Expanding What Counts as Language for Latina/o Middle School Youth in Urban Schooling Contexts

• In Event: 63.081 - Language Policy for Social Justice: Challenging Educational Inequality for Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

Sociocultural language and literacy scholars have long exhorted educators to recognize and build upon the languages youth display across their everyday lives (Hull & Shultz, 2001). However, teachers have expressed concern over how to effectively build on the language resources of their students, particularly for emergent bilinguals and other speakers of non-dominant languages (Gándara, P. C., Maxwell-Jolly, J., & Driscoll, A., 2005). Since the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), teachers are charged more than ever with demonstrating student achievement via their performance on federal standardized assessments that privilege academic varieties of English (Menken, 2009). Given this restriction on language, English is treated as the only medium through which learning is measured (Menken, 2009).

This paper will present findings from research in a 7th grade middle school Humanities class where the teacher resisted narrow conceptions of language in her classroom (Authors, 2012). Working with our research team, she asked her mostly Latina/o middle school youth (which included former ELLs), to think about and reflect on the various ways they used language daily. Specifically, we documented the metalinguistic messages of these youth as they engaged in classroom discussions and writing activities about their linguistic repertoires. We asked, How do Latina/o middle school youth use their expansive understandings of language to mediate their academic tasks?

Framed within a sociocultural perspective on the relationship between home and school practices we build on research that documents youths’ ability to shift registers, styles, and modes (Alim, 2004). We also draw on scholarship that identifies continuities and discontinuities between home and school practices (Lee, 2007). Rather than trying to reconcile differences, as called for by earlier research that identified cultural “mismatches” (Au, 1980), we aim to leverage and level the language resources of non-dominant youth through an analysis of their discussions and writings about their languages. These perspectives also shed light on the various ways teachers can interpret policies in ways that expand what counts as language.

This research was conducted with Latina/o middle school youth and their teacher, Ms. Reyes, at Pueblo Unido Charter Academy, a middle school located in an urban Los Angeles community. Using a research design method (Brown, 1992) we worked with Ms. Reyes to design lessons that viewed the full linguistic resources of youth as a resource for learning and development (Cole, 1998). Data for this research were collected via ethnographic field notes, video-recorded data captured over an intensive 14-day unit, in addition to frequent visits to this classroom through out the entire academic year. Additionally, students participated in focus groups interviews.

The authors hope to contribute to a nuanced understanding of language that counters the standard language ideologies that mediate teacher’s interpretations of NCLB. Instead we hope to add to scholarship that displays the ingenuity (McDermott & Raley, 2011) of youth as they comment on the uses of their language, the reasons why they use specific “kinds” of language, and their reasoning about these ways with words in and out of schooling contexts.

Author

• Danny C. Martinez, University of California - Davis