| The increasing diversity of the population in our schools creates new demands and complexities, but it also provides new opportunities. It demands changes in how we deliver the curriculum and how we manage our schools. This dissertation presents studies of two methods, one for delivering instruction, and the other for self-study, both having the purpose of putting diversity to advantage. The first focuses on a two-way bilingual program, and the second on a research design involving action inquiry by insiders with multiple perspectives.Two-way bilingual programs have recently burgeoned in the United States. These programs address the urgent need in many elementary schools to teach English to speakers of other languages. They use approaches that implement recent research in second language acquisition. At the same time, these two-way programs also address the need created by the global economy for monolingual English speakers to learn a foreign language. The children of two language groups, in the same classroom, receive instruction for part of each day in each language.This case study produced findings in three areas: First, native-speaking peers were a valuable resource for both groups. Second, the two-way design encouraged cognitive development. Third, although the program had a broad base of support, sometimes the diverse groups within the school liked the program for different reasons.The second study focused on the process of collaborative research used to study the two-way bilingual program, which involved insiders with multiple roles and perspectives. Others (Christman, Holtz, Lytle & Sims, 1993) have involved school personnel with multiple perspectives in jointly conducted insider research, but they did it by creating a team of a few individuals. Initially, a similar model was undertaken for this study, but as it evolved, it became part of the normal operations of the school, involving many more members of the school community. Identifying questions, collecting and analysing data became part of routine processes.Findings of the second study included strategies which made collaborative action inquiry feasible. Also, the process of the study made contributions to other purposes of the school. Finally, the study identified ways that the collaboration of insiders with different roles and perspectives can improve a new instructional program, particularly in a multicultural setting. |
