Research and Practice in Transition: Improving Support and Advocacy of Transgender Middle School Students

In this essay, our purposes are to inspire particular avenues of future research addressing Transgender students, in middle school in particular, and to inform the professional development of teachers in support of these Transgender youth. In relation to the ways in which research can more authentically represent Transgender identity, we argue for the use of Transgender theory as a guiding framework for research addressing Transgender students, issues, and needs. We also describe the particular affordances of qualitative, ethnographic, and phenomenological studies in capturing the unique and highly personal experiences and realities of Transgender individuals, and specifically, in middle school. We then discuss how schools are structured socially and politically along heteronormative and cisnormative lines, presenting a stumbling block for Transgender rights advocacy in educational contexts. Finally, we review the potential of teachers to be the necessary educational change agents to spur greater understanding of and advocacy for students’ gender inclusivity

An Emergent Bilingual Child\u27s Multimodal Choices in Sociodramatic Play

In this case study, situated in a preschool classroom within an early childhood Spanish/English dual language programme, we examine how an emergent bilingual child engages with multimodal resources to participate in sociodramatic play discourses. Guided by sociocultural and critical discourse perspectives on multimodality, we analysed ways in which Anthony, a four-year-old emergent bilingual child, engaged in meaning-making during play through verbal, visual and actional modes and in conjunction with additional subcategories in his transmodal repertoire (e.g. translanguaging, sentence types, actual versus signified use of artefacts). Our results revealed differences in the ways Anthony engaged his verbal modes (e.g. monolingual languaging versus translanguaging; varying sentence types) together with actional and visual modes to accomplish adult-centric tasks versus creatively engaging in child-centric play. His translanguaging furthered his communication in tandem with the affordances of his visual and actional resources, depending on his play purposes and collaborators. Anthony’s case illustrates how emergent bilingual children access a variety of modes to participate in literate discourses in complex and varied ways. This article concludes with a discussion on the importance of thoroughly accounting for the contexts and multimodal supports in interactive learning spaces

Want Me to Show You? : Emergent Bilingual Preschoolers\u27 Multimodal Resourcing in Show-and-Tell Activity

In this study, we use a transmodal lens to investigate how emergent bilingual (EB) preschoolers employ diverse bodies of knowledge, modalities, and languaging practices to engage in show-and-tell presentations. We also investigate the role of translanguaging in support of children\u27s communication and interaction in this activity. Video data of show-and-tell activity in two dual language preschool classrooms were analyzed for the actional, verbal, and visual modes used by children as well as for features of their transmodal repertoire. Qualitative analyses revealed specific patterns in EB children\u27s employment of multimodal resources, in response to presentation purposes and show-and-tell routines and structures. Children\u27s translanguaging practices were flexible and supported their presentation purposes and participation across show-and-tell routines. Findings have implications for ways of facilitating show-and-tell and how teachers can promote students’ transmodal practices in support of their learning and engagement in this activity

Translated science textbooks in dual language programs: A comparative English-Spanish functional linguistic analysis

A comparative lexicogrammatical and logicosemantic systemic functional analysis of two third-grade science curricular units on the topic of "matter" written in Spanish is presented. One of these curricular units, translated from an English textbook, or "mirror text," is used in dual language programs (Spanish-English) in the United States; the other is used in regular elementary science for monolingual Spanish students in some Latin American countries, including Colombia and Venezuela. After a discussion on how standards-aligned textbooks contribute to the deskilling and further disenfranchising of teachers that corresponds to a neoliberal agenda for education, the cross-linguistic analysis reveals that while the mirror text reflected a knower-code structure preoccupied with the here and now and with building interpersonal affiliations, the authentic Spanish text was concerned with building knowledge codes related to global themes seeking to build disciplinary science knowledge. That is, by foregrounding English structure and curricular pacing, the use of translated or mirror texts in dual language programs (in this case translated Spanish versions of English regular textbooks) unintentionally but effectively served as a lexicogrammatical, semantic, and curricular straightjacket not only preventing students and teachers from making potential key meaningful connections between languages but calling into question the possibility of a real language separation

Internationalizations in two loci of enunciation: the South and Global North

This paper confrontsepistemological myopia todecolonizeacademic knowledge by exposingscholars’lociofenunciationto localize knowledge that are often taken as universal. In doing so, we reflect about the process of internationalization of higher education(IHE),from two different loci of enunciation--onein the Global South (UFES) andanotherin the Global North (FAU). Based onthe claim that language policies are closely related to internationalization actions/plans, and in the description of internationalization models in terms of the Traditional International Cooperation (TIC) model, characterized by competitive relations, and the Horizontal International Cooperation (HIC) model based on solidarity and international awareness, we analyzelanguage policies and internationalcooperation agreementsat UFES and at FAU as a window for reflectingabout the internationalization processes in these institutions. The analysis of language policies and international agreements at UFESsuggests a reactive and colonial nature of the internationalization process there, expressed in the number of agreements with institutions from the Global Northand in language policies and actions that privilege the use of English. The analysis of international cooperation agreements and language policies at FAU suggest that internationalization strategies are largely designed based on the university’s privileged position as an English-speaking institution located in the Global North. Taken together, overall results of the study suggest that despite the pitfalls, the partnership between UFES and FAU showspotential to forge inroads for more horizontalinternationalization models/relationships thus moving form a TIC to a HIC model of internationalization.Este artículo confronta la miopía epistemológica para descolonizar el conocimiento exponiendo los lugares de enunciacióndeacadémicospara localizarel conocimiento generalmente considerado universal. Discutimos el proceso de internacionalización de la educación superiordesde un locus de enunciacióndel Sur Global (UFES) y otro del Norte Global (FAU). Asumiendo que las políticas lingüísticas están estrechamente relacionadas con las acciones / planes de internacionalización y basadoen la descripción delproceso de internacionalización en términos del modelo de Cooperación Tradicional (CT), caracterizado por relaciones competitivas, y el modelo de Cooperación Horizontal internacional (CH) basado en la solidaridad internacional, nos centramos en las políticas lingüísticasyen los acuerdos de cooperación internacional de UFES y de FAU para analizarlos procesos de internacionalización en estas instituciones. El análisis de políticas lingüísticas y acuerdos internacionales de UFES sugiere una naturaleza reactiva y colonial del proceso de internacionalización expresada en la cantidad de acuerdos con instituciones del Norte Global y en políticas lingüísticas que favorecen el uso del inglés. El análisis de acuerdos de cooperación ypolíticas lingüísticas de FAU sugiere que las estrategias de internacionalización están en gran medida diseñadas en función de la posición privilegiada de la universidad como institución de habla inglesa ubicada en el Norte Global. Tomados en conjunto, los resultados sugieren que, a pesar de los desafíos, la relaciónentre UFES y FAU tiene potencial de allanar el camino para modelos / relaciones de internacionalización más críticos, pasando así de un modelo CT a un modelo I

Photography and Oral History as a Means of Chronicling the Homeless in Miami: The StreetWays Project

This article describes the use of Photography and Oral History research methods as part of a collaborative research project on homelessness in Miami. Issues involving the use of documentary photography and oral history as a means of creating greater social awareness in the general public are explored, as well as broader issues of Social Justice