Radicalizing Literacies and Languaging

A Framework toward Dismantling the Mono-Mainstream Assumption

Alexandra Babino, Mary Amanda Stewart

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030561376
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030561383
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book names and confounds the mono-mainstream assumption that invisibly frames much research, the ideologies that normalize monolingualism, monoculturalism, monoliteracy, mononationalism, and/or monomodal ways of knowing. In its place, the authors propose multi- and trans- lenses of these phenomena steeped in a raciolinguistic perspective on Bourdieu's reflexive sociology to move toward a more accurate, multidimensional view of racialized peoples' literacy and language practices. To achieve this, they first engage in a comprehensive review of literacies, languaging, and a critical sociocultural framework. Then, the distinct testimonios of four women underscore this framework in practice, followed by action steps for research, policy, and pedagogy. This book will be of particular interest to literacy and language education researchers. 

     

© The Author(s) 2020

A. Babino, M. A. StewartRadicalizing Literacies and Languaginghttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56138-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Dismantling the Mono-Mainstream Assumption

Alexandra Babino¹ and Mary Amanda Stewart²

(1)

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, TX, USA

(2)

Department of Literacy and Learning, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA

Alexandra Babino

Email: [email protected]

Mary Amanda Stewart (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

RadicalizeComplex truthsArmed loveTransformative justiceLiteraciesLanguagingMono-mainstream assumption

End Abstract

Radicalize: To examine the roots in order to adopt an extreme position (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2020). That is what we purpose to do with the dynamic constructs, literacies and languaging—to examine the roots by reviewing their operation in the literature to develop a more comprehensive view. We also aim to conduct research with a radicalized purpose, by adopting an extreme position in naming and examining the struggle for all to be treated more fully human. At the crossroads of literacy and language research, we imagine literacy research to be potentially powerful, as it allows us to perceive previously hidden or misunderstood ways of sending and receiving meaning, and language research to be conceivably dynamic, as it delves into the sophisticated and ingenious ways that represent the depth and breadth of who we are as individual and social beings. We further believe that literacy and language research has many untapped capacities to effect change in our worlds. In turn, we endeavor to highlight the best across fields in order to galvanize literacy and language research for transformative change. Through this process, we trace the roots of each field by historicizing key work and then take these collective projects to the extreme of what’s considered “mainstream”. Together, we can create an extraordinary discourse that dismantles the inhumane and (re)creates more liberated people and systems. In fact, the collective work of literacy and language research can remodel our praxis with the three-fold mission of seeking complex truth(s) ¹ with armed love (Freire, 1998), leading to transformative justice.

First, we believe literacy and language research collectively reveal complex truth(s) of our social worlds, as they shine light on intricate social realities in the past and the present through multiple modalities and language varieties. From picket signs, to Twitter hashtags, community practices, and school-sanctioned (and banned) literatures, each act of sending and receiving meaning across modalities and places is indicative of people’s experiences and understanding of truth. In these spaces, literacy and language research can include the unique expression of these truth(s) as well as a humble response to a multiplicity of lived experiences of those facts—especially those historically marginalized. This research can then interrogate and bear witness to what society perceives as truth for various communities. “Black² lives matter”, “blue lives matter”, and “all lives matter” are just a few contemporary examples that speak to this jarring and consequential complexity. Still, we believe it is woefully insufficient to merely acknowledge complex truth(s); instead, once we more perceptively view ourselves and others’ literacies and languaging, we must also work with and for marginalized communities (Villenas, 2019) with armed love.

Armed love is a Freirean (1998) term that denotes how our practice, in this case, literacy and language research, is an act of love toward others and ourselves as the oppressed and oppressor over multiple contexts (Lyiscott, 2019). We firmly assert that love is not merely a feeling, but an action of amplifying and arming, in order to work with individuals so they have the agency to act on their own behalf within society (Darder, 2017; hooks, 2018). It follows the sensibility “if I care for others, then I will act” and “if I care for others, I am more concerned about the impact of my actions than on my intent.” Thus, it builds on Freire’s (1970) earlier work of critical consciousness (naming tensions and acting), as love becomes the root motivator and sustainer: armed love is seeing, feeling, and acting with mind (Boveda & Bhattacharya, 2019), heart, and behaviors at all levels of our literacy and language research.

