Becoming Science Learners: A Study of Emergent Bilingual Students' Identity Work in Elementary School Science

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Dynamic Co-Constructions of Identity and Literacy Among Bilingual Students

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a study that explores how two young emergent bilingual children experience science learning and how they negotiate the construction of a scientific identity while simultaneously negotiating the construction of a new linguistic identity. Using ethnographic case study methods, this study focused on the figured worlds present in the study’s focal classroom and explored the ways in which the cultural and structural aspects of the third-grade class enabled or constrained students’ identity work as learners. Data include six months of classroom observations of a third grade science classroom; interviews with the teacher and the two focal students; observations of them in the science classroom; and documents and artifacts related to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Authors

• Rebeca Gamez, Johns Hopkins University

• Carolyn Parker, Johns Hopkins University