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Abstract
This article examines how students from immigrant families position themselves during language brokering acts that blur the boundaries between home and school. It draws upon a community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005), which attends to the cultivation and uptake of rich forms of capital from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, to explain how and why student language brokers might take up particular literacy practices infused with both authoritative and internally persuasive discourses (Bakhtin, 1981). As these two kinds of discourse relate to how students may (re)position themselves during the brokering process, the author explores the ways in which authoritative and internally persuasive discourses and particular forms of capital intersect as students engage in brokering that is intended to increase their family’s overall cultural wealth and future success.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Additional Resources
1. Language Brokering website by Professor Marjorie Faulstich Orellana
www.marjoriefaulstichorellana.com/archive/language-brokering/
This website provides resources, references, and information regarding research conducted by Orellana and her colleagues. It explores language brokering and the identities of students from immigrant families.
2. Child Language Brokering: Spaces of Identity Belonging and Mediators of Cultural Knowledge website
www.languagebrokeringidentities.com
Representing the work of researchers at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, University College London, Institute of Education, this website provides a simple, yet elegant, introduction to the concept of language brokering and features visuals and voices of actual language brokers.
3. ESL Teacher as Cultural Broker website
www.everythingesl.net/inservices/crosscultural.php
Teachers, given their positioning, especially in bilingual settings, may act as language brokers. This website considers the teacher as a language broker and provides practical ideas for bridging languages and cultures.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Monica S. Yoo
Monica S. Yoo is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.