Feeling Saudade: Brazilian Transborder Children’s Critical Consciousness Formation in Two-Way Immersion Classrooms in the United States

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Centering on Family and Children's Perspectives in Bilingual Education Research (Table 42)

Abstract

This presentation is based on a multi-year ethnographic study about how transborder children (ages 5-8) with ties to Brazil and the U.S. embody and develop critical consciousness in a K-5 Portuguese-English Two-Way Immersion program in Massachusetts. Leveraging a decolonial transborder approach to foreground children’s experiences and perceptions related to critical consciousness formation, this presentation draws on field notes of classroom observations and conversations with students. Data analysis suggests that transborder children engaged in the daily co-construction of critical consciousness through embodiments of critical saudade (nostalgic longing) and by politicizing classroom liminal spaces. This study calls on education scholars to attune to children’s knowledges, subjectivities, and actions on various scales as essential to understand and further support their critical consciousness formation.

Author

• Mariana Lima Becker, University of Georgia