Words unspoken: The radical pursuit of culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogical documentation (Chapter 7 from Affirming the Rights of Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Children and Families Interweaving Research and Practice through the Reggio Emilia Approach)
Editor
Brenda Fyfe, Yim Lam Lee-Johnson, Juana Reyes, Geralyn (Gigi) Schroeder Yu
Files
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Description
Having worked in neighborhoods known as ports of entry for immigrant and refugee children and families in Chicago, the authors learned that for immigrant and refugee communities, documentation holds a very different meaning. That is, having documentation implies having papeles to be in the United States. Consequently, documentation in the form of assessment and evaluation in school settings for immigrant and refugee children has been about defining who they are and who they are not using a monoglossic ideology that embraces what is termed in recent years academic English. This yields English spoken by whites as the default, the normal as it others, devalues, and labels emergent bi- and multilingual children as being deficient, at risk, and deviating from the norm. Therefore, using terms such as English proficient, English learners, and English language learners are rooted in the desire to uphold English as the norm. In their work on polylanguaging, other researchers emphasize the fluidity of language as they challenge the widely held notion that languages are separate entities. They take exception to the notion that languages can be counted, e.g. I speak two languages: French and German. Perhaps the concept of polylanguaging invites us to consider the dynamic and fluid nature of language and to abandon the antiquated notion that languages are independent and static. In the traditional view of languages, there is a hierarchy of languages in which many languages are seen as less than others or completely unrecognized as languages.
ISBN
9781032267340
Publication Date
7-6-2023
Publisher
Routledge
City
Abingdon, UK
Disciplines
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education | Early Childhood Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
Recommended Citation
Reyes, Juana M. and Yu, Gigi Schroeder, "Words unspoken: The radical pursuit of culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogical documentation (Chapter 7 from Affirming the Rights of Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Children and Families Interweaving Research and Practice through the Reggio Emilia Approach)" (2023). Education Faculty Books/Book Chapters. 4.
https://digitalcommons.lewisu.edu/education_fac-books/4
