This dissertation discusses the findings from a qualitative case study of four sixth-grade classrooms in the Nicaraguan public education system. It is focused on Language Arts instruction and offers descriptive accounts of these classroom teachers' pedagogical models, and their students' perceptions of them. The analysis is based on a conceptual framework that includes the theories on literacy acquisition of Emilia Ferreiro, on pedagogy of Basil Bernstein's and on effective teaching of Jere Brophy. The research was conducted to explore the potential relationship between each teacher's pedagogical model and their students' opportunities to learn Spanish Language Arts. Teachers' models were analyzed in two domains: pedagogical discourses, and pedagogical and evaluative practices. Students' experiences and perspectives comprised their inclusion and participation in the pedagogical process as well as their sense of educational enhancement. The exploration revealed these teachers' dilemmas and paradoxes in their efforts to provide good education to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in challenging educational conditions. They are committed educators who care about their students and try hard to help them finish primary school. Yet, they work in a context of enormous constraints that permanently lead them to negotiate between what the school system and they themselves expect students to achieve and what they believe is realistically possible to accomplish.

Research findings indicate that because teachers see their students as having important academic deficits, they tend to opt mainly to teach the basic aspects of Language Arts. In addition, because teachers consider their students to need character development, they attach a discourse of discipline and respect to the substance of their teaching that rules their pedagogical practices. Students perceive this discourse positively, but the discourse itself and students' acceptance of it tend to reinforce teacher-centred pedagogical practices, which in turn are detrimental to students' learning. This research contributes to a better understanding of the complex process through which teachers who teach disadvantaged students in deprived educational contexts consciously or unconsciously decide what and how to teach. This research also shows the explanatory power of Bernstein's methodology to understand classroom pedagogy.