How do Mexican, Guatemalan, Mexican-Guatemalan Students Discuss Transverse Cultures in a Small Group Literacy Group?

• In Event: Examining Literacy Learning Opportunities for Elementary Multilingual Students

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate traverse discourse, discussions across identity groups to gain a better understanding of various cultures, ethnicities, races and traditions while finding interconnectedness across preserved variances. The aim of this study is to begin to build a bridge across ethnic and racial groups often further divided by ruinous categories set by the nation state which leads to the erasure of non-dominant identities. When students are encouraged to see nuance, in contrast from the binary thinking that schools often fall into, they may begin to build a more realistic perspective of others differences, and grow empathy towards people who may not immediately share similarities.

This study employed the theoretical frameworks of translanguaging which developed as a sociolinguistic theory (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2020). The ideas of translanguaging used in literacies which focuses on the actions of multilingual readers and writers, which go beyond traditional understandings of language, literacy, and other concepts, such as bi/multilingualism and bi/multilingual literacy” (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2020). I use translanguaging as a framework that begins to resist the binary thinking which goes beyond traditions of understanding culture, race and ethnicity which expresses nuance and I believe goes against the harmful categorization present in schools today.

The study drew from data sources from one 4th and 5th grade combination class. Six small group classroom observations of five students were interpedently filmed by the teacher. Three pre-and-post student interviews. The students were randomly selected by the teacher. Lastly, student workbooks were analyzed for patterns and emergent themes from inductive coding process. Additionally, each classroom video observation and student interview were transcribed to inductively code each other's to identify patterns and, relevant themes (Saldaña, 2015). Researcher also conducted peer examination to assure inter-rater reliability (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2018) and triangulation of the data. Lastly, a discourse analysis between the social interactions of the students occur to seek additional patterns about their ideas about their culture outside of their own through multimodal texts.

The data demonstrated that when students learn about others culture, they may not identify which piques their curiosity and empathy when learning about various cultures. Picture books, and various multimodal texts aided their understanding beyond categories placed on them. When Brown children learn about Black students we begin to build a bridge of deeper understanding across cultures through traverse discourse.

The literature demonstrates an expansive need to development discourse practices and ideas across cultural groups that demonstrates contrasting narratives often seen in mainstream media. With the assistance of varying literacy practices and resources, the data demonstrates that it is possible. Lastly, when students are provided the space to discuss real-world ideas and learn across cultural groups they can begin to lay the foundation towards just educational renewal.

Author

• Jackelyn Rivera-Orellana, Stanford University