Educators' Perspectives on Translanguaging and Social Justice, Critical Language Awareness, and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy: Do Educators Connect These Constructs?

• In Event: Educators' Perspectives on the Translanguaging  Landscape in Multilingual Educational Contexts

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, recent acts of police violence, and incidents of racism, xenophobia, religious and linguistic intolerance have highlighted the social disparities that exist in the U.S (Hardy, 2020). To provide responses to these injustices, scholars have emphasized the value of the tenets provided by the frameworks of social justice (García & Leiva, 2014), critical language awareness (Alim, 2010), and culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy (Hopkins & Schutz, 2019; Ladson-Billings, 2014). In the context of language, various scholars have posited that translanguaging is rooted in social justice, critical language awareness, and linguistically responsive principles as it aims to address social inequities by challenging monolingual and standard language ideologies (Grain & Land, 2017; Shoffner & De Oliveira, 2017; Seltzer & de Los Rios, 2018). Yet, do educators address social justice, critical, and linguistically responsive pedagogy objectives when using translanguaging strategies or they merely conceptualize translanguaging as a pedagogical tool in teaching and learning? Using a historical review of the literature and data gathered through an online survey, this study sought to answer this question by: (1) Describing the current definitions and components of social justice in language teaching, critical language awareness, and linguistically responsive pedagogy as they relate to translanguaging; to then (2) use that information to examine whether the responses by educators to an online survey reflected these frameworks in relation to their understanding and use of translanguaging strategies.



The data for this study came from a review of literature and from a subset of responses to an online survey that 447 educators of multilingual students in the United States completed in 2019. The literature review was conducted through an examination of articles that have addressed the concepts of translanguaging through the lens of social justice, critical language awareness, and linguistically responsive pedagogy from 2009 to the present in four of the top-ranked journals in educational research and linguistics (i.e., Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, The Modern Language Journal, and TESOL Quarterly). The survey included both closed and open-ended questions that addressed educators’ ideas and beliefs about translanguaging as a pedagogical practice. Educators’ responses were coded thematically attending to themes related to social justice, critical language awareness, or culturally and linguistic responsive pedagogy.



Preliminary findings suggest that educators’ understanding of translanguaging as a pedagogical practice does aim to support equity while recognizing and honoring the cultural and linguistic background of their students. While educators’ responses indicate awareness of how translanguaging reflects the goals associated with social justice, critical language awareness, and linguistically responsive pedagogy frameworks, educators seem to use concepts and terms associated with each of these frameworks interchangeably. As a result, educators may have different levels of understanding of the goals of these frameworks as they relate to the education of multilingual students. Therefore, this study points to the need to address with educators the principles that translanguaging draws from each of these frameworks as well as the similarities and differences between them.

Authors

• Anshika Bhasin, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Diego Xavier Roman, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Mariana Castro, University of Wisconsin - Madison