Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education

Abstract

Which theoretical and empirical insights can inform language‐in‐education research that advances equitable and high‐quality learning at school? In this three‐part article, I first draw from various sources to foreground the urgent need to counteract linguicism and epistemic injustices and to commit to more just and rigorous scientific practices in research and education. Based on findings from my own research, I then argue that more just and rigorous practices need to attend to midadolescents’ individual differences in language learning. In response, I present insights from recent innovative evidence‐based pedagogical frameworks and tools that reveal promising paths forward. I close by calling for research with a dual focus on equity and rigor that supports moving away from “pedagogies of silence,” which silence marginalized students’ voices, damaging their identities and obstructing their learning, towards “pedagogies of voices,” which affirm all learners’ voices while amplifying their language repertoires and their critical learning.

The Language Demands of Analytical Reading and Writing at School

“…On the basis of consistent research findings accumulated across multiple studies conducted in different contexts, I argue in this article for the importance of an integrated approach that intentionally and strategically (a) expands high-utility analytical language resources that support reading and writing to learn across content areas and, simultaneously, (b) affirms and leverages multilingual and multidialectal resources in welcoming schools and classrooms that engage and value students’ funds of knowledge and multiple identities (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Moll, 2019; Uccelli, 2023). Paying attention to strengths and areas of growth in analytical language as part of affirming and expanding students’ larger and flexible language repertoires is a crucial component of designing transformative high-quality and equitable learning opportunities to promote reading- and writing-to-learn across content areas.…”

“…Whereas I call for attention to mid-adolescents’ language, I need to clarify upfront that I see expanding students’ knowledge to support text understanding and argumentation as crucial and intimately related to language learning. In fact, the most recent research recommends precisely expanding students’ knowledge and understanding while scaffolding language learning through active participation in authentic discipline-specific practices (Jones et al, 2019; Uccelli, 2023). Having highlighted the crucial role of expanding knowledge and conceptual understanding, let us return to our focus on language.…”

“…The novel contribution of the CALS research is to provide an operational construct that delineates a particular subset of high-utility cross-disciplinary language skills (as part of a much larger construct of language proficiency) and a tool to measure this construct. In this way, this program of research has provided a tool to empirically test the hypothesis that differences in school-relevant language skills (beyond vocabulary knowledge) indeed may help explain mid-adolescents’ reading and writing proficiencies (for additional discussion of the theoretical and empirical basis of the CALS construct, please see Barr et al, 2019; Uccelli, 2023; Uccelli et al, 2015; Uccelli, Phillips Galloway, & Qin, 2020).…”

“…In contrast, I argue here for a reconceptualization of language learning. Instead of purely cognitive skills taught and learned without regard to cultures and sociopolitical contexts, I argue, with many in the field, for the need to conceptualize language learning as the learning of sociocognitive skills always deeply influenced by particular historical-political circumstances and embedded in sociocultural practices and identities (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Moll, 2019; Paris, 2021; Uccelli, 2023). For years researchers have been theorizing and conducting empirical studies guided by this broader conceptualization of language, yet research has mostly focused on multilingual learners.…”

“…The evidence reviewed in this article highlights the relevance of this reconceptualization for all students and foregrounds that all students are language learners in school in need of support with the new language demands of the learning tasks of the secondary school years. This reconceptualization requires that pedagogies and learning contexts move away from entrenched ways of teaching that too often—even if unintentionally—silence students in order to profoundly reinvent learning environments to promote learning through pedagogies of voices (Uccelli & Boix Mansilla, 2020/2022; Uccelli, 2023). To be clear, this entails not only affirming students’ voices and languages, but also paying strategic intentional attention to expanding their language resources.…”