Artanti Sari and I have a new article in the International Journal of Bilingualism. ‘Learning Qur’anic Arabic in a virtual village: Family religious language policy in transnational Indonesian Muslim families‘ examines how two Indonesian Muslim families in the United States used digital technology to support their children in learning Qur’anic Arabic in translocal and transnational contexts in which to connect with family, friends, Qur’anic Arabic educators, and voluntary kin. Our article is part of a special issue on sacred language learning, guest edited by Bene Bassetti.
anthropology of childhood
BAAL 2023 symposium
Artanti Sari and I are presenting today at the 56th Annual Conference of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) at the University of York. We are part of the symposium ‘The Learning of Sacred Languages’, which features papers from a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism, edited by Bene Bassetti. Our paper examines the use of digital spaces by transnational Indonesian-Muslim families to support their children’s Qur’anic Arabic language and literacy development.
AERA 2023 paper & symposium
AERA 2023 in Chicago is wrapping up today. I am part of 2 symposia. I am the discussant for the symposium Illuminating Sociality and Learning in Diverse Educational Environments by Interrogating Movement, Touch, and Affect, organized by Sarah Jean Johnson (UTEP) and Ananda M. Marin (UCLA). I am second author on Jackie Ridley’s (Kent State) paper “¡Mira, the coche has wheels!” Supporting young children and families’ translanguaging through informal science’. The paper is part of a symposium organized by Jackie and Lindsey Rowe (Clemson U), In Supporting Children and Families in Early Childhood Education Contexts Through Translingual Practices and Pedagogies.
Buckeye Language Network Symposium 2023
The Buckeye Language Network Symposium 2023 is this Friday, March 31st, 9am – 12:45pm, in Oxley Hall 103. There will be invited talks by Prerna Nadathur and Make Rocker, as well as our annual graduate poster competition. The schedule is as follows:
- 9 – 9:15am Welcome
- 9:15 – 9:45am Invited Talk by Prerna Nadathur: Talking about causation: cause, make, and causal intentions
- 9:45 – 10:15am Invited Talk by Maike Rocker: Morphosyntactic change on fast forward: observations from German contact varieties
- 10:15-10:45am Break
- 10:45 – 12:15 Graduate Student Poster Session
- 12:15 – 12:30-ish Break (Poster Judging)
- 12:30 – 12:45pm BLN News and Prizes awarded
U of Cambridge Interfaith Week webinar
As part of University of Cambridge’s 13th World Interfaith Harmony Week programming, we are holding a webinar Language Learning in/as Religious Education on February 2, at 15:45 GMT. I will join Adel Mozammel (Darul Ihsan School), Anastasia Badder (Cambridge U), Jo-Ann Myers (Leo Baeck Institute), and Youmna Helmy (Cambridge U) to explore how religious communities draw on language as a semiotic resource aimed at specific goals, and how different methodologies can reveal aspects of the aims, processes, factors, and outcomes of sacred language learning and use. The event is free, just register in advance to get the Zoom link.
Sessions at AAA 2022 in Seattle
I am participating in 2 sessions at the 2022 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Seattle. The panel ‘Using Anthropology Of Language And Literacy To Address Equity In Unsettling Times’ brings together educational anthropologists who draw on anthropological theory and methods to examine the teaching and learning of language and literacy, drawing on theoretical frameworks that challenge dominant understandings. The round table ‘Refugee Education Across The Life Span In Unsettling Times’ showcases research on/with the language and literacy dimensions of the refugee experience.
Saida Mohamed AAUW Dissertation Fellow
I am a member of the dissertation committee of Saida Mohamed, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University. Saida has just been awarded an Association of American University Women (AAUW) American Dissertation Fellowship for the 2022-23 award year. Her dissertation examines the multilingual literacies (Somali, English, Kiswahili, Classical Arabic) of three families and their five to fourteen-year-old children of Somali and refugee background living in Nairobi, Kenya. Through the lenses of literacy as a social practice and funds of knowledge, Saida explores the connections between the children’s dugsi, school, and home language and literacy learning experiences and analyze how children and parents live and understand these experiences.
AAA 2021 virtual session: Supporting multilingual ECE
We just held our session ‘Supporting Multilingual Education in Early Childhood: Linguistic Anthropological Approaches’. Organized by Jennifer Reynolds (USC) and Amy Kyratzis (UCSB), the session examines the issue of how early childhood educators can be supported in sustaining and leveraging children’s expertise as a legitimate and generative means to expand linguistic repertoires and associated forms of knowledge production. The Zoom recording and documents will available through June 2022 to conference participants.
AAAL 2021 colloquium
I am presently participating in the 2021 American Association for Applied Linguistics virtual conference. With Jackie Ridley (Kent State), I have a paper, ‘Ideologies at the intersection of language learning, science learning, and play’. Our paper is part of the colloquium Jackie organized on Language Learning and Play in Preschool Settings, along with papers by Amy Kyratzis (UCSB), Katie Bernstein and Ryleigh Hait (ASU). It is amazing to be hanging out with so many applied linguists in one “place”, hearing about the work they are engaged in now.
Navigating Languages, Literacies, Identities paperback out
The paperback version of Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives is now available. The edited volume, which was first published in 2016, showcases research at the interface of religion and multilingualism, offering an analytical focus on religion in children and adolescents’ everyday lives and experiences. My chapter in it, ‘Moving across languages, literacies and schooling traditions’, is based on my work in northern Cameroon and Central Ohio.