Transdisciplinary Research in Language Education


Book Description

Situated on the cutting edge of theory and classroom practice, this volume highlights transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in language education and other disciplines and epistemological spaces. The authors provide insights from language education and its potential to connect with a broad range of disciplinary traditions that include medicine, literature, fine arts, mathematics, and more. This forward-looking text addresses contemporary themes of social justice, intercultural citizenship, and antiracism throughout. Chapters provide educational research examples that can be applied in innovative ways to extend beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. Language applications included are ESOL, Spanish, German, and Russian, with implications for both commonly and less commonly taught languages. Novice and experienced educators alike will benefit from the rigorous discussion of practice and contemporary theoretical issues. Book Features: Represents a range of research methods and practical approaches that integrate language acquisition with academic content. Shows best practices for conducting transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and how it can enrich language education as a whole.Addresses contemporary topics such as language policy, STEM education, integrative teaching, content area education, arts integration, and White supremacy culture. Offers creative and collaborative approaches for reaching beyond the ordinary conventions of TESOL and foreign/world language education. Contributors: Todd A. Bates, Meghan Odsliv Bratkovich, Melisa (Misha) Cahnmann-Taylor, Juntao Li, Terry A. Osborn, Aria Razfar, Timothy Reagan, Heather Schlaman, Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic, Manuela Wagner, and Jennifer Wooten.




A Transdisciplinary Approach to International Teaching Assistants


Book Description

North American universities depend on international teaching assistants (ITAs) as a substantial part of the teaching labor force, which has led to the idea of an ‘ITA problem’, a deficiency model which is framed as a divergence between ITAs’ linguistic competence and undergraduates’ and their parents’ expectations. This outdated positioning of ITAs as deficient diminishes the invaluable role they play within the academy. This book argues instead for an approach to ITA which recognizes them as multilingual, skilled, migrant professionals who participate in and are discursively constructed through various participant frameworks, modalities and activities. The chapters in this volume offer state-of-the-art research into ITA using a variety of methods and approaches, and as such constitute a transdisciplinary perspective which argues for the importance of dialogue between research and practice.




A Transdisciplinary Lens for Bilingual Education


Book Description

Addressing the intersections between sociocultural, cognitive, and translanguaging research, this volume explores bilingual development across education and linguistics to discuss and uncover the influences and impact of language policies, school programming, and everyday practices on bilingualism.




Reconsidering Context in Language Assessment


Book Description

"This volume reconsiders the role of context in language testing and assessment by applying key social theories, including theories of genre, situated learning, intercultural communication, multimodality, and interaction, to language testing and assessment research and practice"--




Languages and Education in Africa


Book Description

The theme of this book cuts across disciplines. Contributors to this volume are specialized in education and especially classroom research as well as in linguistics, most being transdisciplinary themselves. Around 65 sub-Saharan languages figure in this volume as research objects: as means of instruction, in connection with teacher training, language policy, lexical development, harmonization efforts, information technology, oral literature and deaf communities. The co-existence of these African languages with English, French and Arabic is examined as well. This wide range of languages and subjects builds on recent field work, giving new empirical evidence from 17 countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as to transnational matters like the harmonization of African transborder languages. As the Editors – a Norwegian social scientist and a Norwegian linguist, both working in Africa – have wanted to give room for African voices, the majority of contributions to this volume come from Africa.




Teaching K–12 Transdisciplinary Literacy


Book Description

Accessible and comprehensive, this text introduces a transdisciplinary framework for literacy instruction in grades K–12. This cutting-edge volume addresses the need for literacy instruction that crosses disciplines to provide students with a skillset that is not constrained or siloed, but rather knowledge that students can apply to existing and emerging fields. The text begins with a clear, theoretical understanding of literacy instruction, delves into practical aspects of select instructional practices by grade level, and expands to the creation of schoolwide Multi-Tiered Systems of Support to ensure a continuous improvement system. The authors’ inviting and innovative approach walks through real-world pathways for meaningful and inclusive literacy practices at distinct grade levels and includes authentic examples that show what the successful implementation of a K–12 transdisciplinary framework looks like. Covering key topics such as MTSS, RtI, Professional Communities of Practice, national and state standards, this book supports pre-service ELA teachers, literacy coaches, reading specialists, and administrators, and is ideal for courses in literacy instruction and content area literacy.




Methods for Transdisciplinary Research


Book Description

To solve real-world issues, the model of transdisciplinary research, which uses approaches from both the hard and social sciences, has recently come to the forefront. It allows researchers to look at a problem from many angles, with the goal of making both societal and scientific advances. This primer provides scholars with a model for this type of work, while offering a description of methods for knowledge integration that can be applied to any field, making it an indispensable guide for every transdisciplinary researcher and teacher




Critical, Transdisciplinary and Embodied Approaches in STEM Education


Book Description

Over the past decade, integrated STEM education research has emerged as an international concern, creating around it an imperative for technological and disciplinary innovation and a global resurgence of interest in teaching and learning to code at the K-16 levels. At the same time, issues of democratization, equity, power and access, including recent decolonizing efforts in public education, are also beginning to be acknowledged as legitimate issues in STEM education. Taking a reflexive approach to the intersection of these concerns, this book presents a collection of papers making new theoretical advances addressing two broad themes: Transdisciplinary Approaches in STEM Education and Bodies, Hegemony and Decolonization in STEM Education. Within each theme, praxis is of central concern including analyses of teaching and learning that re-imagines disciplinary boundaries and domains, the relationship between Art and STEM, and the design of learning technologies, spaces and environments. In addition to graduate research seminars at the Masters and PhD levels in Learning Sciences, Science Education, Educational Technology and STEM education, this book could also serve as a textbook for graduate and pre-service teacher education courses.




Languages and Social Cohesion


Book Description

A critical and systematic review of existing research located at the crossroads of sociology, social psychology and applied linguistics, Languages and Social Cohesion offers valuable insights for social contexts in which decision makers and researchers grapple with questions of social cohesion in the presence of linguistic diversity. Based on a thematic analysis of 285 studies from 50 countries (references available) this book emphasises the crucial role languages play in understanding social cohesion, and provides a framework of perspectives to aid exploration of these complex interlinkages. Through interpreting the literature, the authors established language repertoires as tools that facilitate social networks and access to resources. Furthermore, language norms and allegiances can subjectively shape the way groups use their language resources, which can result in social inclusion, exclusion and mediation between language groups. Education particularly is highlighted as a policy tool that implements linguistic decisions and norms, and steers status, hierarchies and distribution of languages in society. The theory-informed and accessible tools featured can be used to guide and inform further research, workshops or projects that investigate social cohesion and languages. This book is relevant for diverse and intersecting spheres of influence, such as groups, communities, institutions and authorities at local, regional, national and international levels.




Principles for Designing Transdisciplinary Research


Book Description

In the information or knowledge society, there is a need for transdisciplinary research, i.e. research that deals with complex life-world problems. Transdisciplinary projects aim to come up with practice-oriented solutions that serve what is perceived to be the common good. In order to achieve this, they transcend disciplinary boundaries and include the perspectives of public agencies, the business community and civil society in the research process. This process is therefore particularly challenging for those involved. This book is proposed by the transdisciplinarity-net, which is a project supported by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. It offers a means of designing transdisciplinary research. The tools presented here help structure the research process, in particular with a view to: o adequately reducing the complexity of a problem field, o taking into account the multiplicity of perspectives, o embedding research into the social context, and o adapting concepts and methods in the course of the research process. This publication shows how these tools can be used in the three phases of a transdisciplinary research process: identifying and structuring the problem, analyzing the problem and bringing results to fruition.