“Everybody has to be with everybody”: Languaging relational and intellectual work with multilingual learners in a science class community

Abstract

Research has long underscored the centrality of relationships in education. In this article, we explore how relations are constituted through moment-to-moment classroom talk in one U.S. multilingual science classroom. Drawing on the theory of languaging relations, we explore how the teacher and his students collaboratively languaged relationships during classroom interaction. Through discourse analyses of interactional and interview data, we illustrate that the teacher languaged a fun, caring relationship with and among students through creating opportunities for humor, translanguaging care and critical love, and valuing students’ epistemic rights. The emotional, relationally engaging classroom talk created ways of being together that sustained the students’ learning of science content. Instead of viewing relationships shaping classroom interaction, we argue for a theorization of relationships as constituted through languaging, and classroom intellectual work as intertwined with relational encounters. We conclude the article with discussion of the implications of this theorization for research and practice.