Socializing Language Identities: Schools as Socializing Spaces for Students' Linguistic Identity and Achievement

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-9 - Literacies and Linguistic Identities of Latina/o Students

Abstract

Theories of language socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986) and identity construction (Nasir & Cooks, 2009) are used to investigate how seven students in elementary school learning a second language of English and classified as English language learners are socialized through language in unique ways across two school communities. All students struggle to develop their English and subsequently construct a distant language identity, exiting elementary maintaining the linguistic labels first placed upon them when enrolled in the school district. Due to the ethnic and linguistic differences across the two schools, the paper discusses the unique ways students are socialized in school causing them to create distance with their language learning and their overall academic achievement.

Author

• Jennifer Marie Collett, Lehman College - CUNY