Translanguaging in Schools: Subiendo y Bajando, Bajando y Subiendo as Afterword

Abstract

ABSTRACTTranslanguaging pedagogies are considered here as mechanisms that work against the normalizing ideology of monolingual and monoglossic school language. In so doing, we consider how this restrictive view of school language and of language education policy has served to minoritize bilingual students and act as an instrument to exert “coloniality of power.” We start by describing the translanguaging theory that supports the translanguaging pedagogies to educate bilingual minoritized youth that this special issue highlights. We then focus on how translanguaging pedagogies liberate the students’ multilingualism and heteroglossic practices. Keeping with the title here of “subiendo y bajando, bajando y subiendo,” we consider the restrictions that are imposed by rigid language policies, as teachers who enact translanguaging pedagogies negotiate them. We also reflect on the potential and contestations of translanguaging in classrooms, both bilingual and not. We end by thinking about the work that still remains to be done.