Ana María Relaño-Pastor
University of Castilla-La Mancha, Filologia Moderna, Faculty Member
- Discourse Analysis, Narrative, Latino/as in the U.S., Linguistic ethnography, Language socialization, Pragmatics of interaction, and 12 moreLanguage and education of immigrant origin students in Spain, Spanish in the U.S., Multilingualism, Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Anthropology, Language Planning and Policy, English as a medium of instruction, Catalonia, Language Policy and Politics of Identity, Late Modernity, Language Ideology, and Superdiversityedit
- Hello, I am an Applied Linguist interested in language socialization of Latino communities in the USA; narrative, emo... moreHello, I am an Applied Linguist interested in language socialization of Latino communities in the USA; narrative, emotion and identity; and multilingualism, language ideologies, and education of immigrant origin students in Spanish schools. I have taught undergraduate courses on Applied Linguistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). I have been a visiting professor at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. My lastest research interests include English immersion socialization and language policies in Spanish families (PID2019-106710GB-I00).edit
This contribution focuses on 'transfronterizo' students, who cross the Tijuana-San Diego border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how 'transfronterizo' students construct their... more
This contribution focuses on 'transfronterizo' students, who cross the Tijuana-San Diego border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how 'transfronterizo' students construct their identity in daily interactions with Mexican and Anglo students at San Diegan schools. 'Transfronterizo' students not only shape their social identities by 'the crossing experience', but also by the multiple interactions with diverse social networks on campus (e.g. 'trolos', 'sociales', 'fresas', 'cholos', 'nacos', 'pochon', 'chicanos', 'Mexicanos', 'Mexicano Americanos', 'Tijuanenses', and Mexicanos from the rancho, among others). Based on the transcriptions of 40 individually tape recorded interviews with border-crossing students collected by researchers from the 'Transfronterizo' team, the paper documents the emergence of a transforming border iden...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Este trabajo se centra en las narrativas de inmigrantes mexicanas y marroquies acerca de su vivencia idiomatica en San Diego (California) y en el poniente almeriense (Andalucia), respectivamente. Se analizan las vivencias de insercion en... more
Este trabajo se centra en las narrativas de inmigrantes mexicanas y marroquies acerca de su vivencia idiomatica en San Diego (California) y en el poniente almeriense (Andalucia), respectivamente. Se analizan las vivencias de insercion en las comunidades de acogida a traves de los aspectos instrumentales e ideologicos del idioma, enfocando nuestra atencion en los procesos de reconstruccion identitaria de mexicanas y marroquies en ambos contextos. A partir de diferentes ambitos de investigacion, tales como la sociologia y la linguistica, nuestro analisis indica que, salvando las diferencias historicas y contextuales propias del fenomeno migratorio, la voz de la mujer inmigrante se universaliza en vivencias similares de asentamiento en las que el idioma se convierte en protagonista fundamental de la reconstruccion identitaria. ABSTRACT This article focuses on immigrant women’s narratives of language experiences told by Mexicans in San Diego (California) and Moroccan women in Andalusia ...
