What’s the Use of Research? How Teachers Use Research To Plan for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Classrooms
type: CreativeWork
description: This study addresses two important gaps. First, a persistent achievement gap between culturally and linguistically diverse students and their typically more-resourced, English-proficient peers threatens students’ success in K-12 and beyond (Dabach & Callahan, 2011). Fortunately, there is a large body of research on teaching in diverse classrooms from which teachers can draw (Faltis & Valdés, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Menken & Antuñez, 2001). But teachers are not confident users of this research, expressing lack of confidence and preparation for teaching emergent bilinguals (EBs) (Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll, 2005). This ties to the second gap—the “research/practice gap” between researchers and practitioners generally (Farley-Ripple, May, Karpyn, Tilley, & McDonough, 2018; Penuel, Allen, Coburn, & Farrell, 2015). One policy solution is to mandate greater use of evidence in decision-making—a feature of the 2016 Every Student Succeeds Act (WestEd, 2020). But the literature on the processes by which practitioners’ use research is thin (Nelson & O’Beirne, 2014); the practice of research use is ill-defined (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018) and transforming research knowledge into pedagogical knowledge is undertheorized (Cain, 2015a) (pp. 504-5). To date, much research on this gap focuses on how district and school leaders use research (Penuel et al., 2015) or on teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and approaches to reading research (Kennedy, 1997; Zeuli & Tiezzi, 1993). Little research exists on the micro-processes (Little, 2012) and practices (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018) of research use. Without a better understanding of “the complexity of the research-practice link,” leveraging the professional knowledge base to improve practice will remain an elusive goal (van Ingen et al., 2016, p. 187). The purpose of this qualitative case study is to close the first gap by also closing the second. Until we better understand how teachers engage with their profe…
abstract: This study addresses two important gaps. First, a persistent achievement gap between culturally and linguistically diverse students and their typically more-resourced, English-proficient peers threatens students’ success in K-12 and beyond (Dabach & Callahan, 2011). Fortunately, there is a large body of research on teaching in diverse classrooms from which teachers can draw (Faltis & Valdés, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Menken & Antuñez, 2001). But teachers are not confident users of this research, expressing lack of confidence and preparation for teaching emergent bilinguals (EBs) (Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll, 2005). This ties to the second gap—the “research/practice gap” between researchers and practitioners generally (Farley-Ripple, May, Karpyn, Tilley, & McDonough, 2018; Penuel, Allen, Coburn, & Farrell, 2015). One policy solution is to mandate greater use of evidence in decision-making—a feature of the 2016 Every Student Succeeds Act (WestEd, 2020). But the literature on the processes by which practitioners’ use research is thin (Nelson & O’Beirne, 2014); the practice of research use is ill-defined (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018) and transforming research knowledge into pedagogical knowledge is undertheorized (Cain, 2015a) (pp. 504-5). To date, much research on this gap focuses on how district and school leaders use research (Penuel et al., 2015) or on teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and approaches to reading research (Kennedy, 1997; Zeuli & Tiezzi, 1993). Little research exists on the micro-processes (Little, 2012) and practices (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018) of research use. Without a better understanding of “the complexity of the research-practice link,” leveraging the professional knowledge base to improve practice will remain an elusive goal (van Ingen et al., 2016, p. 187). The purpose of this qualitative case study is to close the first gap by also closing the second. Until we better understand how teachers engage with their profe…
author: Snyder, Christine Marie
keywords: Diverse classrooms, Emergent bilinguals, Research use, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education, Education
date published: 2020-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:40:28Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University