IES Blog

Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) is here once again, and with it, an opportunity to celebrate the many strengths, talents, and achievements of students who identify with this ethnic community. In this guest blog, Dr. Molly Faulkner-Bond, a senior research associate at WestEd and principal investigator of two NCER research grants and an NCEE contract, discusses three trends that reflect efforts to celebrate and support all multilingual students.

The word “Hispanic” often makes people think of students classified as English learners, and not without reason—as various federal data sources show, about three‑quarters of English learners speak Spanish. As someone whose career focuses squarely on English learners, I’m always thrilled to see this group celebrated and acknowledged in research, policy, development work, and any kind of reporting and dissemination.

But the Hispanic population is broader and richer than just English learners. It includes millions of Hispanic students who are not currently, or perhaps never were, English learners. These students—many of whom are multilingual—also deserve to be celebrated and acknowledged for their knowledge, strengths, and contributions to their academic communities.

In thinking about the work I see happening in the field—be it in school districts, universities, research firms, or government agencies—some of the trends I find most exciting are those that reflect ongoing efforts to embrace and celebrate all types of multilingual learners in our schools. I have noticed three trends that reflect efforts to expand our thinking about multilingual students, including those who are Hispanic.

Labels and Language are Evolving

When I talk to policymakers, educators, and researchers, it’s clear that everyone is thinking more deeply about the words we use to describe students who speak multiple languages. Over time, federal policy has evolved from “limited English proficient” to “English language learners” to “English learners.” These days, I increasingly hear the phrase “multilingual learners” instead. In general, this evolution reflects growing awareness of the deficit orientation implied by many of our older labels and an effort to shift our language from what multilingual students can’t do or need help doing to focus on the strengths they bring to school.

I’m excited about these efforts and shifts. I also think more work and clarity are needed in the field to come to a consensus about who and what we mean by “multilingual learners.” In some states (for example, California), the phrase “multilingual learners” is used as an umbrella term for all students who use or are learning multiple languages, regardless of whether they are formally classified as English learners. In these cases, the term “multilingual learners” includes students who are screened for English learner status but not classified, heritage language learners who are fluent in English but also learning an ancestral or cultural language they did not grow up using, and English-only students who are learning a world language via direct instruction in school. In other states (for example, Rhode Island), the term “multilingual learners” is used to replace the term “English learner” with a more asset-oriented alternative.

I see opportunities and challenges in each approach. The broader use in California gives us language to acknowledge the many profiles and faces of multilingualism and the many students who are learning and using languages other than English in their lives and schools. It can also lead to confusion and make it challenging to communicate about the specific group of English learners who constitute a protected class, are entitled to specific supports and services by law, and whose achievements must be tracked and reported for federal accountability. The narrower use in Rhode Island is more straightforward in this sense, requiring us to attend more carefully to a specified group relative to the larger multilingual population. The narrower approach, however, leaves us without the language to acknowledge and celebrate the many multilingual students who are not classified as English learners for service and accountability purposes.

I believe (and evidence suggests) that the labels we use for students matter, so these conversations are consequential and important to have. I am excited about the conversations that are to come, as they are likely to move us forward as a field, regardless of where we land on the labeling.

Nurturing and Celebrating Multilingualism

Another area where I see increased awareness and advocacy is around celebrating the value of multilingualism for all students. Perhaps the most notable example of this is U.S. Secretary of Education Cardona’s Raise the Bar initiative, which includes pathways to multilingualism for all students as a key goal and a strategy to support global engagement.

A related sign of this shift is the general expansion of dual-language (DL) instructional programs and the State Seal of Biliteracy (SSoB) across the country over the past two decades. Given that research suggests multilingualism and multilingual education confers benefits for academic, social-emotional, and workforce outcomes, these expansions should not be surprising.

