Engaging Young Children in Critical Conversations: Bilingual Kindergarteners' Discussions About Poverty and Wealth

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Multilingual Interactions in Early Childhood Classrooms

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study explores the intersections of economic equality, bilingual discussion, and early literacy instruction by examining Korean-English bilingual children's discussions about poverty and wealth. As part of a larger qualitative study, the current study was situated in a kindergarten classroom at the Korean Language School in the Midwestern United States. The data were collected for four months through multiple sources including video recordings, open-ended interviews, and children’s artifacts. The finding suggests the potential of bilingual discussions about children’s books poverty and human equality in early childhood classrooms as medium to help children to develop critical perspectives about poverty, wealth, and economic equality from an early age.

Author

• So Jung Kim, The University of Texas - El Paso