Authoring Multiple formas de ser: Three Bilingual Latino/a Fifth Graders Navigating School

Abstract

Drawing from sociocultural and anthropological perspectives, I present 3 case examples of bilingual, Mexican-origin students enrolled in a transitional bilingual educational program in an urban elementary school. By using the theoretical constructs of figured worlds, authoring, and formas de ser (ways of being), I examine how student identities were in a constant and dialogic state of formation by the students themselves and others. I discuss how high-stakes testing and other schooling practices narrowly authored students behaviorally, academically, and linguistically—bringing about schooling environments where students' strengths and multifaceted formas de ser were all-too-often overlooked.

Key words:

• Latino/a students
• identity construction/formation
• bilingual learners
• bilingual education
• qualitative study

Notes

¹The students in this study were in my bilingual pre-K classroom in 1997–1998. I returned to the school as a researcher to collect data during the students' fifth-grade school year.

²All of Elizabeth and Jeniffer's journal entries in Spanish have been copied exactly as they appeared in the original handwritten entries. I have not corrected for spelling or punctuation. In the English translation, however, I have chosen to use conventional spelling and punctuation rules in order to facilitate understanding.

³The fact that José did not always choose to implement his educación in ways similar to Elizabeth and Jeniffer does not mean that messages of valuing school and being respectful were not an important aspect of José's authoring from his figured worlds of home, family, and community. On the contrary, his strategies to employ his educación in other ways and at different times demonstrated his agency.