Constructing Identities
Open Access DepositedThe Autobiographical Labor of Multilingual and Culturally Diverse Adolescents Experiencing Currere and Multiliteracies Pedagogy
This study of multilingual and culturally diverse adolescents who experienced currere (Pinar, 1994a/1975) and Multiliteracies Pedagogy (Cazden et al., 1996) at a community-based publishing program in Northern Virginia (United States) demonstrates how, through language and the publishing projects they produced, adolescents engaged in collaborative learning and identity construction. Pinar’s currere serves as the overarching theoretical framework, and the study occurred in a Multiliteracies Pedagogy context
for analysis, I drew primarily on insights from currere and interactional sociolinguistics, especially those that highlight the significance of narrative. I analyzed audio data using theories widely used in interactional sociolinguistics to explore how adolescents construct identities through language. Major findings from this study indicate that adolescents constructed fluid identities that shifted across conversations and during one-on-one interviews. When adolescents moved through the phases of currere during a one-on-one interview, their talk moved nonlinearly through past, present, and future to articulate who they were and who they were becoming. Adolescents constructed agentive identities during conversations and during the currere interview. They critiqued institutions, such as the public schools they attended from elementary school through high school, as well as the universities to which they were applying. Their repeated interactions across meetings provided opportunities to collaborate on stories and bond with one another. Their use of insider phrases indexed group membership and pointed to beginner and expert status within their community of practice. Additionally, the use of these insider phrases bonded them to each other and established a shared group identity. In bringing together currere and interactional sociolinguistics, this study lends insight into the ways that learning and being are intertwined in discourse.
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