Transformative justice is a term we use to denote how literacy and language scholarship can work toward equity for the marginalized and potentially transform relationships, institutions, and systems to be more fully human. Our use of transformative justice is largely informed by critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970) and connected to liberatory, emancipatory, and democratic education (McLaren, 2000; Shor & Freire, 1987) with humanizing pedagogies (Bartolomé, 1994; Salazar, 2013; Valenzuela, 1999), amidst systems of oppression based on the “conjoined twins” of racism and capitalism (Kendi, 2019, p. 156). In turn, justice must affect change in society—it must transform the status quo at all levels. It is multiscalar in scope (Duff, 2019) and materialist in praxis (Flores & Chaparro, 2018) in righting wrongs for those historically minoritized, but it is also potentially transformative for those who are historically majoritized, as they see themselves and others as more fully human and act in ways that reflect this view of humanity (Freire & Macedo, 1987). Thus, complex truth(s) and armed love allow us to acknowledge how we can be both the oppressed and the oppressor and choose to reflect on our actions, so that we can change our practice–no matter the combination of roles we carry and contexts we traverse (Bacon, 2015; Collins, 2002). This powerful act can lead to transformative justice in our worlds, requiring us to adopt particular stances in our research–that race, history, language, and justice all matter in order to be transformational (Winn, 2018).

Sociopolitical Context

Considering we consume and produce literacy and language research in the contexts in which we live, it is necessary for us to explore intersecting societal norms and shifts, accompanied by their affordances and challenges. Furthermore, since literacy and language research, including how people use literacy and language, is deeply connected to power structures (hooks, 2014), cultural practices (Street, 1995), and even our physical world (Darder, 2017), it is incumbent upon researchers to practice critical consciousness (Freire, 1970) in our work. This involves awareness, complemented by action, of what is more easily left in the shadows. Such shadows include the growing acceptance of inequalities (Tienda, 2017) such as income disparities and performance gaps that strongly contribute to academic opportunity inequities (Autor, 2014; Ladson-Billings, 2006). School segregation is another shadow (Orfield, Ee, Frankenberg, & Siegel-Hawley, 2016), often created through gerrymandering attendance zones (Richards, 2014). This disproportionately harms Students of Color at much higher rates than white students, by placing them in schools with fewer resources and opportunities for advanced coursework, and highly qualified staff (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2016). Despite decades of educational research and activism to combat these issues, the aforementioned inequities remain the status quo and have even recently intensified.

Indeed, many students from (im)migrant³ families face a growing sense of disparity and trauma due to mounting xenophobia in the media, their communities, and schools (Crandall, Miller, & White, 2018; Hooghe & Dassonneville, 2018). In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed over 10,000 K-12 U.S. educators and found that 90% of them believed that the 2016 presidential election had a negative impact in schools, naming the “Trump Effect” as the measured impact the 45^th president of the U.S. has created, resulting in the heightened antagonism many minoritized people encounter, even in schools. Additionally, approximately 20% of educators surveyed reported an increase in anxiety for their (im)migrant, Muslim, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and African American students. A similar study conducted by the Human Rights Campaign (2017) surveyed over 50,000 adolescents and found that more than 70% had witnessed bullying or hate acts since the 2016 election, with 79% reporting a belief that such harassment had increased since the election. In light of this particular historical moment, educational researchers may interrupt this negative discourse and its effects by fostering spaces (Jang & Kim, 2018) for students to engage in critical literacies across their languages (Heiman & Yanes, 2018; Kim, 2016), while adopting a stance that aims to see people for who they are and who they can become.

However, spurring a view of diverse individuals as fully agentive changemakers is complicated by a national neoliberal logic that espouses principles of individual hard work and meritocracy in a free-market (Apple, 2006; De Lissovoy, 2015). At the macro-level, this thinking follows that if individuals have school choice, then competition will create better schools and more well-prepared students (Klein, 2007). At the micro-level this plays out in individuals’ subjectivities in their reasoning for school and student “failure”, with such thinking as “she didn’t try hard enough” and a need to develop more grit (Golden, 2017). This call for personal freedom to choose both schools and success in life fails to acknowledge the nefarious social histories that account for current inequalities (Flores, 2013; Weis & Fine, 2012). Thus,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Dismantling the Mono-Mainstream Assumption
• 2. Literacies
• 3. Languaging
• 4. Critical Sociocultural Lens
• 5. Mia: A Passionate Pre-Service Bilingual Teacher
• 6. Angélica: A Spanish/English Dual Language Graduate
• 7. Carmen Elvira: An Adult ESL Student (and Teacher) Newly Arrived from Mexico
• 8. Chitra: A 2nd-Generation Persian Teacher in a Spanish/English Dual Language Class
• 9. A Critical Sociocultural Cross-Case Analysis
• 10. Radical Response That Challenges the Status Quo
• Back Matter