Jonathan Feitosa Ferreira will be defending his MA thesis at 9:00 am on Thursday, August 13th virtually via Zoom.
All are welcome to attend.
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81509324021?pwd=eExYSS85OHJmNGlBTFczR2xIc1I0UT09
Meeting ID: 815 0932 4021
Passcode: XTJ48y
Supervisory Committee:
Dr. Maureen Kendrick (research superivsor), Dr. Margaret Early and Dr. Bonny Norton
Title: Learning Language and Science at Play: Threads of Meaning-Making and Identities
Abstract:
In recent years, there has been a staggering increase of forcibly displaced people worldwide. Upon arrival in the host country, migrant and refugee-background children (MRBC) may be particularly at risk due to the challenge of adjusting to a new language, school culture, and sociocultural changes. In this context, the present study aimed to shed light on the language and content-area learning of MRBC in a community elementary school in Greater Vancouver, BC. By using an inductive thematic analysis, this multiple-case study sought to understand how three Grade 2/3 learners could enhance their academic language proficiency and science learning while foregrounding aspects of their identities through various playful practices. Theoretical frameworks included sociocultural perspectives on literacy, a pedagogy of multiliteracies, conceptions of play, and identity. Data encompassed field notes, photos and videos of in-class activities, artifacts, and interviews with students and their teachers. Findings suggest that the three MRBC learned about the importance of water and its cycle through threads of meaning-making, which entailed engaging in a meaning-making flow, creating hybrid narratives of new knowledge, and learning collaboratively. The three MRBC also depicted threads of identities in their multimodal productions in which they foregrounded their sense of belonging, lifeworld experiences and agentic imagined identities. This research responded to a gap in the literature about MRBC’s literacy education in content-area subjects in Canadian mainstream classrooms; it also demonstrated how playful practices can give rise to synesthetic learning and open doorways to MRBC’s wealth of lifeworld knowledge and agentic identities in a science classroom.