-views-news-article-slideshow-block" class="gmail-block gmail-block-views gmail-clearfix">
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</div></div></div><div class="gmail-field gmail-field-name-field-news-body gmail-field-type-text-with-summary gmail-field-label-hidden"><div class="gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-field-item even"><p>Students
learning English as a second language who also have special needs are
more likely to fall between the cracks of elementary school education,
finds researcher <a href="https://ed.lehigh.edu/faculty/directory/skangas">Sara Kangas</a> in a paper to be recognized March 28 by the International Research Foundation for English Language Education.</p>
<p>Her study is the first to examine in depth the access English language learners with disabilities have to educational services.</p>
<p>For the ethnographic study, Kangas, an applied linguist and assistant professor in <a href="https://ed.lehigh.edu/">Lehigh’s College of Education</a>,
spent seven months observing classrooms, interviewing teachers and
administrators, and collecting documents in a bilingual public charter
school in the northeastern United States. The findings surprised her:</p>
<p>“I expected a bilingual school to safeguard language services for
English language learners with special needs, given its educational
mission to foster bilingualism for all students,” she said. Yet, she
discovered the school forfeited its bilingual mission in order to
preserve special education services for these students. In fact, some
educators felt bilingualism was too lofty a goal when students also had a
disability, so they did not prioritize language services. “In the end,
English language learners with special needs received inadequate
services compared to their peers,” Kangas said. “In this way, their
intersecting language and disability needs created a disadvantage for
them in school.”</p>
<p>Students were identified as being both English language learners and
having a language disorder or learning disability in reading or math.
The school self-identified as using a two-way immersion 50/50 model in
Spanish and English. While charter schools often lack resources to
provide appropriate special education and related services to students
with disabilities, Kangas said her findings don’t just reflect a
“charter school problem.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice
and Department of Education, providing both language and special
education services makes the top 10 list of issues facing English
language learner education, with schools persistently failing to comply
with federal law in providing services to English language learners with
special needs.</p>
<p>“Thus, this case study, despite its charter school location,
represents a common experience in service delivery for English language
learners with special needs: inequitable distribution of resources for
intersectional students,” Kangas writes in the article. “Such
inequitable allocation … can happen even in a bilingual school that is
explicitly committed to language development.”</p>
<p>Research shows English language learners with special needs have
higher academic performance and linguistic development when exposed to
both languages, even for more severe disabilities like developmental
delay, Kangas said. “My research findings show how educators can buy
into the myth that English language learners with special needs have
limited capacity for language learning,” she said. “In reading how this
myth plays out in schools, I hope administrators, teachers and parents
can learn to believe in and advocate for their students’ bilingual
development.”</p>
<p>Kangas will receive the 2018 James E. Alatis Prize for Research on
Language Planning and Policy in Educational Contexts from The
International Research Foundation for English Language Education, for
her article, <a href="http://www.sarakangas.com/uploads/3/0/1/0/30101275/kangas__2017__tcr.pdf">“That’s Where the Rubber Meets the Road’: The Intersection of Special Education and Bilingual Education” </a>(Teachers
College Records, Volume 119, Issue 7, 2017). The prize recognizes an
outstanding article or chapter in the field of language planning and
policy in educational contexts. Kangas will be honored during the 2018
TESOL International Association International Convention & English
Language Expo in Chicago, Ill.</p>
<p>“I deeply appreciate the Foundation’s recognition of my research,
especially as there are many pioneering scholars conducting meaningful
work in critical areas of language education policy research,” Kangas
said. “I am grateful that this award will draw attention to language
policies and plans that systemically disadvantage second language
learners with disabilities. Receiving this award encourages me
personally to keep pursuing social justice in language education for
marginalized language learners.”</p>
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<div class="gmail-views-field gmail-views-field-name"> <span class="gmail-views-label gmail-views-label-name">By: </span> <span class="gmail-field-content"><a href="https://www1.lehigh.edu/news/author/abw210">Amy White </a></span> </div> </div>
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</div></div></div></div><div class="gmail-post-date"><div class="gmail-label-inline">Posted on: </div><span class="gmail-date-display-single">Thursday, March 01, 2018</span></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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