Languaging Beyond Borders: Communication Practices of Bilingual Nonspeaking Children and Families

• In Event: Centering Belonging in DisCrit: Toward the Dismantling of "Citizenship" and Imagined Boundaries

Abstract

Objectives:
As DisCrit theory (Annamma et al, 2013) posits, children at the intersections of language
learning, racialization, and dis/ability status experience systems of power in a very particular
way. This qualitative study unearths and amplifies the experiences of bilingual nonspeaking
children and their families. This work upends the notion of educational and medical
professionals as the experts and positions familial ways of being and knowing as central to
learning. Highlighting the experiences of transnational families based in the United States, this paper explores the constructions and denials of citizenship–both legal and conceptual–to nonspeaking bilingual children and their families in the U.S.


Framework:
Nonspeaking bilingual children and their families communicate in ways that often fall outside the white listening subject’s field of perception (Garcia & Wei, 2014; Flores & Rosa, 2015). This study highlights the languaging experiences of historically subaltern families (Spivak, 1998) living in liminal spaces (Bhabha, 1994). From systems of transnational social capital exchanges to intrafamilial multimodal communication, the families in the study engage in systems they created to navigate the larger system of education that so often positions multilingual, transnational families and their dis/abled children as deficient non-knowers (Cioe-Peña, 2020) and non-citizens (Dolmage, 2018).

Methods:
The study, based in a major metropolitan area of the Northeastern United States, included semi-structured interviews with nonspeaking bilingual children, ages three to nine, interviews with caregivers, interviews with an educator/service provider of each child, and observations of the children and families. The choice to go directly to the families, rather than formal medical or education spaces, was a deliberate disruption of hegemonic notions of how and where learning occurs.

Data:
Interviews, observations, field notes, and researcher memos were coded using Nvivo. Codes and themes that are explored in this paper include ‘nonverbalism,’ ‘professional resistance,’ and ‘multimodality.’ Two case studies are explored in depth to highlight the transnational experiences of liminality, expertise, and social and cultural capital (Yosso, 2005) that engulf families’ lives as they navigate multilingualism, “nonverbalism,” dis/ability, and transnational identities.

Results:
Caregivers shared their experiences–both positive and negative–across nation-state boundaries with family members in other countries experiencing disability labeling. Transnational families also explored cultural mis/understandings of disability whilst navigating multiple disabling institutions. Observations and interviews uncovered how families created their own systems of communication beyond the languaging practices taught and lauded in schools. Families created and enacted their own systems despite professional dismissals.


Significance:
The communicative practices and educational experiences of bilingual nonspeaking children and their families transcend the boundaries of schooling and the borders of nation-states. The children and families in this study embody communication and expertise that provide a roadmap for educators to unlearn hegemonic, US-centric forms of “listening” and become true collaboration partners with children and families. Educators and researchers must examine and challenge the ways citizenship is denied–both legally and socially–from transnational families of nonspeaking bilingual children in the United States (Padía & Traxler, 2021). Collaborating with and taking cues from children and families is the first move in the turn towards communicative justice.

Author

• Lilly Padia, Erikson Institute
  Presenting Author