Reconceptualizing Transgressive Language Practices as Critical, Community-Building Tools in the K–12 Classroom

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session argues that transgressive language practices and play, often disregarded in literacy pedagogy and research, may function to disrupt hegemonic processes of sense-making in classrooms. Together, our four papers analyze transgressive language practices across preschool, elementary, middle school, and high school contexts. We conducted discourse analyses of ethnographic data collected in these spaces to examine how these practices work to both shape social relationships, identities and construct critical stances within and against the normative expectations of “doing school.” In our close explorations of students’ and teachers’ talk, we conclude that transgressive language must be reconsidered as a means of building community and challenging power structures in classroom environments.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Language and Social Processes

Chair

• Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• The Critical Metadiscursive Functions of Transgressive Language in Middle School Student Storytelling - Elizabeth Krone, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Understanding Immigrant Youth's Transgressive Classroom Language Use Through a Lens of Critical Race Theory - Kongji Qin, New York University

• "She Was Very Real": Transgressive Language Practices in Jokes and Play and How Early Childhood Educators Can Listen - Anne Valauri, Georgia Southern University

• Creating Stances Toward Literacy and Being Together Through Transgressive Language in Literacy Instruction - Faythe Beauchemin, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Discussant

• Ramon Antonio Martinez, Stanford University