It’s important to acknowledge that enthusiasm for multilingualism is a shift from former practice, which tended to center monolingualism in English as a desirable norm and sometimes made it challenging for families to pursue dual language education. There is also concern that the expansion of DL programs and the SSoB does not always benefit English learners or students from communities whose languages are undervalued or minoritized. More research and discussion are needed on these topics. As part of a recent IES-funded research, my colleagues and I are examining implementation of the Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK) Act in Massachusetts, focusing on the extent to which the expansion of bilingual programming through the LOOK Act supports equitable access to and participation in DL programs and SSoB for English learners. Stay tuned for our findings!

Substantial Investments in Rigorous Research

One final area for hope are the substantial investments from the U.S. Department of Education in multilingual learners and English learners. In addition to initiatives like Raise the Bar, IES currently supports two $10M research and development centers focused on secondary English learners, as well as a large-scale evaluation study on the impacts of English learner classification and reclassification policies in 30 states. This is in addition to annual funding from NCER and NCSER on English learner-focused research projects, both through a topic area dedicated to English learners and through other topics that support research that will generally improve the opportunities and outcomes of multilingual learners. These investments are critical to advancing our understanding of what works for which multilingual students under which circumstances. I appreciate the Department’s attention to this vital population of students and look forward to seeing these students continue to thrive as we improve our practices and understanding of how to help them unlock their potential. I see many exciting things happening in the field around multilingualism, all of which give me hope for Hispanic students both within and beyond the English learner group.

Molly Faulkner-Bond is a senior research associate at WestEd and focuses on understanding and improving policies, assessments, and programs for students identified as English Learners, and amplifying that knowledge for the benefit of all students and educators. She supports a variety of stakeholders via several federally funded centers, including the Regional Educational Laboratories, the Regional Comprehensive Centers, and the National Research and Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners.

This blog was produced by Helyn Kim (Helyn.Kim@ed.gov), program officer for the English Learners portfolio at the National Center for Education Research.

The IES Postdoctoral Research Training Program  funds groups of faculty research trainers who recruit, hire, and prepare postdoctoral researchers to conduct high-quality education research. IES encourages training programs to recruit fellows from underrepresented demographic groups including minority groups and those with disabilities, those coming from smaller or less well-known institutions, or those with non-traditional backgrounds including former practitioners or institutional researchers. Priscilla Goble was a fellow in the IES-funded University of Virginia Post-Doctoral Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Science and is now an associate professor of human development & family sciences in the School of Family & Consumer Sciences at Texas State University. In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, we asked Priscilla to reflect on her career journey and the experiences of Hispanic scholars.

How did you become interested in a career in education research?

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in the development of young children. I began taking child development and education focused courses as a high school student, and I had a clear plan to become an early childhood educator. As an undergraduate student at Purdue University, I became involved in several research projects, and one led by Dr. Karen Diamond was focused on young children’s development in preschool settings. This experience was fundamental in shifting my career goals from educator to education researcher.

Many young children spend most of their waking hours in education environments, and I became increasingly more curious about the factors that promote positive development within these early education settings. As I pursued my graduate degrees at Arizona State University, I explored child factors (for example, gender), family factors (for example, parent involvement), and contextual factors (for example, educational approaches) to better understand the relation between children’s preschool experiences, developmental gains, and formal school success.

The IES postdoctoral fellowship working with Dr. Robert Pianta in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia solidified my interests and career in education research. My current work focuses on the importance of adult-child relationships and interactions for promoting positive development within education settings. I also have applied research experience developing, implementing, and evaluating early education interventions. I aim to conduct sound education science that can be used to inform practice and positively impact our education systems.

What has been the biggest challenge you have encountered, and how did you overcome the challenge? 

The biggest challenge I have had to overcome as a researcher is imposter syndrome around academic writing. I never would have imagined that I would achieve tenure at an academic institution because I have never viewed myself as a strong writer. My parents differ in their educational attainment and in their parenting around education. My father, a U.S.-born college graduate and successful entrepreneur, always encouraged good grades, hard work, and academic success. My mother, an immigrant from Panama, never completed college and placed more emphasis on relationships than education. In addition to different educational perspectives, language barriers created obstacles in my education because my primary literacy support at home was from an English as a Second Language (ESL) parent who struggled with English fluency. My verbal scores on the SAT and GRE were consistently low, and from early on, I have struggled with feelings that I am not a strong enough writer to be a successful researcher.

