Criss Jones Diaz

This chapter outlines research by the author which examines bilingual children’s experiences of negotiating more than one language in education, family and community settings. The research investigated young children’s views about growing up with two languages, children’s dispositions in the learning of Spanish, and ways in which educators built on children’s cultural, linguistic and social capital to extend children’s home languages and literacies in early childhood settings

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This paper will provide an overview of the pedagogical practices we have developed over several years of teaching early childhood educators at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, to increase their awareness and understanding of difference, inequality, and social justice. Students are introduced to a range of theoretical contributions to explain difference and social inequities over the three semesters that they undertake the compulsory diversity and social justice subjects. The focus of this approach includes incorporating critical personal reflection as a framework from which students can begin to analyse and theorise the construction of their own attitudes and values towards difference. It provides the opportunity to explore the origins, maintenance, and changes in one's attitudes over time, and how this process is linked to the construction and perpetuation of power and inequality within a broader social context.

This chapter draws of two Australian research studies that examined children’s family literacy practices in community and educational contexts. The data highlights the importance of partnerships which enable educators to learn about and to incorporate children’s literacy experiences from diverse cultural and community contexts in educational settings. The first study, conducted by Criss Jones Diaz (2007), examined the literacy practices of bilingual English-Spanish-speaking children participating in community and cultural events important in the Latin American Australian community in urban Sydney. The second study, conducted by Bronwyn Beecher (2010), investigated ways in which educators extended partnerships with children and families about home and community literacy practices to represent and extend these at a children’s centre in Sydney. Current research into family and educator understandings of early literacy (Beecher 2012) provides additional insights into building partnerships with children and families to inform programs in ways that extend children’s learning

In Australia, languages education in early childhood and primary education includes three main approaches: transitional, enrichment and full bilingual programmes. This article proposes that transitional and enrichment programmes in Australia are constituted and shaped by competing and contested institutional, material, discursive and economic conditions limiting their capacity to deliver quality languages education and home/community language support programmes. Ultimately, this undermines the capacity of community languages programmes and schools to be recognised as valid and legitimate institutions. Such lack of support impedes children's interest in speaking and learning their home language. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of conversion, specifically, his concepts of the linguistic market and legitimacy, the data presented demonstrate how the unequal distribution of linguistic resources in Australia where home languages or community languages are offered inhibits effective implementation and provision of ...

There has been little research into the experiences of and connections between language retention and identity construction among bilingual Spanish speaking children from Latin American backgrounds living in urban communities in Australia. Theoretical frameworks and research that examine the intersections between language retention and identity construction in the early years of children’s lives is a crucial in understandings the complexity of identity and bilingualism from a sociocritical perpective (Jones Diaz 2007). This is of particular relevance to educators working with families raising bilingual children as the formation of identity is constantly negotiated, transformed and contested amidst a background of dominant English-speaking social fields that exist in multicultural Australia. This chapter draws on selected findings from recent qualitative research that examined young children’s bilingual voices and experiences using Spanish and English across a range of family, educational and community settings. The analysis draws on Bourdieu’s (1990, 1991) theory of social practice to examine the children’s views and perceptions of their proficiency and use of Spanish which constructed various dispositions through which they were able to deploy linguistic, cultural and social capital in these social fields. Other questions investigated in this chapter detail the importance of the linguistic habitus in shaping identity which can permit or prohibit the children’s use of Spanish in educational, family and community contexts

This paper examines the ways in which current affairs related to diversity and difference, nationally and globally, are represented to Australian children in children’s digital news media and through family discussions. The discussion is based on qualitative research that explores parents’ views and practices in addressing news media and diversity and difference issues with their children. In addition, this project includes a discursive analysis of stories found in Behind The News ( BTN), the primary digital news media source for Australian children, aged 8–13 years, from 2015–2018. The news stories are related to three significant topics: the marriage equality debate, refugees and terrorism. Within feminist post-structuralist, post-developmentalist and critical theorist frameworks, a focus is given to examining the dominant discourses that prevail in the stories, which provide insight into how childhood and children’s access to certain types of knowledge is viewed and regulated thr...

In contemporary classrooms, it is crucial for teachers to have a thorough understanding of sociological issues in education. Understanding Sociological Theory for Pedagogical Practices addresses sociological theory, highlighting its relevance to policy, curriculum and practice for the pre-service teacher education student. The book explores a range of sociological issues related to diversity, disadvantage, discrimination and marginalisation, contributing to the preparation of future teachers for work in a range of educational contexts. It seeks to dispel the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ notion of education, encouraging future teachers to think critically and reflexively in terms of creating a welcoming and equitable student environment through knowledge, inclusion and understanding. Understanding Sociological Theory for Pedagogical Practices is an invaluable resource for primary, secondary and early childhood pre-service teacher education students as they prepare to navigate the ...