Shifting Identities: The Figured World of One Adolescent Immigrant English Learner

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching, Learning, and Identity: Lessons From the Experiences of English Language Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to examine the complex nature of identity construction of one adolescent Mexican-American immigrant English Learner (EL) through the frame of figured world theory (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, 1998). To do so, we explore the question: How does one adolescent Mexican-American immigrant EL, Mario, construct his identity, as he invokes different subject positions in relation to diverse social contexts? We highlight how Mario differently performs within the figured world of his ESL classroom: at various times as a model student, other times as a student of color challenging his white teacher’s authority, and yet other times, as a disruptive and uncooperative student, who missed class regularly, because he did not want to “miss out on life.”

Authors

• Corrine M. Wickens, Northern Illinois University

• James Cohen, Northern Illinois University