In many language classrooms in multilingual nations, standard dialects are associated with and promoted in formal domains. Through classroom pedagogical processes that reify standard language use, other dialects are relegated to informal domains and therefore devalued in classroom settings. Informed by critical pedagogy, this article challenges…

Acknowledging teacher and student dialogue as key to student development, this volume takes a critical perspective on notions of classroom participation, extending previous scholarship to illustrate how critical, dialogic pedagogies can promote equity and inclusivity. In proposing and outlining the parameters of "critical dialogic…

What if multilingual learners had the freedom to interact in more than one language with their peers during classroom assessment? What if multilingual learners and their teachers in dual language settings had opportunities to use assessment data in multiple languages to make decisions? Just imagine the rich linguistic, academic, and cultural…

The transgressive use of language by out-group speakers, or crossing is used in a variety of ways to achieve both affiliative and disaffiliative ends among youths. However, crossing can also be used as an affiliative resource in asymmetrical power relations between teachers and students. Reporting on the findings of a 1.5 year ethnography of an…

The data discussed in this paper is drawn from research conducted in a multilingual urban primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the official language of instruction is English and the majority of learners are African language speakers, frequently with very limited English proficiency. The paper presents a case study of one child who…

This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingual contact zone in which naturalised linguistic identities are made visible and interrogated. The research is situated in a highly diverse, educational context--Wits School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is framed by a society in…

Reports the case studies of three trilingual elementary school children in separate Vancouver (British Columbia) early French immersion classes, focusing on themes emerging from analysis related to the children's literacy practices and contexts for language learning, and the teachers' perceptions of these students and representations of…