Problematizing Assuring Multilingual Families That Educators Are Thinking of Children’s “Best Interest”: Examining Teachers’ Figured Worlds

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)constructing Identities: Explorations of Identity Construction Across Varied Pedagogical Contexts (Table 12)

Abstract

Parent-teacher conferences are high-stakes for multilingual families. We studied how teachers (n=181) in an English as a Second Language (ESL) assessment course planned ESL-identification conferences. We examined teachers’ underlying worldviews, or “figured worlds.” Teachers planned to reassure families they had students’ “best interest in mind.” We use discourse analytic methods to problematize this phrase, considering: What figured worlds are suggested in teachers’ plans to tell multilingual families that teachers have students’ best interest in mind? We identified two focal-cases. Tally was typical in our study in planning to listen, explain and reassure families that they had students’ best interest in mind, which meant ESL identification. Abel, however, offered an alternative. We explore implications for teacher-education research concerning “best interest” phrasing.

Authors

• April S. Salerno, University of Virginia

• Elena Andrei, Cleveland State University