Research Interests:
This paper focuses on the production of legitimate knowledge in the multicultural and multilingual classrooms of two different programs designed to “cater for diversity” at secondary schools in the Madrid region. Following a critical... more
This paper focuses on the production of legitimate knowledge in the multicultural and multilingual classrooms of two different programs designed to “cater for diversity” at secondary schools in the Madrid region. Following a critical sociolinguistic approach, we discuss the links between local discursive practices, the institutional context and the wider social and ideological order. Our analysis of data taken from two schools, reveals the ways in which, under certain conditions, teachers (re)produce the social order as they define what counts as legitimate knowledge and its forms of production and distribution (i.e. how it is taught, who is considered a legitimate agent in the transmission of knowledge, who decides what the legitimate sources of knowledge are, who possesses valid knowledge in the classroom, who knows and who does not, etc.). We also document some of the consequences of this process for a group of students of different immigrant backgrounds, recently arrived in the Madrid classrooms, in terms of their academic success and social mobility
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article reflexively discusses field access as a continuous process in linguistic ethnographic fieldwork and illustrates how interactions generated during negotiations to establish a research collaboration, initial contacts with... more
This article reflexively discusses field access as a continuous process in linguistic ethnographic fieldwork and illustrates how interactions generated during negotiations to establish a research collaboration, initial contacts with participants or data gathered to complement audio-visual recordings of naturally occurring interaction can, in fact, become rich sources to answer research questions. The discussion is based on a critical sociolinguistic ethnography on the implementation of English-Spanish ‘bilingual programs’ in a mid-sized city in central Spain. To build this discussion we propose a framework in which particular research stances held by participants become closely intertwined with particular research processes, spaces and techniques.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article analyzes how neoliberalism as ideology and practice permeates CLIL-type bilingual education teachers’ narratives collected as part of the sociolinguistic ethnography conducted in four Spanish-English bilingual schools in La... more
This article analyzes how neoliberalism as ideology and practice permeates CLIL-type bilingual education teachers’ narratives collected as part of the sociolinguistic ethnography conducted in four Spanish-English bilingual schools in La Mancha City (pseudonym). The rapid implementation of Spanish-English bilingual programs in Castilla-La Mancha schools in the last decade (e.g. «MEC/British» programs; «Linguistic Programs» regulated by the regional «Plan of Plurilingualism», last amended in 2018; «Bilingual Programs» in semi-private schools) invites to reflect on how neoliberalism plays a role in the commodification of English language teaching and learning in these programs. Particularly, the article discusses how teachers participating in these programs position themselves towards their personal experiences teaching CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) subjects in these bilingual programs. The analysis shows how these teachers are appropriating and resisting in some case...
Research Interests:
This article examines a group of ‘fitting in’ narratives told by students with different migrant backgrounds in focus group interviews. These narratives indicate shared experiences of adaptation and transformation among these students in... more
This article examines a group of ‘fitting in’ narratives told by students with different migrant backgrounds in focus group interviews. These narratives indicate shared experiences of adaptation and transformation among these students in Madrid’s multilingual/multicultural schools and Spanish society . I argue that these narratives were told in interaction and constrained by the moderators’ development of the topic-talk at hand, emerging only as answers to questions related to personal experiences of social exclusion in and outside school, as well as those related to group relations at school. They presented a pervasive use of ethnic categorization, which is analyzed in relation to narrators, the problematic event, and the moral order displayed in these narratives. As an interactional device, ethnic categorization served different purposes: (1) to index intragroup solidarity (‘we’ versus ‘other’); (2) to signal opposition and comparison among students with different migrant backgrou...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This special issue addresses the organization of teaching and learning in a variety of multilingual schooling contexts from different critical ethnographic perspectives (i.e.: critical sociolinguistic ethnography, linguistic anthropology,... more
This special issue addresses the organization of teaching and learning in a variety of multilingual schooling contexts from different critical ethnographic perspectives (i.e.: critical sociolinguistic ethnography, linguistic anthropology, and language socialization). By analyzing a range of educational settings in Spain, the U.S., the U.K., Argentina, and Guatemala, the articles establish a dialogue with different ethnographically-oriented studies to understand the relationship between situated communicative practices, language policies, language ideologies, dominant discourses about bi-multilingualism, and wider social, cultural and economic processes.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
En este artículo, los miembros del Grupo MIRCO presentan los resultados de un trabajo de investigación realizado mediante la aplicación de una encuesta a profesores y estudiantes (españoles e inmigrantes extranjeros) de Enseñanza... more
En este artículo, los miembros del Grupo MIRCO presentan los resultados de un trabajo de investigación realizado mediante la aplicación de una encuesta a profesores y estudiantes (españoles e inmigrantes extranjeros) de Enseñanza Secundaria de diversos centros de la Comunidad de Madrid, ...
Research Interests:
Chapter 1 Journey around our classrooms Luisa Martín Rojo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Chapter 2 Educating in multilingual and multicultural schools in Madrid Luisa... more
Chapter 1 Journey around our classrooms Luisa Martín Rojo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Chapter 2 Educating in multilingual and multicultural schools in Madrid Luisa Martín Rojo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Research Interests:
This article addresses the narratives of bilingualism that emerged in ethnographic interviews with members of Sancho’s Primary in La Mancha city (Spain), whose prestige as the first MEC/British bilingual school in town has been disputed,... more
This article addresses the narratives of bilingualism that emerged in ethnographic interviews with members of Sancho’s Primary in La Mancha city (Spain), whose prestige as the first MEC/British bilingual school in town has been disputed, transformed and eventually socially accepted as competitively eligible in the global market for two decades. By bringing to the fore a perspective of heteroglossia, the article discusses stakeholders’ stancetaking towards the salient tensions and dilemmas related to bilingualism in the region of Castilla-La Mancha. The analysis discusses how Sancho’s stakeholders by means of indexical meanings and heteroglossic resources come to terms with bilingualism as ideology and practice regarding who the legitimate teacher of English is, whose English-es are legitimated, which classroom practices are most valued and who can guarantee the status and prestige of bilingual programs in this region. In addition, the analysis emphasizes the validity of narratives e...
