Transworlding and translanguaging: Negotiating and resisting monoglossic language ideologies, policies, and pedagogies

Many resettled refugees speak multiple languages, yet they are often identified primarily as English Learners in US schools, where they are placed in English language development classes driven by monoglossic language ideologies that are incongruent with the refugees’ multicultural and multilingual lives. Drawing on data collected in an 18-month ethnographically-informed case study in the language-restrictive, monoglossic context of Arizona public schools, we explore the transnational, translanguaging, and transworlding behaviors of refugee students. We focus on refugee students from Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bhutan, the three countries from which the majority of refugees resettled in Arizona came during our study. We demonstrate the ways in which their heteroglossic transworlding interacts with schools’ policies and teachers’ practices. Discussing the implications for policy and practice, we argue that transworlding pedagogies have the potential to create more inclusive, joyful, and equitable teaching and learning spaces for refugees in resettlement, displacement, and migration contexts.