Cuentos y Ciencia: Advancing Families' Scientific Habits of Mind via Dual-Language Narratives

• In Event: 32.083 - Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 32.083-4 - Curriculum and Pedagogy in Support of STEM Engagement Among Groups of Students That Have Been Historically Marginalized

Abstract

This paper describes the outcomes of a study in which we invited Latina mothers and their children, ages 4 – 10, to explore and discuss science concepts with each other in the context of a bilingual family literacy program at a public library in the U.S. South. In school, Latino/a cultural practices are seldom included in experiences that foster science and literacy learning. By contrast, the participants in this study engaged with Spanish/English dual-language picturebooks and with materials and topics familiar to the Latino culture in the local community as the foundation for entering into science experiments and conversations. Many contextualized their science learning relative to their cultural repertories. Assemblage theory guided our analysis of our corpus of data.

Authors

• Denise Davila, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Max Vazquez, University of Georgia

• Silvia C Nogueron-Liu, University of Colorado - Boulder