Flipping the Script: Positioning Bi/Multilingual Families in Engagement Literature

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Transforming Education: Creating Spaces to Honor and Uplift the Voices, Cultures, and Wisdom of Youth and Families of Color (Table 4)

Abstract

In this paper I adopted racialized scripts (Ishimaru & Takahashi, 2017), Ray's (2019) racialized organizational theory, and Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) to examine bi/multilingual family engagement literature. I identified 105 articles and book chapters systematically, which I then analyzed for positions offered to bi/multilingual families in addition to emergent racialized scripts. My findings indicated that families were afforded 5 different positions within school systems: knowledge impoverished, knowledge bearers, partners, co-designers, and by their orientations. Additionally, bi/multilingual families and educators were often placed into racialized scripts within school organizations. Findings from this review indicated that researchers should examine the role that community organizations or collective organizing have in challenging current hierarchical structures to better serve bi/multilingual families.

Author

• Ashley Yung Batchelor, Arizona State University