Research Interests: Sociology and Linguistics
This chapter introduces the sociocultural context of Mexican immigrant women in Southern California. The first section discusses the visibility and agency of Mexican immigrant women in the settlement process in San Diego, including... more
This chapter introduces the sociocultural context of Mexican immigrant women in Southern California. The first section discusses the visibility and agency of Mexican immigrant women in the settlement process in San Diego, including decisions regarding their English proficiency. The second section focuses on the role of language ideologies surrounding the communicative challenges faced by these women. The final section discusses the initial stages of doing fieldwork in La Clase Magica, the bilingual/ bicultural community-based after-school program from which I recruited the women in this study. I explain how I entered the field, negotiated my position as a researcher, and came up with the research questions around which my study was organized. I end this chapter with an overview of the structure and main contents of the book.
This chapter introduces the research site and methodology used for the exploration of the narrative corpus in this study. The first section focuses on the research site, La Clase Magica (Vasquez, 2003a), a bilingual/bicultural... more
This chapter introduces the research site and methodology used for the exploration of the narrative corpus in this study. The first section focuses on the research site, La Clase Magica (Vasquez, 2003a), a bilingual/bicultural after-school program aimed at satisfying the educational and linguistic needs of Mexican and Native American communities in San Diego. The second section specifically addresses the challenges I came across in the field as a white European Andalusian speaker of Spanish. The third section discusses the elicitation techniques used during the interview to create the corpus of narratives about language experiences in Southern California, as well as how the transcription process was undertaken. This chapter concludes by illustrating the process of data selection and creation of the corpus of narratives of language experiences in this study.
This chapter presents the results of my study in terms of the components and dimensions identified in the narratives. The thematic analysis reveals how complicating events in the narratives reflect dominant racialization discourses about... more
This chapter presents the results of my study in terms of the components and dimensions identified in the narratives. The thematic analysis reveals how complicating events in the narratives reflect dominant racialization discourses about Mexican communities and the role of Spanish in the United States, as well as the language ideology of monolingualism and nationalism in this country. The first section discusses the framework of racialization, as applied to the analysis of these narratives of language experiences. The second section explores the language conflicts due to racialization experiences that Mexican women had to overcome in daily communication with different social actors in different social settings (at the border, at school, at home, in the hospital, at church, in the workplace and in shops). Finally, the third section presents the emotional map of racialization experiences emerging in these narratives.
Research Interests:
This chapter discusses the main conclusions of this study, focusing on three main “revelations” this piece of narrative research has put forward. First, the revelation about how narrative is one of the most powerful language practices... more
This chapter discusses the main conclusions of this study, focusing on three main “revelations” this piece of narrative research has put forward. First, the revelation about how narrative is one of the most powerful language practices human beings have for making sense of the world they inhabit and the particular emotional experiences they deal with everyday. Second, how the multidimensionality of narratives and particular storytelling practices, such as the ones described in this study, go beyond local contexts of storytelling and extend to global ones, namely how narratives of language experiences can offer an insight into other migration contexts. Finally, how sociolinguistic analyses of narratives can bring to light issues of identity and morality about the particular situation experienced by narrators and protagonists, in this case Mexican immigrant women’s contestation of the racialized social place they inhabit.
