There has been little research into the experiences of and connections between language retention and identity construction among bilingual Spanish speaking children from Latin American backgrounds living in urban communities in Australia. Theoretical frameworks and research that examine the intersections between language retention and identity construction in the early years of children’s lives is a crucial in understandings the complexity of identity and bilingualism from a sociocritical perpective (Jones Díaz 2007). This is of particular relevance to educators working with families raising bilingual children as the formation of identity is constantly negotiated, transformed and contested amidst a background of dominant English-speaking social fields that exist in multicultural Australia. This chapter draws on selected findings from recent qualitative research that examined young children’s bilingual voices and experiences using Spanish and English across a range of family, educational and community settings. The analysis draws on Bourdieu’s (1990, 1991) theory of social practice to examine the children’s views and perceptions of their proficiency and use of Spanish which constructed various dispositions through which they were able to deploy linguistic, cultural and social capital in these social fields. Other questions investigated in this chapter detail the importance of the linguistic habitus in shaping identity which can permit or prohibit the children’s use of Spanish in educational, family and community contexts.
2024. Navigating language maintenance challenges with health professionals: Reflections from Spanish speaking families in Australia. Australian Journal of Linguistics 44:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Hernández Gallego, Milena Adriana & Anna Doquin de Saint-Preux
Jones Diaz, Criss, Beatriz Cardona & Paola Escudero
2024. Exploring the perceptions of early childhood educators on the delivery of multilingual education in Australia: Challenges and opportunities. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 25:4 ► pp. 488 ff.
Díaz, Criss Jones
2016. Growing Up Bilingual and Negotiating Identity in Globalised and Multicultural Australia. In Super Dimensions in Globalisation and Education [Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education, 5], ► pp. 37 ff.
Díaz, Criss Jones
2023. Building on and Sustaining Multilingual Children’s Cultural and Linguistic Assets in Superdiverse Early Childhood Education. In English as an International Language Education [English Language Education, 33], ► pp. 141 ff.
Jones Díaz, Criss
2014. Institutional, material and economic constraints in languages education: unequal provision of linguistic resources in early childhood and primary settings in Australia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 17:3 ► pp. 272 ff.
Mejía, Glenda
2016. Language usage and culture maintenance: a study of Spanish-speaking immigrant mothers in Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 37:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Kennedy, Kimberley D. & Harriett D. Romo
2013. “All Colors and Hues”: An Autoethnography of a Multiethnic Family's Strategies for Bilingualism and Multiculturalism. Family Relations 62:1 ► pp. 109 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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