On languaging and communities: Latino/a emergent bilinguals' expansive learning and critical inquiries into global childhoods

Abstract

ABSTRACTYoung children in diverse urban contexts bring to school transnational knowledges, complex multilingual literacies, and cultural practices which reflect global mobility and the blended nature of their social worlds. For children such as the Latino first graders we have been working with for the past three years, their lived experiences do not easily align with one language or national affiliation. Our qualitative practitioner research study examines how emergent bilinguals in transnational contexts engage in critical inquiry through photographing and writing about their communities. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory, we explore how children's experiences in global neighborhood spaces – including their dynamic translanguaging practices and transnational histories – were an epistemic resource and a means of enacting agency. We suggest that translanguaging, as a cultural historical artifact, can help mediate children's critical inquiries into global childhoods.