Learning to Teach Inclusively in Bilingual Education: A “Toma-y-Daca” Dance for Permeable Biliteracy Spaces

• In Event: Instructional Practices for Multilingual Learners with Disabilities

Abstract

Objectives
Learning in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) poses advantages for multilinguals (e.g., Umansky & Reardon 2014) and is important for multilingual children with disabilities (MLwDs), but they tend to be in restrictive language contexts (Author, 2019). We need teacher education models to explore inclusive possibilities (Author, 2020). We investigated permeability in Varied Ways of Reading (VWR), a semester-long afterschool program for MLwDs working with BPSTs and in-service teachers, asking:
(1) How did the VWR afterschool project evolve as participating BPSTs and in-service teachers facilitated weekly learning spaces with MLwDs?
(2) How were aspects of inclusive bilingual education negotiated as the BPSTs and in-service teachers worked in the VWR?

Perspective(s)
We employ Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) where learning is an artifact-mediated effort along Zones of Proximal Development or ZPDs (Vygotsky, 1978). For Vygotsky mediated learning took place as individuals took action, but this unit of analysis has recently been situated at the collective level across activity systems (Engeström, 2011). As individuals work together, they encounter historically rooted tensions provoking individuals to act to find new ways of working (Engeström, 2000). In a CHAT context, we use the construct of figured world as a “constructed realm of interpretation” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 52). By engaging our social imagination (Greene, 1995), we can collectively destabilize traditional figured worlds toward respectful directions (Holland et al., 1998)

Methods
This social design research (Gutiérrez, 2016), included three in-service teachers and eight BPSTs in exploring reading with 15 multilingual children. All but one with disabilities (i.e., Learning disability, language impairment, and orthopedic impairment).

Data Sources
Data included children’s VWR creations. One-hour reflective meetings with BPSTs and in-service teachers and two-hour planning meetings with BPSTs weekly that were audio-recorded and weekly learning notes.

The CHAT-based analysis involved identifying tensions/actions and tracing these back to activity system rules, artifacts, or division of labor, and gained inspiration from the shift of literacy event to literacy-as-event (Burnett & Merchant, 2020).

Results and/or substantiated conclusions
We identified the overarching theme of the “toma-y-daca” (give-and-take). This is the agentive give-and-take strategy and action-based discussion process, involving hard bargaining and mutual concessions present across activity systems to negotiate what it meant to teach inclusively. An example took place as we considered taking the children into their community for biliteracy development. Amalia, a BPST, expressed, “I am scared of being there with kids […] a lot of people use drugs [...] It is a safety issue.” Different BPSTs offered similar deficit-oriented views.

The study revealed that perspectives shifted after a session centering the community when Nuria, a VWR girl expressed, “they're happy [...] they’re enjoying their lives”. The BPSTs eventually realized that children already belonged in their resourceful community.

Significance
This study shows afterschool programs can contribute to teachers’ learning, illustrating Dr. Winn’s idea of “futuring for education and education research” where we can imagine together how the impossible can become plausible (2026 AERA Theme).

Authors

• Patricia Martínez-Álvarez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Belinda Arana, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Kitty Conlon Macías, Teachers College, Columbia University