Translanguaging, Identity, and Policy in a Multilingual Secondary School Community

• In Event: Language Hybridity in Diverse Settings

Abstract

Situated within a larger mixed methods study, this ethnographic case study explores the processes through which translanguaging practices emerged organically and came to serve as a bottom-up, informal language policy in a multilingual urban high school. Drawing on translanguaging theory, communities of practice, and educators as policy agents, we conducted classroom observations and interviews with two focal teachers in ESL classrooms. Data, which included fieldnotes, artifacts, and transcripts, were analyzed using thematic and critical classroom discourse analysis. Findings suggest the centrality of teachers’ understandings of their students and of multilingualism in the emergence of justice-oriented pedagogies. Moreover, this study reveals the transformative potential of implementing translanguaging practices and policies for multilingual students.

Authors

• Jesse Rubio, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Avary Carhill-Poza, University of Massachusetts - Boston
  Presenting Author

• Iuliia Fukhartinova, University of Massachusetts - Boston
  Presenting Author