This thesis by compendium presents results of a longitudinal ethnographic research in an after-school reading support program for children with diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires. The interest in exploring after-school contexts is based on several axes: their limited research despite their prevalence in the routines of many children, their potential to either reduce or reproduce social and educational inequalities and their potential to transgress and reorder hierarchies and norms that oftentimes structure many classrooms, promoting the emergence of other roles, practices and competences. The overall objective of the research is to explore the plurilingual practices and pluriliteracies that emerge in interactions within and beyond the after-school program, for a better comprehension of the linguistic repertoires, uses and competences that pupils display in spaces of non-formal education and socialization. To this end, a framework is proposed that articulates the theoretical and pedagogical principles of plurilingualism, pluriliteracies and translanguaging, incorporating also contributions from language socialization and the concepts of ‘transcaring’ and critical cosmopolitanism. In light of these principles, the ethnographic and interactional analysis of data shows the emergence of complex and fluid communicative and literacy practices in which the participants display a wide repertoire of plurilingual and multimodal resources around reading, for communicating and learning, while building shared meanings and experiences of plurilingual and transcultural socialization. The data also present the after-school program as a space in which children can foreground knowledge and skills that highlight their multiple competences. Along with questioning deficit-based categorizations of the linguistic practices and repertoires of students with diverse backgrounds, the results transgress and challenge monolingual, monomodal and monocultural views of language uses and learning. This questioning opens spaces for inclusive and potentially transformative pedagogical approaches that promote the incorporation, recognition and development of family languages, repertoires and plurilingual practices of all students, and the acknowledgement of other ways of being and doing. Understanding research from a collaborative, activist and transformative stance, and on the basis of the practices and competences of the participants, this thesis incorporates the design and implementation of a collaborative service-learning project with the aim of producing pedagogical resources that contribute to the emergence and development of the hybrid and diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires that many children bring with them, as legitimate assets for learning within the reading program. This service-learning project connects the after-school context with other educational milieus and agents, including primary education trainee teachers, in the design of plurilingual resources for and with the program participants. This collaboration promotes the generation of support networks between formal and non-formal educational contexts, the improvement of the after-school program in collaboration with its participants and the training of future teachers in the didactics of plurilingualism. This compendium is made up of four publications that describe different phases of this research, including the articulation of the theoretical framework, the ethnographic observation, the design and implementation of the collaborative project and the in-depth documentation of a case study. As a whole, the research aims to contribute to narrow the gap between the knowledge and skills that plurilingual pupils bring with them and display in their daily lives, and those that are valued in educational institutions, a mismatch that often impacts on the academic outcomes and trajectories of children from underprivileged backgrounds.
- Aftr-school programs
- Service-learnin
Plurilingual practices and pluriliteracies in an after-school reading program
Vallejo Rubinstein, C. C. (Author). 16 Mar 2022
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis