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- Sociology of Children and Childhood, Anthropology of Children and Childhood, Education, Ethnography, Mindfulness, Contemplative Practices, and 15 moreLanguage Education, Literacy, Educational Anthropology, Immigration, Immigration Studies, Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Anthropology, Children and Families, Children's Play, Children and Youth, Informal Learning, Transformative Education, Languages and Linguistics, Bilingual Education, and Teacher Educationedit
- Marjorie Elaine (formerly Marjorie Faulstich Orellana) is Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Informati... moreMarjorie Elaine (formerly Marjorie Faulstich Orellana) is Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Associate Vice Provost of the International Institute at UCLA. Her research centers on the experiences of immigrant youth in urban schools and communities, including as language and cultural brokers for their families. She is the author of Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth and Cultures (Rutgers University Press, 2009), Immigrant Children in Transcultural Spaces: Language, Learning and Love (Routledge, 2016), Mindful Ethnography: Mind, Heart, and Activity for Transformative Social Research, and a co-edited volume (with Inmaculada García-Sánchez): Language and Cultural Processes in Communities and Schools: Bridging Learning for Students from Non-Dominant Groups (Routledge, 2019). She has also published in an interdisciplinary array of journals including American Anthropologist, Harvard Educational Review, Social Problems, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Reading Research Quarterly, and Linguistics in Education. She was a bilingual classroom teacher in Los Angeles from 1983 to 1993.edit
This is the pre-press version of the introduction to a book that has now been published.
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This manuscript reports on an educational project that was designed to closely link educational theory and practice – or mind, heart, culture, and activity - in a community-engagement course on sociocultural learning theory and... more
This manuscript reports on an educational project that was designed to closely link educational theory and practice – or mind, heart, culture, and activity - in a community-engagement course on sociocultural learning theory and ethnographic research. Students attended seminars at the university where they read and engaged with theory together, and then worked and played with youth in an after-school program at an urban elementary school. They wrote field notes about their experiences, to which the instructional team read and responded. Building on prior work by García-Romero and Martínez-Lozano (2022), we show how these field notes functioned as mediational devices to connect theory and practice and to deepen students’ reflective stances. We identify patterned ways in how students connected theory and practice as revealed through an analysis of field notes written across three quarters of instruction. Moreover, we draw implications for undergraduate education that seeks to bridge the theory-practice divide and to better integrate mind, heart, culture, and activity for transformative educational practice. We suggest how students’ animated, relational, connected, heart-felt, embodied engagement with children at the club and with each other was important for their willingness to engage with theory as well as to their ways of understanding it, with the aim of contributing to debates about the role of theory in transformative action in the world (e.g., Somekh & Nissen, 2011).
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We examine the learning experiences expressed in the diaries of thirty-five families from diverse ethnicities/races, cultures, national origins, and social classes living in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring... more
We examine the learning experiences expressed in the diaries of thirty-five families from diverse ethnicities/races, cultures, national origins, and social classes living in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring participants' reflections on the learning they engaged in during this time and attending to what families prioritized as they reorganized their daily lives, the authors identify several common themes that emerged as participants figured out new ways of "reinventing themselves" during this unprecedented time by centering their cultural heritage, creativity, health, well-being, and connections to nature and to others and by using technology in creative and innovative ways. In offering the life lessons and richness of learning the families experienced as a counter to the current focus on pandemic learning loss, this study has implications for reimagining education in culturally sustaining ways.
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At Last W h a t's t h e P rob l e m ? Co n s t r u c t i n g Different Ge nres for t h e St u dy of En g l i s h Le a r n e r s In our previous "At Last" essay, "The 'Problem' of English Learners: Constructing... more
At Last W h a t's t h e P rob l e m ? Co n s t r u c t i n g Different Ge nres for t h e St u dy of En g l i s h Le a r n e r s In our previous "At Last" essay, "The 'Problem' of English Learners: Constructing Genres of Difference" (Gutiérrez & Orellana, 2006), we identified a predictable genre that characterizes much research on English Learners. We noted how the genre may unwittingly perpetuate deficit constructions and keep us from identifying other issues for redress—such as structural and institutional inequali-ties that create the vulnerability of non-dominant students in schools and society. This may aggravate the disenfranchisement that these groups already experience. But we recognize that it is easier to deconstruct genres than to construct new ones, and to name problems than to propose solutions. We also recognize that resisting dominant frameworks requires concerted and deliberate efforts, as well as models for how to do so. The more diffi...
Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 4 October/November/December 1995 ?1995 International Reading Association (pp. 674-708) Marjorie Faulstich Orellana University of California, Berkeley, USA Literacy as a gendered social practice:... more
Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 4 October/November/December 1995 ?1995 International Reading Association (pp. 674-708) Marjorie Faulstich Orellana University of California, Berkeley, USA Literacy as a gendered social practice: Tasks, texts, talk, and take-up ...
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The majority of the existing research on youth and technology has focused on physical access, computer-related skills, or student attitudes. Less is known about the social and cultural aspects of young people's interactions with... more
The majority of the existing research on youth and technology has focused on physical access, computer-related skills, or student attitudes. Less is known about the social and cultural aspects of young people's interactions with technology. However, understanding how youth use technology and the different factors that affect these uses can help us capitalize on students' strengths. Using survey and ethnographic data, this study is intended to contribute to a better understanding of youths' interactions with technology. Participants in the study were Latino immigrant students (fifth- and sixth-graders) from an elementary school located in a large metropolis in the United States. Results provide both an overall picture of the youths' technological practices as well as a deeper look at the ways in which engaging with technology was valuable and meaningful for them.
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Using survey and observational data, children's contributions to households in a Mexican immigrant community in Chicago are examined. Children provide essential help to their families, including translating, interpreting, and caring... more
Using survey and observational data, children's contributions to households in a Mexican immigrant community in Chicago are examined. Children provide essential help to their families, including translating, interpreting, and caring for siblings. These daily life activities shape possibilities for learning and development.
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EJ879574 - Developing Academic Identities: Persuasive Writing as a Tool to Strengthen Emergent Academic Identities.
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This article provides a critical review of the interdisciplinary literature on child language brokering (CLB), employing a Bakhtinian translinguistic perspective. The extant literature isolates the child language broker as a particular... more
This article provides a critical review of the interdisciplinary literature on child language brokering (CLB), employing a Bakhtinian translinguistic perspective. The extant literature isolates the child language broker as a particular kind of vulnerable speaking subject, without regard to the ways in which ideologies of language shape cross-generational linguistic exchanges in zones of cultural contact. Broader attention to bilingual communicative repertoires is also absent. We plot a new course for this area of study by considering the relationships between language brokering and other aspects of bilingual communicative practice such as codeswitching and bivalency. The data examined include transcript excerpts from video recordings of rehearsals and enactments of improvised skits that feature CLBs' experiences of brokering events. The enactments doubled as metalinguistic and metapragmatic performances that simultaneously drew upon situated competencies and displayed dominant language ideologies. Enactments also afforded play frames of interaction that conferred authority to peers (authority that is absent in actual situated instances of cross-generational exchanges). Our analyses acknowledge child language brokers' simultaneous identities and consider the relationships among differing forms of translanguaging by tracking instances when youths enacted particular language-ideological assumptions either to shore up or to dissolve boundaries.
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... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/15210960.2011.594387 Inmaculada M. García–Sánchez a , Marjorie Faulstich Orellana b & ... The teacher made the tests the subject (her “math tests…don't show me what I... more
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/15210960.2011.594387 Inmaculada M. García–Sánchez a , Marjorie Faulstich Orellana b & ... The teacher made the tests the subject (her “math tests…don't show me what I know she knows”) and distanced María from any ...
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In this manuscript we report on a curriculum design project in which we worked with students in an urban immigrant community to study their own language practices in different contexts. We gathered videotaped data of students in the... more
In this manuscript we report on a curriculum design project in which we worked with students in an urban immigrant community to study their own language practices in different contexts. We gathered videotaped data of students in the classroom as well as videos they took of their language practices in other settings. We focus on one student's engagement in this project, and ask how he uses language as a communicative tool in two different activity settings: filling out a form at home with his father, and filling out a form at school. We ...
