Multicultural, Heritage and Learner Identities in Complementary Schools
By A. Creese, A. Bhatt, Nirmala Bhojani, Peter Martin. 2006
199 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In this paper we look at three identity positions salient in research of young people studying in complementary schools in Leicester, a large linguistically and ethnically diverse city in the East Midlands, England. Our discussion of identity focuses on three identity positions: multicultural, heritage and learner. The first two of these are linked to discussions on ethnicity as a social category. We explore the fluidity and stability of ethnicity as a social description in interview transcripts of young people at complementary schools. In addition, the paper explores another, more emergent identity salient in the two schools, that of ‘learner identity’. The research can be characterised as adopting a linguistic ethnographic approach using a team of ethnographers. Data was collected for 20 weeks by four researchers and consists of fieldnotes, interviews and audio recordings of classroom interactions. We consider the importance of ambiguity and certainty in students’ conceptualisation of themselves around ethnicity and linguistic diversity and look at the institutional role complementary schools play in the production of these and successful learner identities. We explore how complementary schools privilege and encourage these particular identity positionings in their endorsement of flexible bilingualism. Overall, we argue that complementary schools allowed the children a safe haven for exploring ethnic and linguistic identities while producing opportunities for performing successful learner identity.
Subfields: Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2cc307ed55fa59e188612adb8d3b9f51d88e659
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Citations in the corpus
- Separate and flexible bilingualism in complementary schools: Multiple language practices in interrel (2011, unknown): “All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.006 (Martin et al., 2004, 2006; Creese et al., 2006a,b).”
- Bilingual Literacies, Social Identification, and Educational Trajectories. (2007, background): “The opportunity narrative was so prevalent at the school that it became what Creese, Bhatt, Bhojani, & Martin (2006) call a prominent institutional discourse that provided important cultural resources for student identity formation.”