Research Interests:
This article analyzes how multilingual education in the Madrid region has been addressed through the medium of Spanish/English content and language integrated learning (CLIL) bilingual programs, widely implemented in public schools of... more
This article analyzes how multilingual education in the Madrid region has been addressed through the medium of Spanish/English content and language integrated learning (CLIL) bilingual programs, widely implemented in public schools of this region in the last decade. By adopting a critical interpretive perspective (Tollefson in Language policies in education: critical issues. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2002) to the understanding of bilingual education in the Madrid region, the article explores the links between current CLIL classroom practices, local and European language education policies and wider social and ideological processes of globalization and neoliberalism in late modernity. Particularly, the article analyzes the commodification of CLIL programs by examining how local values and beliefs about bilingualism and the prestige of English as Europe’s lingua franca intersect with situated notions of who counts as a bilingual student in the CLIL classroom and the emergent categorization of elistism assigned to bilingual programs in Madrid. Drawing on data collected as part of the team critical sociolinguistic ethnography conducted at ‘Villababel High’, the article discusses specifically language choice in the CLIL classroom as a key practice to understand the tensions involved in bilingual education policy in late modernity.
Research Interests:
This article discusses narratives of bilingualism told in parental group interviews conducted as part of the critical sociolinguistic ethnography carried out in public and semi-private bilingual schools of the autonomous region of... more
This article discusses narratives of bilingualism told in parental group interviews conducted as part of the critical sociolinguistic ethnography carried out in public and semi-private bilingual schools of the autonomous region of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). School stakeholders in this region are still adapting to the rapid implementation of bilingual programs in this region, which are transforming classroom linguistic practices and circulating discourses about bilingualism, bilingual education, and the bilingual subject. Among them, families are trying to reconcile their language desires and aspirations for English and bilingualism with the understanding of the type of bilingual education their children are receiving. By taking a social interactional approach to narrative combined with anthropological approaches to the study of conversational narrative, this article analyzes parents’ emotional and moral stancetaking in narratives of bilingualism. The narrative analysis will shed li...
Research Interests:
This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase... more
This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Mágica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a children, youth, and adults in Southern California. The article explores the processes
Research Interests:
Este artículo analiza la socialización lingüística que tiene lugar enLa Clase Mágica(Vásquez 2003), un programa extracurricular de carácter bilingüe y bicultural, dirigido a satisfacer las necesidades lingüísticas y culturales de la... more
Este artículo analiza la socialización lingüística que tiene lugar enLa Clase Mágica(Vásquez 2003), un programa extracurricular de carácter bilingüe y bicultural, dirigido a satisfacer las necesidades lingüísticas y culturales de la comunidad latina, mayoritariamente de origen mexicano, en el condado de San Diego (California). Siguiendo los parámetros metodológicos de la socialización lingüística, los datos emergen de la observación participante, grabaciones de audio y vídeo de las distintas interacciones en La Clase Mágica, así como notas etnográficas y entrevistas a madres, profesores y coordinadores del programa. El artículo analiza las distintas prácticas de socialización lingüística en este programa y discute las implicaciones sociopolíticas y educativas de las mismas en el contexto de racialización de la comunidad latina/mexicana en California.
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT The seminar took place on 8 and 9 July, 2013, at the University of Southampton. It was coordinated by Adriana Patirio-Santos (University of Southampton) and Ana Maria Relario Pastor (University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain)).... more
ABSTRACT The seminar took place on 8 and 9 July, 2013, at the University of Southampton. It was coordinated by Adriana Patirio-Santos (University of Southampton) and Ana Maria Relario Pastor (University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain)). Twenty-two people attended the seminar and 11 presented their papers. Delegates came from the USA, the Netherlands, Brazil, Estonia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Research Interests:
This article reflexively discusses field access as a continuous process in linguistic ethnographic fieldwork and illustrates how interactions generated during negotiations to establish a research collaboration, initial contacts with... more
This article reflexively discusses field access as a continuous process in linguistic ethnographic fieldwork and illustrates how interactions generated during negotiations to establish a research collaboration, initial contacts with participants or data gathered to complement audiovisual recordings of naturally occurring interaction can, in fact, become rich sources to answer research questions. The discussion is based on a critical sociolinguistic ethnography on the implementation of English-Spanish 'bilingual programs' in a mid-sized city in central Spain. To build this discussion we propose a framework in which particular research stances held by participants become closely intertwined with particular research processes, spaces and techniques.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Language socialization research in bilingual and multilingual settings, particularly across EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ESL (English as a Second Language) contexts, has addressed the processes by which novices are... more
Language socialization research in bilingual and multilingual settings, particularly across EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ESL (English as a Second Language) contexts, has addressed the processes by which novices are «apprenticed» or mentored into the linguistic and nonlinguistic ideologies, values, practices, and stances (affective, epistemic, and other) of sociocultural groups to ultimately become «competent members» of these learning communities. However, one of the unexplored bilingual education contexts from a language socialization perspective refers to «Content and Language Integrated Learning» or CLIL, defined as «inclusive of a wide range of educational practices provided that these practices are conducted through the medium of an additional language and both language and the subject have a joint role». Taking these premises as a point of departure, this article discusses the language socialization processes CLIL teachers undergo to become competent members of the bilingual school communities (BSC) that have proliferated extensively in Castilla-La Mancha (CLM), Spain, in the last decade. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in four different bilingual state-funded and state-funded private schools in this region, the article analyzes the case of San Marcos' teachers' narratives of becoming and doing CLIL as «meta-agentive» discursive sites that display the ideologies and practices of professional personhood at stake in CLIL programs. The article further advances the latest ethnographic CLIL agenda interested in revealing the social processes involved in the organization of exclusionary practices in the era of the «bilingual» craze and pressure across different Spanish autonomous communities.
