Learning From a Chinese Heritage Community School: Toward a Critical Biliteracies Pedagogy With Chinese American Bilingual Students

• In Event: Equitable Perspectives to Language and Growth Trajectories in Policy and Programs

Abstract

In the field of language and literacy, the theories of translanguaging and critical bi/literacies have served to deconstruct the regulations and boundaries that have been socially and institutionally constructed to privilege the dominant language and literacy practices. The two frameworks repositioned language minoritized students as resourceful, knowledge producers, and critical agentive actors in education and society. As such, I draw on these theoretical groundings to critically examine the intersection of a Chinese teacher’s translanguaging implementation and Chinese American students’ critical biliteracies as they engage in Chinese American children’s literature units. This study brings to light how the intersection of translanguaging and critical biliteracies is a deliberate pursuit of equity for the bilingual education of Chinese American bilingual students.

Author

• Jiadi Zhang, University of Missouri - St. Louis
  Presenting Author