Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Urban Education

Advisor

Kate Menken

Committee Members

Ofelia García

Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

Cecilia M. Espinosa

Subject Categories

Adult and Continuing Education and Teaching | Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education | Curriculum and Instruction | Early Childhood Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Leadership | Elementary Education | Elementary Education and Teaching | Higher Education and Teaching | Humane Education | Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching | Language and Literacy Education | Other Teacher Education and Professional Development | Pre-Elementary, Early Childhood, Kindergarten Teacher Education | Secondary Education | Secondary Education and Teaching

Keywords

translanguaging, translanguaging rings, differentiation, scaffolds, decolonial, elementary education, dual language bilingual education, bilingual education, ENL, English as a New Language, equity, equitable education, translanguaging documentation, lesson planning, childhood education, emergent bilinguals, English language learners, multilingual learners, languaging, language, linguistic repertoire

Abstract

This qualitative multi-case study examines how elementary teachers in English as a New Language (ENL) and Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) settings conceptualize, implement, and reflect upon translanguaging pedagogies, with particular attention to translanguaging rings as tools for language differentiation. Grounded in a rearticulation of language as a dynamic, socially, politically, and historically constructed subject and object, this study challenges monoglossic ideologies that position named languages as bounded systems at the center of language education. Instead, it centers students’ lived, embodied, and agentive language practices as foundational to language learning and to their participation as knowledge producers in ENL and DLBE settings. Central to this study is an examination of how translanguaging pedagogies enable teachers and students to exercise linguistic agency to “unfreeze” (Liu, 2014) rigid language allocation policies and the power relations they sustain. Importantly, this study distinguishes between decolonial translanguaging pedagogies and pedagogical translanguaging approaches that, while supportive as instructional scaffolds, leave intact hierarchical and racialized language ideologies that privilege standardized language forms. In contrast, a decolonial approach to translanguaging (García, 2025) is framed as an ideological and pedagogical stance that actively challenges colonial logics (Mignolo, 2000; Quijano, 2000) of language, legitimacy, and knowledge production in schooling, repositioning multilingual learners as rightful meaning-making participants in “academic” settings.

Drawing on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014), translanguaging as methodology (Li, 2022), moment analysis (Li, 2011), and the concept of semiotic assemblages (Pennycook, 2017), this study investigates four teachers across first- and fourth-grade classrooms during the 2023–2024 academic year. The researcher observed multiple teaching cycles in which teachers developed translanguaging pedagogies to support specific multilingual learners, followed by lesson debriefs and the planning of subsequent instruction. Data sources include classroom observations, teacher interviews, artifacts, reflexive journals, sketches, and imagination work. Data analysis explores how teachers use translanguaging documentation, which are assessment practices that capture students’ dynamic languaging, to design translanguaging rings, that are differentiated translanguaging scaffolds tailored to support individual students’ linguistic and academic needs when performing in a specific language of instruction (Sanchez, García, & Solorza, 2018), and how translanguaging pedagogical practices shape instructional scaffolding, lesson design, assessment, and language differentiation.

Findings indicate that translanguaging documentation emerged as a critical practice for recognizing multilingual learners’ full language repertoires, enabling more precise and equitable differentiation, while also serving as a tool for contesting deficit-oriented interpretations of students’ languaging. This study identified two distinct types of translanguaging rings: (1) additive/assimilationist scaffolds that frame bilingualism as a skill and support specific discourses, and (2) decolonial scaffolds that leverage students’ full languaging practices as a modo de vivir (Mignolo, 2000), drawing on humanizing and socioemotional approaches that position students as knowledge producers and expand equitable access to content. Translanguaging rings function not only as pedagogical scaffolds but also as ideological interventions that disrupt language allocation policies. Through these practices, teachers and students engage in acts of linguistic agency that unsettle normative expectations of language use, creating openings to renegotiate participation, legitimacy, and knowledge production in classrooms.

This dissertation documents how teachers support students in engaging in languaging across their full language repertoires, making a critical distinction between bilingualism as a skill, aligned with standardized language outcomes, and bilanguaging as a modo de vivir (Mignolo, 2000), a relational, decolonial, and dynamic practice of meaning-making that exceeds named-language boundaries. Through these practices, students are positioned not simply as learners of languages, but as active meaning-makers and knowledge producers capable of reading and writing power through their agentive languaging practices. At the same time, teachers navigated tensions between translanguaging practices and institutional mandates rooted in standardized, monoglossic assessment frameworks. These tensions underscore the persistent influence of colonial logics and regulatory language ideologies in schooling, and highlight the need for educators to actively “read and write power” (Liu, 2014) in order to advocate for more just and inclusive educational spaces.

This study contributes to the field by theorizing translanguaging rings as part of a decolonial translanguaging approach in ENL and DLBE settings. It advances a critical understanding of language differentiation and scaffolding as a sociopolitical, historical, pedagogical, and decolonial practice, and offers implications for teacher education, curriculum design, and policy in multilingual education contexts. This research positions decolonial translanguaging pedagogies as central to creating equitable learning environments in which multilingual learners fully participate as knowledge producers by leveraging their full language repertoires to challenge, reshape, and transform language norms and policies. Grounded in love-centered and student-centered approaches, these translanguaging pedagogies fostered increased student engagement, participation, and agency in both content learning and language use.

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