Collaborative Research in Multilingual Classrooms

Reviews / Votes

The account of this group of professionals collaborating, discussing and understanding across school and university contexts is uplifting, inspiring and hopeful. It is an excellent example of how teachers and academics can engage in changing school practices and how we all experience varying roles as knowers and learners. -- Angela Creese, School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK This compelling account details a 5-year journey undertaken by a group of educational professionals-- teachers, specialists, and researchers-who created a viable and productive 'third space' for teaching, learning and research through collaborative inquiry. Their stories, firmly grounded in sociocultural and sociopolitical conceptualizations of classrooms and schooling, are a complex and rich interweaving of their voices, and those of their students and students' families, in ways that elegantly portray the tensions, struggles and joys of working with diverse learners. This book is a must for all teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers, as we grapple with the sticky questions of how to promote equality and access for all in an increasingly standards- and evaluation-driven environment, and how to come to see our own practices with new eyes. It is guaranteed to touch both heart and mind as it confronts us with the uniqueness of individuals' trajectories through school, and challenges assumptions and practices about teaching, learning and conducting research, while serving as a testament to the power of community. -- Margaret R. Hawkins, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA