This article analyzes language practices that 5th grade students in a two-way bilingual education (TWBE) program used to position themselves relative to peers and to transcendent scripts (Gutiérrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995; Reyes, 2006) about ethnicity and ability (academic and linguistic) that attach themselves to students through their various…

This article explores Hispanics' concepts of cultural and linguistic identity. It is based on the findings of a recent study conducted by the author in Iglesia hispana de Cristo, a Hispanic church community in Western New York. Data come from ethnographic interviews conducted with 48 participants aged 13 to 80 years and with church leaders and…

This ethnographic case study uses participant observation and interviewing to explore the multiple, complex relationships between language and identities in a particular Puerto Rican community. Participants included students and teachers from a K-9 school-turned-community center in a rural municipality in Puerto Rico. Participants did not think…

This article explores the methodological turning points in conducting a critical ethnography on the discursive practices of Italian Canadian youth identities across their multiple worlds in Toronto (cf. Giampapa, 2004a). Specifically, I aim to problematize the construction of the "researcher," researcher identities, and the…

One of the major dilemmas when practising critical sociolinguistic ethnography within the field of education is the ethnographer's degree of implication within the studied site (Goldstein, 2003; Martin Rojo, 2003; Unamuno, 2004). How far should the researcher intervene within the daily practices he/she is observing? This exercise of methodological…

This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Magica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a…

Drawn from a 2.5 year critical ethnography in the ESL program of a Hawai'i public high school (Tradewinds High), this article examines racializing and racist conduct directed at Micronesian students by a group of old-timer ESL students, primarily of East/Southeast Asian inheritance. Racialization and racism directed at Micronesians positioned them…

Youth in Mexicano-speaking communities in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, have multiple ideologies of language and local identities. Young adulthood is a crucial time in which ideological positions on Indigenous language and identity can be in flux, thus having important consequences for understanding language shift and revitalization. Drawing on…

Although second language (L2) research has explored connections between sociopsychological variables and L2 socialization processes, relatively few investigations have compared heritage language (HL) learners to traditional foreign language (FL) learners in the North American context. This descriptive study compares the learning and acculturation…