I’m not sure imposter syndrome ever goes away. I still put in work to move past feelings of inadequacy. I began by listening to my peers and mentors when they emphasized my strengths. Through warm and supportive professional relationships, I learned that I am a strong critical thinker, I am well organized, I am passionate about education, and I am persistent. These skills are also important to be a successful researcher and, although I am not the strongest writer, I’ve learned to overcome that challenge. When my imposter syndrome pops up, I remind myself of the growth I’ve made as a writer and of the other skills that have helped me to achieve the career I have now.

As it relates to my research, I empathize with children in similar situations, and as a result, I have developed a professional interest in identifying factors that promote positive educational experiences for ethnic-minority children.

How can the broader education research community better support the careers and scholarship of researchers from underrepresented groups?

To best inform policies and practices that influence education for diverse children, we need trained scholars who represent diverse identities, value inclusion, and challenge biases. Students who have opportunities to engage in undergraduate research are more likely to attend graduate school and proceed to research-focused careers; thus, the education research community can support underrepresented groups by targeting and enhancing their success through undergraduate research experiences.

As a Minority Serving Institution, Texas State University is dedicated to supporting opportunities for undergraduate involvement in research. For over 5 years, I have been co-leading a program to identify and recruit undergraduate students from underrepresented groups and provide them research training and experience. The goal of this program is to help develop strong connections with school faculty and peers that can build a sense of self-efficacy and provide underrepresented students with human capital and resources to navigate the maze of higher education systems.

I can speak from my own experience that my career trajectory was forever changed because of my engagement in undergraduate research experiences.

What advice would you give to emerging scholars from underrepresented, minoritized groups that are pursuing a career in education research?

My best piece advice is to believe in yourself. Being a successful researcher is about persistence. You will have failures and receive critical feedback, but if you keep working and believe in yourself, you can achieve your goals. 

The next best piece of advice is to identify strong mentors who believe in you. I cannot overstate the degree to which my success and self-efficacy as an education researcher have been influenced by the strong mentors who believed in me at every stage. Strike up a conversation with someone you admire, be vulnerable in sharing your aspirations, listen to their advice, and believe them when they say that you have what it takes.

Finally, find your community. Join groups of people who come from both similar and different walks of life but who are struggling with the same challenges at the same time. Lean on these people and let them lean on you. Support one another through all the ups and downs and enjoy doing life together.

This guest blog is part of a series in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. It was produced by Corinne Alfeld (Corinne.Alfeld@ed.gov), a program officer in the National Center for Education Research.

This summer, IES awarded the first grant within the Early Career Development and Mentoring Program for Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions to Dr. Virginia Byrne, an assistant professor at Morgan State University, a historically black university (HBCU) located in Maryland. In recognition of HBCU week, we asked Dr. Byrne to share with us her career journey and her new IES-funded early career project that explores how evidence-based models of trauma informed online teaching (TIOT) may benefit students taking online classes at HBCUs.

Tell us about your current IES early career project.

I began my career as a student affairs practitioner focused on how the Internet was expanding access for activism, community engagement, and higher education, particularly among students of minoritized and marginalized groups. Now I study online teaching and learning in higher education with a focus on which students tend to thrive in online classes versus those who struggle.

My IES early career project is driven by the urgent need to understand how to best support the academic success of HBCU students in online learning environments. Today’s college students are likely to have survived some form of traumatic or adverse event either prior to or during their undergraduate enrollment, including the complexities of grief, illness, financial difficulties, and social disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many trauma-affected students struggle to engage in traditional school activities, regulate their effort and motivation, authentically participate in classroom discussions, and successfully graduate. To ensure that trauma-affected students are persisting in their college courses, educators are encouraged to adopt trauma-informed teaching practices.

