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Innovative Qualitative Methodologies in Multilingual Literacy Development Research: Amplifying voices from immigrant, transnational, and refugee communities
Edited by Amanda K. Kibler and Fares J. Karam
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 11] 2025
► pp. 206–231

Chapter 11
Exploring the ‘void’ of silent/ced knowledge and expertise of multilingual learners

 | University of California, Santa Barbara
 | University of California, Santa Barbara
 | University of California, Santa Barbara
 | University of California, Santa Barbara
Grounded in a new sociolinguistic, literacy-centered theory — dialogic void — as a way of exploring silences in educational spaces, we explored the expressed cultural, linguistic, and experiential knowledge of 63 multilingual (Spanish/English) elementary students and the contextual factors (e.g., scaffolded questioning from discussion facilitators) that may impact how much knowledge and expertise multilingual students share. Findings show how the questions and methodological decisions literacy scholars make, and the ways findings about multilingual learners in English-dominant classroom contexts are represented can illuminate otherwise hidden knowledge and expertise. We highlight how this methodological innovation may be helpful to qualitative literacy researchers in more deeply exploring their positionality and ways that disciplinary, cultural, linguistic, and professional identities can shape (and potentially obscure) observations.
Keywords: culturally inclusive inquiry, literacy/literacies research, multilingualism, critical reading practices, funds of knowledge
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • A study of reading discussions with multilingual elementary students
    • Context and participants
    • Data sources
    • Analytic framework
    • Exploring the void
    • Positionality
    • Exploring contextual conditions
    • Findings
      • Instances of relevant discursive qualities
  • Methodological discussion
    • Positionality and the dialogic void
    • Positioning young co-learners as knowledgeable others
    • Researching moments of silence
    • Positionality and graphical (re)presentations
    • Positionality and exploration within social space
  • Implications
  • Notes
  • References
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