Translanguaging Among Adolescents: Cultivating a Multilingual Generation to Promote Justice in Education

• In Event: 46.085 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 46.085-14 - Peer Networks, Out-of-School Literacies, and Translanguaging Practices of Linguistically Diverse Adolescents

Abstract

This study seeks to understand culture, language, and heritage in education investigating how language-minority and language-majority students use languaculture (Agar, 1994) practices to engage in multi-literacy development. Employing a sociocultural theoretical framework (Vygotsky, 1978), we examine how linguistically diverse students use Spanish/English/translanguaging practices to mediate bilingual multimodal literacy activities and how student and teacher translanguaging practices affect students’ access to literacy learning in a high school language exchange program. We argue that examining these questions has consequences for educational justice. Findings revealed how youth mediate each other’s learning and use translanguaging to switch roles of expert/novice; to co-construct meaning; and to reinforce social connections. This study offers implications for educational practices that support equity for cultural and linguistically diverse students.

Authors

• Natalia Guzman, University of Maryland - College Park

• Melinda E. Martin-Beltran, University of Maryland - College Park

• Kayra Alvarado Merrills, University of Maryland

• Pei-Jie Jenny Chen, University of Maryland - College Park