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.