Research Interests:
This special issue addresses the organization of teaching and learning in a variety of multilingual schooling contexts from different critical ethnographic perspectives (i.e.: critical sociolinguistic ethnography, linguistic anthropology,... more
This special issue addresses the organization of teaching and learning in a variety of multilingual schooling contexts from different critical ethnographic perspectives (i.e.: critical sociolinguistic ethnography, linguistic anthropology, and language socialization). By analyzing a range of educational settings in Spain, the U.S., the U.K., Argentina, and Guatemala, the articles establish a dialogue with different ethnographically-oriented studies to understand the relationship between situated communicative practices, language policies, language ideologies, dominant discourses about bi-multilingualism, and wider social, cultural and economic processes.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This contribution focuses on transfronterizo students, who cross the Tijuana-San Diego border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how transfronterizo students construct their identity in daily... more
This contribution focuses on transfronterizo students, who cross the Tijuana-San Diego border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how transfronterizo students construct their identity in daily interactions with Mexican and Anglo students
at San Diegan schools. Transfronterizo students not only shape their social identities by ‘the crossing experience’, but also by the multiple interactions with diverse social networks on campus (e.g. trolos, sociales, fresas, cholos, nacos, pochos, chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexicano
Americanos, Tijuanenses, and Mexicanos from the rancho, among others). Based on the transcriptions of 40 individually tape recorded interviews with border-crossing students collected by researchers from the Transfronterizo team, the paper documents the emergence of a transforming border identity that challenges exclusive ethnic and cultural identifications with either Mexican or Mexican-descent groups on the Southwest border of the United States.
at San Diegan schools. Transfronterizo students not only shape their social identities by ‘the crossing experience’, but also by the multiple interactions with diverse social networks on campus (e.g. trolos, sociales, fresas, cholos, nacos, pochos, chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexicano
Americanos, Tijuanenses, and Mexicanos from the rancho, among others). Based on the transcriptions of 40 individually tape recorded interviews with border-crossing students collected by researchers from the Transfronterizo team, the paper documents the emergence of a transforming border identity that challenges exclusive ethnic and cultural identifications with either Mexican or Mexican-descent groups on the Southwest border of the United States.
