Bilingual teacher advocacy, agency, and leadership: a model for teacher education and professional development

Research has examined bilingual teachers’ work and their experiences through the theoretical lens of teacher advocacy, teacher agency, and teacher leadership. This research synthesis analyzes the current research on the three frameworks in bilingual education and examines how they intersect. Bilingual teachers advocated for educational change to address the needs of emergent bilinguals. Despite various context-specific constraints, bilingual teachers agentively created bilingual spaces for linguistically diverse students. Furthermore, bilingual teachers actively took up leadership roles, demonstrated increased consciousness, and developed leadership identities. Through this exploration, this paper proposes a model that integrates the three frameworks for bilingual teacher education and professional development.