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Bilingual education has described a process called translanguaging by which students use linguistic resources across and beyond multiple named languages to learn. Here, we examine how bilingual learners translanguage while learning computer science. These middle schoolers participated in a curricular intervention which infused computational thinking into their Spanish-English bilingual language arts class. Through a descriptive qualitative methodology, we document classroom moments supporting four claims: 1) students’ translanguaging blurs linguistic, disciplinary, and modal boundaries, 2) computational literacies are intertwined with students’ other literacies , 3) students’ attitudes about language and the contexts around them play a role in their translanguaging, and 4) students translanguage to engage in specific CT practices.
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This content will become publicly available on November 17, 2025
Translanguaging practices in global K‐12 science education settings: A systematic literature review
Abstract Recently, there has been a surge of literature on the implementation of translanguaging pedagogy and practices in science education settings. By activating and validating learners' full communicative repertoire, translanguaging holds promise to build an inclusive science learning community where multilingual learners' ways of knowing are not only respected but celebrated and extended. Drawing from the dual synergy between translanguaging and science education on multimodalities and social justice agenda, this systematic review synthesized the key features of empirical research published from 2010 to 2023 that reported translanguaging practices in global K‐12 formal and informal science education settings. The results indicated high heterogeneity in the studied socio‐geographic landscapes and in the definition, implementation, and implication of translanguaging practices. Analysis of the science sense‐making practices indicates some epistemic practices are more widely represented than others, with marginal global differences observed. To maintain and embolden the synergy between science education and translanguaging, our findings recommend increased collaboration between Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathmatics (STEM) education and bilingual education and collaboration between teachers and researchers to develop an effective translanguaging environment for science learning.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2247435
- PAR ID:
- 10555626
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Research in Science Teaching
- Volume:
- 62
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0022-4308
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 270-306
- Size(s):
- p. 270-306
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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