This article analyzes how neoliberalism as ideology and practice permeates CLIL-type bilingual education teachers' narratives collected as part of the sociolinguistic ethnography conducted in four Spanish-English bilingual schools in La... more
This article analyzes how neoliberalism as ideology and practice permeates CLIL-type bilingual education teachers' narratives collected as part of the sociolinguistic ethnography conducted in four Spanish-English bilingual schools in La Mancha City (pseudonym). The rapid implementation of Spanish-English bilingual programs in Castilla-La Mancha schools in the last decade (e.g. «MEC/British» programs; «Linguistic Programs» regulated by the regional «Plan of Plurilingualism», last amended in 2018; «Bilingual Programs» in semi-private schools) invites to reflect on how neoliberalism plays a role in the commodification of English language teaching and learning in these programs. Particularly, the article discusses how teachers participating in these programs position themselves towards their personal experiences teaching CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) subjects in these bilingual programs. The analysis shows how these teachers are appropriating and resisting in some cases bilingualism as a neoliberal ideology and practice that reconfigures their professional identities as self-governing free subjects who must know English at all costs to compete in the highly commodified global market of English.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article explores the ways in which what counts as legitimate knowledge is produced and negotiated in two multilingual classrooms of two different programs designed to “attend to diversity” at secondary schools in the Madrid region.... more
This article explores the ways in which what counts as legitimate knowledge is produced and negotiated in two multilingual classrooms of two different programs designed to “attend to diversity” at secondary schools in the Madrid region. Following a sociolinguistic approach, the article focuses on the ways in which local identities, beliefs and social relations emerging from situated practice become a window through which to understand how different social experiences and academic trajectories are institutionally constructed in connection with broader social processes. For this reason, the article seeks to connect recorded and observed classroom interactional patterns, through which legitimate knowledge is produced, with social actors’ (teachers and students) positioning-s, and the academic trajectories of students enrolled in such programs. We end with a discussion about the possible consequences of such practices for migrant students, recently arrived in the Madrid classrooms, in terms of academic success and school participation.
Research Interests:
This article explores language ideologies underlying two language programs implemented in one secondary school in Madrid (Spain). The Spanish for newcomers immersion program (Aula de Enlace) is aimed at immigrant origin students who do... more
This article explores language ideologies underlying two language programs implemented in one secondary school in Madrid (Spain). The Spanish for newcomers immersion program (Aula de Enlace) is aimed at immigrant origin students who do not know or have a poor command of Spanish; and the Spanish–English bilingual program targets students from different cultural and national backgrounds with a good command of English. These two language programs exist side by side under one roof and play a crucial role in the placement, educational choices, and, ultimately social inclusion/exclusion of students in mainstream education. Guided by a critical sociolinguistic ethnography perspective, the article analyses data collected at the two language programs, mostly audiotapes of classroom interactions and interviews with teachers, immigrant and non-immigrant background students who attend this public school. Our analysis shows how the discontinuities between the two language programs regarding language ideologies and the organization of language learning bring to the fore a disputed view of social inclusion, namely inclusion from above and inclusion from below, which bear important repercussions for immigrant origin students in mainstream education.
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Education, Teacher Education, Ethnography, Ideology, and 11 moreBilingual Education, Linguistics, Social Inclusion, Classroom Interaction, Language Learning, Immigrants, Bilingualism and bilingual education, Educational choice, Data Collection, Secondary School, and Curriculum and Pedagogy
Ana María Relaño Pastor is an assistant profesor in the Departamento de Filología Moderna at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. Data collected as part of two projects directed by Professor Luisa Martín Rojo: Análisis... more
Ana María Relaño Pastor is an assistant profesor in the Departamento de Filología Moderna at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. Data collected as part of two projects directed by Professor Luisa Martín Rojo: Análisis socio-pragmático de la comunicación ...
Research Interests:
This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase... more
This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Mágica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a children, youth, and adults in Southern California. The article explores the processes of transformation I underwent as a female, Andalusian speaker of Castilian and researcher from Spain, in relation to a group of Mexican immigrant women participating in this program. Data come from naturally occurring interactions and interview data with children, mothers, caretakers, and university students attending the program. I consider interactional and interview data as “sites of struggle,” where participants construct and negotiate representations of themselves and those they align with and distance themselves from, as well as “sites of transformation,” where critical ethnographers can move beyond the traps and tricks of ethnography.
Research Interests:
This article looks at the competing language ideologies that preschool children negotiate in Mi Clase Mágica (MCM), a Spanish–English bilingual/bicultural after-school program in San Diego. It examines children's language choice in... more
This article looks at the competing language ideologies that preschool children negotiate in Mi Clase Mágica (MCM), a Spanish–English bilingual/bicultural after-school program in San Diego. It examines children's language choice in interactions with peers and adults taking place at computer and tareas (homework) activities. Data comes from long-term participant observation; audio- and videotaping; field notes by adult participants; and interviews with MCM coordinators, volunteer mothers, and schoolteachers. Findings indicate that MCM children are processing competing language frameworks from home and school and revealing emergent language ideologies in their daily interactions with peers and adults. The study reveals the complexity of Latino children's language choices in informal educational settings and draws implications for pedagogical practices in multilingual classrooms.