While research exists on the value of trauma-informed teaching in face-to-face K-12 classrooms and, to a lesser extent, higher education contexts, it has yet to rigorously explore the impact of these trauma-informed practices on online college students. It is still unclear how trauma-informed teaching principles align with the leading online teaching literature, how students feel about these practices, or how they relate to achievement and persistence outcomes, particularly among trauma-affected students who might struggle with effort regulation. My three-year project, The Learning and Engaging at a Distance (LEAD) Initiative, seeks to fill this gap by posing an evidence-based model of TIOT practices in higher education and rigorously exploring how these practices might benefit HBCU students in online classes. I hypothesize that the adoption of TIOT practices will be helpful to all students, but especially those who are trauma-affected with reduced effort regulation. 

What are trauma-informed online teaching practices?

A trauma-informed approach to teaching consists of shifts in education practices, pedagogies, and policies as faculty learn about the role of trauma in students’ lives and how classrooms can perpetuate it. Trauma-informed teaching emphasizes an anti-racist, asset-based approach to provide all students with trauma-informed care, not just those who report their traumatic experiences (a universal approach). In my current IES project, I weave together the online learning, college teaching, and trauma-informed teaching literatures to pose the TIOT model, an evidence-based model consisting of seven related principles:

1. Collaboration and Mutuality: Faculty welcome student input in collaboration and decision-making to share power and co-construct knowledge.
2. Emotional, Social, and Academic Safety: Faculty foster an online learning environment that respects the need for safety, respect, and authenticity.
3. Empowerment, Voice, and Choice: Faculty make space for and empower students to make choices so that the course is relevant to their professional interests and aligned with their personal development goals.
4. Resilience, Growth, and Change: Faculty take an anti-deficit, growth-oriented approach by forwarding the idea that all students are emerging scholars capable of learning and succeeding. They use formative feedback to cultivate a community of learning and to reinforce self-efficacy.
5. Social Justice: Faculty cultivate an equitable and anti-oppressive learning environment that prioritizes social justice in the course design and curriculum.
6. Support and Connection: Faculty provide students with structures and resources to support their community building, academic achievement, and professional development.
7. Trustworthiness and Transparency: Faculty foster a sense of trust and transparency among students by providing clear expectations, being reliable and consistent, and establishing healthy boundaries.

I theorize that by adopting a universal, trauma-informed approach to online teaching, instructors can create a more supportive and equity-centered learning environment for all students to thrive.

What advice would you give to emerging scholars from HBCUs who are pursuing a career in education research?

First, recognize the strengths of your institution as an HBCU. For example, my project leverages Morgan State University’s focus on high-touch teaching both in-person and online. By emphasizing what our faculty are already doing well and building on our existing expertise, I was able to gain campus buy-in on my project. Remember that being at an HBCU is an asset.

Second, even if your campus is small and research is not on the top of everyone’s to-do list, there are probably faculty who are doing rigorous research projects. Find them, even if they are outside of your field or discipline. Ask them how they found support on campus to do this work. Who is their go-to person for budget questions? For grant submission issues? Is there any unadvertised money for professional development? There are likely those on campus who want to mentor emerging scholars on research and grant-writing, even if it is not their full-time job. Reach out to them. 

How can the broader education research community better support the careers and scholarship of researchers from HBCUs?

The broader community often misses out on the tremendous excellence that HBCU faculty and graduate student researchers have to offer. There is a LOT of excellence here!

That said, we are limited by a lack of administrative research support and training, such as grant-writing support staff, in-house budget teams, graduate assistantship funding, high-quality financial software, and conference travel funding. This is caused, in part, by historic and systemic underfunding. Members of the broader community could better support HBCU researchers by educating themselves on the funding histories of the public HBCUs in their states and talking about it with colleagues, reaching out to HBCU faculty to build collaborative research partnerships, recruiting HBCU students to join their research teams as interns, research assistants, and post-docs, and sharing access to existing resources on the hidden curriculum around research (for example, how to write a grant proposal, how to craft a budget, how to effectively manage a large grant).

