'I Try to Read to Them in Both Languages': Bilingual Maestras' Enactment and Embodiment of Critical Biliteracies through Bilanguaging Love

SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://sagepub.com

Y

23

Literacy; Bilingualism; Bilingual Education; Epistemology; Native Language; Second Language Learning; Critical Literacy; Bilingual Teachers; Classroom Techniques; Teacher Attitudes; Literacy Education; Spanish; English (Second Language); Foreign Countries; Geographic Regions; Personal Narratives; Language Usage; Kindergarten; Elementary School Teachers

Texas; Mexico

10.1177/1086296X231200815

1086-296X
1554-8430

Drawing on life stories and classroom observations, this qualitative study examined how six bilingual maestras enacted and embodied critical biliteracies through bilanguaging love. These maestras were born, raised, and now teach bilingual education on the Texas-Mexico border. Their stories revealed contradictory and complex beliefs about literacy learning in Spanish and English, demonstrating how critical biliteracies teach children to read and write through the concept of bilanguaging love, a way of living between languages and epistemologies. Using qualitative methods like convivios and pláticas, rooted in other subaltern knowledges, the maestras articulated the nuanced realties of literacy learning. This study grounds critical biliteracies in border theories as a way of reading and writing the word and world.

As Provided

2023

EJ1398506