Reconceptualizing what counts as language and learning in bilingual children with disabilities

Abstract

In this paper, I present a case study of one representative bilingual student who is required to embody a fixed identity that situates him as learning disabled in a socially induced process in his classroom. This case study is situated in a two-year ethnographic study with 138 first-grade dual language learners. The study interpretations draw on frameworks of disability studies and poststructuralist feminine queer theory. Data collected include audio files from class sessions, children’s oral stories, children’s collages and digital products, and exit interviews with children and teachers. Findings surfacing from this student’s story show that cameras can be used as a semiotic tool to stimulate culturally grounded dialogues. Furthermore, the data indicate that a perspective of multicompetence stimulates agentive manifestations, and in particular manifestations of relational agency in creativity, criticality, and translanguaging. Teacher implications are presented at the end of the paper.