Shaping Multilingual Children’s Identities With Emotion

• In Event: Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual iPresentation Only: SIG-Language and Social Processes Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Emotions are a way into more deeply understanding multilingual children’s identities. This research wants to better understand what emotions shape the students’ identities through a series of 35 videos created with multilingual children in K to 12 using humanizing methods. Three theories inform this paper: translanguaging, identity as position, and the sociality of emotion. Key themes that arose from the analysis include school, friendship and belonging, being grateful, and violence. Friendship with same language peers was an important theme that was deeply connected to the children’s experiences of belonging in school, as was being perceived as grateful, especially towards teachers. Violence and discrimination also have a strong and looming presence in some of their lives.

Author

• Katie Brubacher, University of Alberta