Building Linguistically Integrated Classroom Communities: The Role of Teacher Practices

Adolescents’ peer networks tend to segregate by relative language proficiency, but students from all linguistic backgrounds benefit academically from classroom peer relationships both within and across English learner (EL) and non-EL classified groups. We drew upon social network analysis of student survey data in 46 English and math middle school classrooms and qualitative analysis of a subset of these classrooms (N = 10) to address the following: (a) How do demographics differ in classrooms with more or less academic peer network linguistic integration? and (b) How do teachers’ classroom practices relate to differences in the linguistic integration of students’ academic peer networks? Findings from this analysis add to the literature on the complex relationships between classroom characteristics, linguistic integration, and teacher practices