Incredible research is already happening at HBCUs. These are just a few ways that the education research community could get more involved.

Virginia L. Byrne, PhD, is an assistant professor of higher education and student affairs at Morgan State University in the School of Education and Urban Studies. Her research falls at the intersection of higher education, online learning, and the learning sciences to investigate issues of climate and equity in online and technology-enhanced learning environments. Dr. Byrne earned her PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park in technology, learning and leadership and her master’s degree in student affairs from Florida State University.

This blog was produced by Katina Stapleton (Katina.Stapleton@ed.gov), program officer for the Early Career Mentoring Program for Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions (Early Career MSI). This program supports grants that prepare faculty at minority-serving institutions to conduct high-quality education research that advances knowledge within the field of education sciences and addresses issues important to education policymakers and practitioners. In FY 2024, IES is accepting applications for the Early Career MSI program as well as the new Early Career Development and Mentoring Program for Education Research.

For the first time, IES is hosting IES Innovation Day as part of the 9^th annual ED Games Expo. This full day event of engaging panel sessions, taking place Thursday, September 21, 2023, from 9:00 AM to 3:15 PM, will highlight IES’s investments in advanced research and development. The day will feature—

• Lightning talks from IES-funded project teams who have developed and conducted research on education technology (EdTech) innovations
• Sessions on modernizing the research and development infrastructure and preparing to scale evidence-based products
• Demos of IES-funded EdTech products
• An afternoon session with IES Director Mark Schneider focused on the Institute’s vision for achieving transformative impact at scale
• Remarks by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director, Arati Prabhakar

IES Innovation Day is one of the many events taking place at the 2023 ED Games Expo this September 19-22 at the Kennedy Center REACH and at locations across Washington, DC. The ED Games Expo is the public showcase of game changing EdTech innovations created through more than 50 programs at the IES, the U.S. Department of Education, and across government. This multi-day event engages a broad audience, including EdTech developers and researchers, organizations across the education ecosystem, students and educators, members of the public including families and children, and representatives and leaders from Federal agencies and offices.

Register to attend these free events:

• ED Games Expo for the Public – Wednesday, September 20, 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
• IES Innovation Day and Expo Office Hours – Thursday, September 21, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Can’t make it to the Expo in-person? Join through a livestreamed Science is Cool virtual event on Thursday, September 21 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Speakers at the virtual event will include EdTech developers and STEM education experts who will discuss their classroom interventions and share how they used art and design in creating them.

The Pathways to the Education Sciences Program was designed to inspire students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in doctoral study to pursue careers in education research. Gabriel Lorenzo Aguilar, who participated in the IES-funded University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) Pathways program focused on P-20 pipeline issues, is the first Pathways fellow to be offered a tenure track position at a university. Gabriel, who is currently finishing his doctoral program in English at the Pennsylvania State University, recently accepted a tenure-track position in the Technical Writing and Professional Design program at the University of Texas at Arlington. Growing up in the barrios of South Texas, Gabriel brings a working-class, migrant-community, and undocumented-community perspective to academia. His research and teaching center the problems of communities who are in dire need of aid and assistance and who rely on technical communication in life-critical situations, especially migrants, refugees, and asylees. In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, we asked Gabriel to reflect on his career journey and the experiences of Hispanics scholars.

How have your background and experiences shaped your scholarship and career in using technical communication to improve the lives of vulnerable populations, such as migrants and refugees?

My grandmother was an undocumented migrant. Growing up in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of South Texas, I saw how much community came to help not only my grandmother but other undocumented people. I saw firsthand the generosity, commitment, and sacrifice all of us in our neighborhoods made to make sure we had everything we needed.

