Translanguaging and Learning Stories in preschool: Supporting language rights and social justice for Latinx children, families, and educators

Abstract

This article focuses on elements of successful sociocultural inclusion and linguistic participation in a bilingual dual-language preschool for Latinx children. It presents a subset of findings from a three-year qualitative research project in which Latinx critical race theory and a translanguaging framework were used to illuminate critical intersections between children's funds of knowledge, their translanguaging talents, and their interests in play and social interaction. Learning Stories served as both the focus for documentation and the unit of analysis for understanding children's translanguaging experiences, as well as for promoting new forms of authentic assessment for family engagement.