“She My Friend”: Implications of Friend Ideologies, Identities, and Relationships for Bilingual Kindergarteners

Abstract

This study identifies how the contextual features of an elementary school setting shaped and often restricted bilingual kindergarten students' access to friendships within their grade-level English-dominant classroom. Data demonstrate how students utilized a teacher-designed lunch card routine to initiate, maintain, and display friendships in addition to indicating their lunch selection. Findings from the study prompted changes in my instructional practices as well as in the ESL and bilingual program design at the school in order to allow greater interaction between native English and native Spanish speakers. Implications of these findings include the significance of social relationships for language learning, for gaining status, and for motivating bilingual students to remain in school over the course of their K-12 education.

Notes

¹Institutional designation.

²Pseudonyms are used for all names and locations with the exception of my own name.

³The term “bilingual” will be used to refer to the six Spanish bilingual children in this study. Although they had varying degrees of bilingualism, the term recognizes their language proficiency in two languages rather than identifying them as English limited or as English language learners.