Taking Agency in Bilingual Learning and Resisting Language and Cultural Erasure

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Centering Children's Agency to Uplift Community Knowledge and Solutions (Table 3)

Abstract

Taking an ethnographic case study approach, this study examines the experiences of two young children from bilingual and immigrant families to examine their bilingual practices and emerging bilingual identities. Relying on ethnographic fieldnotes and child-centered interview activities, the study highlighted the children’s agency in fostering their bilingual learning, the ways they navigate and resist language and cultural erasure, and their pride in being bilingual. This study underscores young children's agency and expertise in relation to their bilingual practices and identities. It calls for teachers to educate children from all backgrounds about the importance of viewing multilingualism through asset-based perspectives, as well as the need to support children from bilingual backgrounds in sustaining their linguistic and cultural assets.

Author

• Heather Reichmuth, University of Southern Maine