Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2023

All in a Day’s Play: How a Child Resists Linguistic Racism and Constructs Her Identity

Denise Dávila The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

Set in one of the least privileged neighborhoods of the US Southeast, this research project took a discourse analysis approach to construct a day-in-the-life case study. It illustrates how, during an after school storybook cooking class, a 7-year-old, multilingual, Mexican American girl navigated local linguistic microaggressions and extended microaffirmations to her peers. At the same time, she contested and critiqued societal power imbalances associated with whiteness. This study widens the corpus of scholarship that has primarily examined children’s sociodramatic play and literacy development in preschool settings. It also broadens the body of research that has predominantly focused on students’ linguistic dexterity and metalinguistic awareness in middle and high school contexts.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2023-02-01
DOI
10.58680/rte202332354
Open Access
Closed
Topics
discourse analysis writing across the curriculum qualitative research race and writing multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Amicucci (2025)
    Making Cultural Betweenness Visible: Future English Teachers’ Reflections on Ne…
    College English

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 32 works outside this index ↓
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    Journal of Applied Social Psychology  ↗
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    Journal of Linguistic Anthropology  ↗
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    Language Arts  ↗
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CrossRef global citation count: 1 View in citation network →

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