Constructing identities: How two emergent bilinguals create linguistic agency in elementary school

Abstract

ABSTRACTEmergent bilinguals’ engagement and participation with learning is closely connected to the identities they are able to construct in this learning. In this paper, I present a model for understanding how young emergent bilinguals begin to construct identities with language and learning across school-based activities. Drawing upon Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner & Cain’s (1998) framework of how identities are shaped across figured worlds, and Nasir & Hand’s (2006, 2008) notion of practice-linked identities in school-based contexts, the model identifies the ways in which three components—context, subject positioning, and agency—play a critical role in how emergent bilinguals in a Spanish-English dual language, elementary school program begin to construct identities with learning and language. In juxtaposing the experiences of two emergent bilinguals, data highlights how these students used language in novel ways to assert a level of agency to become active participants in school-based activities.