Young Children as Storytellers: Reframing Mobility, Multilingualism, and Transnational Childhoods

• In Event: Critical Counter-Narratives as Transformative Praxis in Urban Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Objective
English hegemony and monolingual ideologies, along with a long-standing history of viewing immigrant children through deficit-based perspectives, continue to marginalize immigrant children and silence their voices in U.S. K-12 classrooms. These learning environments, particularly in today’s dehumanizing sociopolitical climate, lead many transnational children to turn away from learning and maintaining their heritage language and culture (Author, 2022). This is especially true for those living in predominantly white states or areas with limited access to multilingual resources, world language classes, and ethnic enclaves. Given that the number of children from transnational and multilingual families is only projected to increase and thus change school demographics, it is crucial for educational researchers to document the complex lives and literacies of children from transnational families, as well as the rich knowledge, skills, and experiences that can be incorporated into both formal and informal settings as meaningful assets.
This paper focuses on a heritage language class designed, led, and taught by Author 1 at a community-based heritage language (CBHL) school in Michigan, where transnational children of Korean heritage (ages 5-8) were positioned as storytellers. In this year-long Korean heritage language class, the transnational children not only learned their heritage language and culture but also participated in an array of storytelling projects, ranging from conducting oral history interviews with people meaningful to them to creating their own books. Drawing on the data collected from the year-long project, this study addresses the following questions: 1) What can we learn about the lives of transnational children of Korean heritage through the stories they share in a virtual heritage learning space designed to position them as storytellers? 2) How do these children draw on their transnational funds of knowledge and linguistic repertoires as they engage in storytelling?
Conceptual Framework
This study is informed by the concepts of transnational funds of knowledge (Compton-Lilly et al., 2019; González et al., 2005; Moll et al., 1992; Author 1 et al., 2019) and translanguaging (García & Li, 2014). Moll et al (1992) define funds of knowledge as “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (p. 133). Transnational children’s funds of knowledge include, but are not limited to, the ability to flexibly cross languages, an acute awareness of multiple cultures and countries, and the ability to express their perspectives using various named languages, linguistic features, and modes (Compton-Lilly et al., 2019; Sánchez & Kasun, 2012).
This study is also informed by the notion of translanguaging (García & Li, 2014). Translanguaging refers to the ways bilinguals flexibly draw on their unitary repertoire of named languages, linguistic features, and modes to engage in meaning-making (García & Kleifgen, 2019). It calls for researchers and practitioners to “disrupt the naturalized stable boundaries of what are traditionally understood as languages, bilingualism, language education, and language learners” (García & Kleifgen, 2019, p. 4).
Methods and Data Sources
This paper is part of a larger year-long study that employed a case study approach (Dyson & Genishi, 2005). Various qualitative data sources were collected, including parent questionnaires, class recordings, and child-generated artifacts. The online class in which seven children (ages 5-9) were enrolled was observed and recorded. Each class lasted for 120 minutes, and 27 classes were recorded and transcribed. The artifacts included the focal children’s drawings, the books they authored, the slides they created, and the stories they wrote.
Findings and Significance
The findings illustrate how transnational children’s stories about their complex and unique mobile and transnational experiences complicate and reframe existing knowledge around mobility and transnational childhoods. The study also highlights how the children enacted agency and engaged in translanguaging as they meaningfully created and shared their stories. These findings serve as critical counternarratives that challenge deficit-oriented discourses surrounding transnational children and their bilingual practices, and they contribute to envisioning transformative praxis for supporting transnational children in sustaining their heritage language and culture.
References
Author, 2022
Compton-Lilly, C., Kim, J., Quast, E., Tran, S., & Shedrow, S. (2019). The emergence of
transnational awareness among children in immigrant families. Journal of Early
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González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in
households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge.
Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (2004). On the case: Approaches to language and literacy research.
Teachers College Press.
García, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. New
York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
García, O., & Kleifgen, J. A. (2019). Translanguaging and literacies. Reading Research
Quarterly, 55(4),553-571.
Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching:
Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice,
31(2), 132-141.
Sánchez, P., & Kasun, G. S. (2012). Connecting transnationalism to the classroom and to theories of immigrant student adaptation. Berkely Review of Education, 3(1), 71-93.

Authors

• Jungmin Kwon, Michigan State University

• Patricia A. Edwards, Michigan State University