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This mixed-method study assessed the nature of language brokering and the relationship between language brokering and prosocial capacities in a sample of 139 college students from ethnically diverse immigrant families. The prosocial... more
This mixed-method study assessed the nature of language brokering and the relationship between language brokering and prosocial capacities in a sample of 139 college students from ethnically diverse immigrant families. The prosocial capacities of interest were empathic concern and two forms of perspective-taking: general perspective-taking (understanding the perspectives of others) and transcultural perspective-taking (understanding of divergent cultural values). As predicted, structural equation modeling identified a significant pathway from language brokering for parents to skill in transcultural perspective-taking. We illustrated this pathway with a qualitative case study. We also identified a significant bidirectional relationship between language brokering for others (e.g., other relatives, friends) and empathic concern. The experience of language brokering for others develops empathic concern; at the same time, those with higher levels of empathic concern broker more for peopl...
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This article examines how immigrant adolescent development is shaped by the cultural and linguistic practice of language brokering. Framed by theories on interdependent/independent developmental scripts, the changing experiences and views... more
This article examines how immigrant adolescent development is shaped by the cultural and linguistic practice of language brokering. Framed by theories on interdependent/independent developmental scripts, the changing experiences and views of 12 Latino/a children of U.S. immigrants over 5 years were analyzed. It was found that translating is a relational, interdependent activity in which adolescents both help and receive help from family members. As adolescents, they extend this helping orientation beyond their household, but in these public spaces, they sometimes meet up with other developmental scripts. This article's examination of brokering's effects on immigrant adolescence leads to the discussion that one must consider the manner in which all adolescents and parents are negotiating independent and interdependent worlds.
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In this article we offer a new look at the dynamic nature of teaching and learning as we investigate everyday language-brokering events in immigrant families. We consider how children and adult interlocutors collaborate in the... more
In this article we offer a new look at the dynamic nature of teaching and learning as we investigate everyday language-brokering events in immigrant families. We consider how children and adult interlocutors collaborate in the construction of knowledge and examine language-brokering activities as socially situated learning tasks that take place in dynamic zones of proximal development in which knowledge and authority are dynamically reassigned among participants. We present a mixed-method analysis of everyday cognition entailed in language brokering engaged in by three children from Mexican families living in the Midwestern United States. [Zone of Proximal Development, language brokering, bilingualism, childhood]
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The authors consider how the National Early Literacy Panel’s decision to focus on identifying precursors to “conventional” literacy skills shaped the questions asked, conclusions drawn, and take-home message of the panel’s 2008 report.... more
The authors consider how the National Early Literacy Panel’s decision to focus on identifying precursors to “conventional” literacy skills shaped the questions asked, conclusions drawn, and take-home message of the panel’s 2008 report. They suggest that this approach may keep the field of literacy research from seeing and valuing other kinds of “head starts”—including ones that are better aligned with the broad, flexible, transcultural literacy skills that will be demanded in the future. The authors call on the field to learn from the experiences of children from nondominant groups to build a more comprehensive model of literacy development.
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In May, 2011 the first author posted a series of essays on The Huffington Post, an online news media outlet. These columns were written in response to the passage of Arizona's SB 1070, which authorized law enforcement officers to... more
In May, 2011 the first author posted a series of essays on The Huffington Post, an online news media outlet. These columns were written in response to the passage of Arizona's SB 1070, which authorized law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of ...
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Research funded by the Center for the Improvement of Reading Education, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood, and the Institute of Human Development at the University of California... more
Research funded by the Center for the Improvement of Reading Education, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood, and the Institute of Human Development at the University of California Berkeley. Paper originally presented at the ...
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EJ631861 - Se Hace Camino al Andar: Reflections on the Process of Pre-Service Teacher Inquiry.
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ED372633 - Negotiating Power: Critical Literacy Practices in a Bilingual Classroom.
