Sticky Belonging at the Intersection: Experiences of One Bilingual Immigrant Teacher Candidate with Dis/ability

• In Event: Multilingualism, Identity, and Belonging

Abstract

This study examines how Ailyn, a dis/abled, bilingual, immigrant teacher candidate, navigates emotionally sticky experiences of belonging across home, schooling, and professional spaces. Drawing on affect theory and critical disability studies, the study conceptualizes belonging as an affective-discursive process shaped by ableism, linguistic racism, and xenophobia. Through narrative interviews, language portraits, and body mapping, the study traces how Ailyn’s everyday encounters produced both estrangement and pedagogical agency. Findings reveal that institutional exclusions adhered to her body as sticky emotions, but these residues catalyzed professional transformation. This work contributes to teacher education and critical disability studies by foregrounding dis/abled multilingual bodies as sites of affective knowledge, calling for emotionally responsive and socially just approaches to teacher identity and pedagogical development.

Author

• Jihea Maddamsetti, Old Dominion University