That level of sacrifice required communication between the community, nonprofits, and others. I saw younger generations provide translation services to their grandparents, making sure that the older generation understood how to get resources such as Medicaid or subsidized utilities. It was only after I went to college that I learned that this communication had a name: technical communication. Broadly speaking, the field of technical communication focuses on making technical information understandable to a wide variety of audiences. It can include things like instructions on how to submit applications for aid or forms for service but has recently expanded to include the communication of marginalized peoples. The types of technical communication we did in the barrios were not included in broader discussions. So, I made it a mission of mine in graduate school to bring the kind of technical communication from marginalized populations into the mainstreams of research and practice.

My past projects looked into helping humanitarian organizations better translate for Mexican migrant populations. Future projects are tackling similar issues with the general population in the RGV and how citizens communicate with one another to form coalitions for change. In any case, my background and experiences help me see technical communication as a field that can improve the lives of my community.

How did participation in the UTSA P20 Pathways program shape your career journey?

Quite frankly, the UTSA Pathways program made my career journey. I struggled a lot in undergrad. I noticed that my peers that excelled were usually white and from more affluent school districts. They seemed to know everything while the rest of us, especially those from the RGV, were behind.

The UTSA Pathways program helped me understand there is a place for scholars like me: those from disenfranchised backgrounds with the passion to help communities in need. While in the program, I learned to recognize disparities in education outcomes—that inequity stems from lack of resources and structural issues such as racism. The program empowered me to see education as a means to tackle such issues.

The program also shaped my understanding of what it means to be an educator: patient, accessible, and demonstrative. I was the undergraduate who didn’t understand the material, who felt too small to ask for help. I’ve learned to recognize the tells of that kind of student—students who often experience the world like I do as a student of color from a working-class background. I try to approach these students first, establishing clear channels of communication and accessibility.

What advice would you give education researchers who wish to work with migrant and refugee communities?

These communities need resources, not predatory researchers. My advice would be to be reflexive on what you give and take when working with a migrant community. There is a long history of researchers extracting data from a marginalized population only to leave that community once their findings are peer reviewed and published. I encourage researchers to practice humanitarian values in their research and practice; that is, to work on the immediate needs of the community, write about those interventions, and then collect data on that immediate work. This way, the community can get the resources they need from a researcher that is actively engaged in improving their quality of life.

How can the broader education research community better support the careers and scholarship of Hispanic students and researchers?

The broader education research community must understand the conditions that many Hispanic students and researchers face in academia, especially Hispanics of color from working class backgrounds. My advice would be to practice patience and grace with Hispanic students. I’ll give an example. I worked with a nontraditional Hispanic student at Penn State who was brilliant but lacked confidence in his writing. He grew up in the Dominican Republic and was in the United States pursuing a degree as a middle-aged adult. His professors that semester heavily criticized his writing: some of the criticism was constructive, some was racist. The constructive criticism demonstrated the flaws of his writing and offered solutions to consider. The racist criticism questioned this student’s belonging in academia, often referring to his misunderstanding of U.S. and English language writing conventions.

Of course, Hispanic students and researchers are not a monolith. We come from all walks of life, some of us more privileged than others. Nonetheless, those with power in the education research community must understand the obstacles that Hispanic students face when navigating higher education.

What advice would you give Hispanic students and scholars who wish to pursue a career in education research?

Understand that the halls of academe weren’t built for us, especially Hispanics of color from working-class backgrounds. I’ve experienced my fair share of microaggressions and blatant racism. Most of the time, these aggressions come from a place of misunderstanding on how our experiences, communities, and culture shape our perspectives of the world. The fight to get our problems recognized, our perspectives respected, and our voices heard can seem never ending. But when I look back at the previous generations of Hispanics in academia, I can really appreciate the positive changes that have come.

My advice would be to accept that you alone cannot change education research. Our generation of scholarship might do little to change education research. It might do a lot. But the momentum is here. The community is here, and with that community, real change can come.

This guest blog is part of a series in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. It was produced by Katina Stapleton (Katina.Stapleton@ed.gov), co-Chair of the IES Diversity and Inclusion Council. She is also the program officer for the Pathways to the Education Sciences Research Training Program.