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From the window in Camilo's third-floor apartment building in central Los Angeles, California, you can read thou sands of words. There are signs for dozens of stores and businesses, posters and advertise ments in storefront windows,... more
From the window in Camilo's third-floor apartment building in central Los Angeles, California, you can read thou sands of words. There are signs for dozens of stores and businesses, posters and advertise ments in storefront windows, and handmade ads for ...
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EJ761635 - The "Problem" of English Learners: Constructing Genres of Difference.
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APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
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For many years, research on bilingualism operated within a monoglossic norm, treating language forms as separated into speakers, contexts or topics/domains. The foundational scholarship on bilingualism assumed that "second" language... more
For many years, research on bilingualism operated within a monoglossic norm, treating language forms as separated into speakers, contexts or topics/domains. The foundational scholarship on bilingualism assumed that "second" language development was layered onto "first" language development, and that there was a clear delineation between the two. It sought to identify a linear and universal path to bilingualism (Cummins,1989), akin to that identified for general language development (e.g. Nelson, 1989). This research also treated language acquisition as separate from other aspects of psychosocial growth.
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In this article we embrace the call that Flores and Lewis (this issue) put forth for situating research on linguistic "super-diversity" within particular historical, cultural and social contexts, challenging monolingual norms, and... more
In this article we embrace the call that Flores and Lewis (this issue) put forth for situating research on linguistic "super-diversity" within particular historical, cultural and social contexts, challenging monolingual norms, and acknowledging ideological forces that drive the "sociopolitical emergence" of particular language practices. Using ethnographic and audiotaped data, we explore emergent linguistic practices in an after-school program in Los Angeles that in important ways both mimics and amplifies the diverse migration flows that characterize super-diversity. Focusing on linguistic interactions in this site, we question the tendency in research on super-diversity to celebrate trans-lingual practices without consideration of power relations, including locally specific ideologies of language as manifested in both explicit and implicit forms. We examine linguistic practices that emerged and took shape as new members entered our space, identifying translingual and transcultural compe-tencies that participants displayed as they "read" the local context and made choices about what language forms to utilize. We suggest that these may be largely unrecognized skills that are cultivated in contexts of super-diversity. At the same time, we sound a warning note about the constricted nature of the forms of language that came to predominate in this space. Finally, we highlight practices that were designed to disrupt hegemonic notions of language, support linguistic flexibility, and capitalize on the possibilities that super-diverse linguistic and cultural contexts offer.
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Page 1. Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 2002 4 PRACTICING ANTHROPOLOGY By Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, María Meza and Kate Pietsch As the 2000 census makes clear, the Latino population in the United States is growing faster than any other group. ...
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Pre-press version of Chapter One of a now-published book
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This is the pre-press version of the introduction to a book that has now been published.
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This book examines how the everyday language practices and cultural funds of knowledge of youth from non-dominant or minoritized groups can be used as center points for classroom learning in ways that help all students both to sustain and... more
This book examines how the everyday language practices and cultural funds of knowledge of youth from non-dominant or minoritized groups can be used as center points for classroom learning in ways that help all students both to sustain and expand their cultural and linguistic repertoires while developing skills that are valued in formal schooling. Ideal for students and researchers in language education, literacy, and multicultural education, this book offers new, nuanced connections between culturally sustaining research and linguistic diversity and provides original teaching methods and practices to apply cultural practices as assets to learning in the disciplines.
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This book draws linkages between the recent proliferation of "mindfulness" practices and the research methods utilized in ethnography. Using examples from her work as an ethnographer in various projects over the last twenty years, the... more
This book draws linkages between the recent proliferation of "mindfulness" practices and the research methods utilized in ethnography. Using examples from her work as an ethnographer in various projects over the last twenty years, the author shows how mindfulness practices can bring out the best that ethnography has to offer. It gives concise exercises for ethnographers as they move from entering new field sites to establishing themselves within them to analyzing and writing up the results. 20% Discount Available-enter the code BSE19 at checkout* Hb: 978-1-138-36102-7 | $124.00 Pb: 978-1-138-36104-1 | $38.36 * Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount and only applies to books purchased directly via our website. To order a review copy, please order a copy at https://m.email.taylorandfrancis.com/ Review_copy_request For more information visit: www.routledge.com/9781138361041