Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2016, Educational Administration (Education)

Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) programs in the United States are not flourishing, nor are their middle- and high-school counterparts. The current global recession has imposed marginal decreases on school funding and has thus influenced curriculum decisions to cut back on such perceived frills as foreign language (FL) instruction. Since FL is not part of high-stakes testing, it remains as an extra on the periphery of curriculum, no matter how crucial it might be culturally, intellectually, and perhaps therefore politically and economically. Kindergarten through twelfth grade administrators appear to be in a unique position to shed light on the American foreign language dilemma, as they are in trenches daily with students and teachers and are involved in curriculum and policy decisions. A survey instrument was sent to all of the public school elementary principals in Ohio. Surveys were successfully delivered to 1427 principals. Although 103 survey responses were received, only 95 were complete and used for data analysis, resulting in a 6.66% response rate. The first step in examining the data involved calculating descriptive statistics for each item in the instrument. Next, a regression analysis was used to determine if there was a relationship between the independent variables (personal and contextual) and the dependent variable, principals' attitudes toward FLES. The regression analysis included nine independent and covariate variables. They are the value of FL and the importance of FL when compared against the covariates of gender, ethnicity, number of years as a principal, number of years as a teacher, the participants' status as being bilingual or multilingual, the number of FLs studied by the participants, and whether the participants' schools have a FLES program. The study's findings indicated that Ohio elementary principals do perceive FLES programs favorably. None of the demographic information individually proved to be important to the p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Willilam Larson Ph.D. (Advisor); Robert Robison Ph.D. (Committee Member); Emilia Alonso-Sameno Ph.D. (Committee Member); Charles Lowery Ed.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Curricula; Education; Educational Leadership; Elementary Education; Foreign Language; Language; Pedagogy