Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, 2004 

I have been working with SLIFE since the beginning of my teaching career and developed a passion for understanding how education travels transnationally and cross-culturally with the arrival of ELL and SLIFE in U.S. public schools. I was interested in furthering my understanding of comparative education and of all the programs I considered, Drexel's M.S. Global and International Education stood out to me. This capstone has given me a deeper understanding of the needs of the students I work with everyday. It has provided me with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to to educate and support them to reach the goals of graduation and a better life!

4.     What are teachers’ roles in SLIFE success?

5.     Are there school programs or services that are effective for assisting SLIFE?

4.     What are teachers’ roles in SLIFE success? Two major themes were expressed throughout the articles: how teachers’ levels of cultural competency affect SLIFE and how teachers’ training and knowledge about SLIFE pedagogy affect SLIFE academic success. The word frustration was used by six articles to express how teachers often felt inept to effectively teach SLIFE. Birdman and Tran (2017) found that classrooms with teachers who had discriminatory attitudes and saw SLIFE as inferior to other immigrant groups experienced a higher volume of behavioral incidents, student distress, and less engagement than classrooms with multicultural teachers.

The themes that teachers faced obstacles, were not trained, underprepared or inexperienced to meet the academic and nonacademic needs of SLIFE was clear in that these words or phrases were found in all but three of the articles.  These eleven articles explained how SLIFE teachers, even those trained in second language pedagogy, were not trained in early reading instructional methods or filling deep academic content gaps. Additionally, SLIFE teachers were not trained in meeting the social and psychological needs of SLIFE such as practices that engaged students unfamiliar with the norms of school or addressing mental health and behavioral issues. 

5.     Are there school programs or services that are effective for assisting SLIFE? The data from 18 articles revealed that although there are programs and services for SLIFE, schools lack consistency in academic programs, curriculum and resources, availability of academic supports, and access to non-academic supports like mental health services. Fourteen of the 20 articles used phrases like limited resources, lack of meaningful materials, without adequate instructional materials, no culturally relevant curriculum, limited funding, and no age-appropriate print literacy. Additionally, the articles stressed that there were no policies and no curriculum which forced the use of mostly teacher-created materials. Fifteen articles stressed the critical need for counseling services specifically for SLIFE. The gap in mental health services for SLIFE delays academic progress and schools simply do not have the supports in place to successfully serve SLIFE.