A Speculative Design for Inclusive Biliteracy Spaces: Respites from Oppressive Learning Practices to Make the Impossible Plausible

Abstract

Literacy practices have been known to privilege certain forms of knowledge rather than fostering a culturally responsive experience inclusive of various ways of knowing. Consequently, multilingual students with and without disabilities experience oppression and inequities in school. Literacy should extend beyond reading and writing to include various modes and ways of engaging with ideas. We investigated Varied Ways of Reading (VWR), a speculative afterschool biliteracy development program designed for preservice and in-service teachers to learn together and explore the biliteracies of multilingual children with and without disabilities. The study asked the following question: What kinds of speculative designs for inclusive biliteracy teaching does the VWR experience suggest? This qualitative social design experiment, grounded in cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and figured worlds, included three in-service and eight bilingual preservice teachers (BPSTs) learning with 15 multilingual children with and without disabilities. Data included VWR products, audio-recorded meetings, BPSTs’ learning notes, and exit interviews. We extracted tensions, actions, and literacy-as-event moments and followed a holistic analytical approach related to figured worlds of literacy and the utopian aim of creating inclusive bilingual spaces. The multilingual children in the VWR program were agentively literate on their own terms as moments of freeing arose through their playful, carnival-like experiences that provided what we theorize as “respite.” The study shows how afterschool programs can be rich spaces for transforming figured worlds and offers implications for researchers, teacher educators, and teachers.