From Remembering to Repositioning: A Returning Youth’s Languaging of Memory, Belonging, and Future Possibility

• In Event: Critical Narratives From Carceral, Educational, and Community Contexts

Abstract

This study investigates how youth languaging practices support identity, belonging, and epistemic agency in informal community-based STEM learning. In the second year of the program, we focus on a returning youth who now serves as a peer mentor, using discourse analysis and sociolinguistic methods to explore how his participation has changed over time. Grounded in culturally sustaining pedagogy and (trans)languaging, this research treats language as a fluid, social, epistemic, and identity-forming process. Data include GoPro video recordings, reflections, and interviews. Findings show how Darian draws on past experiences, narrates present interactions, and imagines future possibilities through humor, storytelling, and emotional positioning. His talk repositions him as a relational peer and guide, enacting linguistically diverse ways of knowing in STEM discourse.

Authors

• Fatemeh Mozaffari, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Noemi Waight, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Ryan M. Rish, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Jennifer Tripp, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Stacy Scheuneman, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Finn Goehrig, University at Buffalo - SUNY