Research Interests:
This presentation focuses on language narratives of a group of transfronterizo students who cross the San Diego-Tijuana border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how transfronterizo students... more
This presentation focuses on language narratives of a group of transfronterizo students who cross the San Diego-Tijuana border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how transfronterizo students construct local notions associated to language-s, language use and speakers, and the organization of everyday linguistic practices in stories related to language events as part of their border-crossing experience. In multilingual, transnational settings, narratives of language are complexly intertwined to ideologies of language and notions of power and identity (Bailey 2002; Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez 2002; De Fina 2003; Relaño Pastor 2008; Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity 1998; Zentella forthcoming). In addition, language ideologies are manifested in individuals’ discourse, constructing values and beliefs at state, institutional, national and global levels (Blackledge 2008). In the border space these transfronterizo students navigate everyday, linguistic practices not only shape their social identities as border-crossers, but these are also transformed by the multiple interactions with diverse social networks in the schools they attend (e.g. trolos, sociales, fresas, cholos, nacos, pochos, chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexicano Americanos, Tijuanenses, and Mexicanos from the rancho, among others – Relaño Pastor 2007-). Data consists of 40 individually tape recorded interviews with border-crossing university students who attended schools in San Diego. The presentation analyzes how transfronterizo students make sense of who they are in narratives of language experiences at the border. Results indicate the fluidity of language ideologies at the border and the emergence of a transforming border identity that challenges exclusive ethnic and cultural identifications with either Mexican or Mexican-descent groups on the San Diego-Tijuana border.
One of the main tenets of language socialization is the relationship between language ideologies, or local notions associated to language-s, language use and speakers, and the organization of everyday practices (Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez,... more
One of the main tenets of language socialization is the relationship between language ideologies, or local notions associated to language-s, language use and speakers, and the organization of everyday practices (Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez, 2002; Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity, 1998). In multilingual settings, ideologies of language are complexly intertwined with notions of power and identity in society (Zentella, 1997, 2005; Bailey, 2002; Relaño Pastor, 2008). In addition, being a competent member of a bi-multilingual community involves knowledge of the language-s as well as the practical understanding of how, when, where and with whom to use them appropriately.
Drawing from these pieces of research, this presentation focuses on the socialization of “elite” bilingualism in the classroom. Particularly, it discusses how students from different cultural and national backgrounds are socialized to bilingual identities in history classes, taught in English as part of a Spanish-English bilingual program implemented at one multicultural public school in Madrid. Local values and beliefs about the role of English as an European language in education intersect with notions of who counts as a “good bilingual student” in the classroom and who is part of the community of Spanish-English bilinguals at this school, which shares, in addition, an elitist reputation among teachers and peers.
Data comes from long-term participant observation, audio and videotaping of classroom interactions, and interview data with a group of Spanish and first and second-generation immigrant adolescents who attend the bilingual program.
The analysis shows how students in this classroom are granted a choice of language in problem-solving activities among peers, while in those directly orchestrated by the teacher choice of language is restricted. Students learn to negotiate their bilingual identities in moment-to-moment interactions, showing their affective stances (e.g. alignment and rejection) toward the socialization of “elite” bilingualism in the classroom.
Drawing from these pieces of research, this presentation focuses on the socialization of “elite” bilingualism in the classroom. Particularly, it discusses how students from different cultural and national backgrounds are socialized to bilingual identities in history classes, taught in English as part of a Spanish-English bilingual program implemented at one multicultural public school in Madrid. Local values and beliefs about the role of English as an European language in education intersect with notions of who counts as a “good bilingual student” in the classroom and who is part of the community of Spanish-English bilinguals at this school, which shares, in addition, an elitist reputation among teachers and peers.
Data comes from long-term participant observation, audio and videotaping of classroom interactions, and interview data with a group of Spanish and first and second-generation immigrant adolescents who attend the bilingual program.
The analysis shows how students in this classroom are granted a choice of language in problem-solving activities among peers, while in those directly orchestrated by the teacher choice of language is restricted. Students learn to negotiate their bilingual identities in moment-to-moment interactions, showing their affective stances (e.g. alignment and rejection) toward the socialization of “elite” bilingualism in the classroom.