Conference paper
Four Bridges: A Typology of Cultural Brokering With Multilingual Families and Schools
Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting
24 Apr 2022
Abstract
Cultural brokering is “the act of bridging, linking, or mediating between groups or persons for the purpose of reducing conflict or producing change” (Jezewski, 1990, p. 497). School districts across the United States have created formal roles for cultural brokers to serve multicultural and multilingual families. Referred to by various terms (such as “parent liaison” and “bilingual counseling assistant”), cultural brokers assume different roles when they work with multilingual families. Those roles can range from translating and interpreting mainstream educational systems, to advocacy work with school administrators and teachers on behalf of families (Lewis, 2004; Martinez-Cosio & Iannacone, 2007; Singh et al., 1999; Yohani, 2013). Ishimaru et al. (2016) explains that “cultural brokers can play a critical role in bridging the racial, cultural, linguistic and power divides between schools and nondominant parents and families” (p. 852). Although the work of cultural brokers can help to increase access and opportunity for multilingual children and their families, we need to better understand the nature, shape, and types of “bridges” that cultural brokers create in their efforts to facilitate equitable school environments. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative case study of three Multicultural Counseling Assistants (MCAs) and the four types of bridging work they performed with multicultural and multilingual families. Our paper explores the following research question: What types of the bridging work do MCAs perform to build connections between multilingual families, schools and communities? [1st paragraph]
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Details
- Title
- Four Bridges: A Typology of Cultural Brokering With Multilingual Families and Schools
- Creators
- Kristine Grant - Drexel UniversityVera J. Lee - Drexel University, School of EducationBarbara Jean Hoekje - Drexel University, Communication
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting
- Conference
- 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Diego, California, United States, 21 Apr 2022–26 Apr 2022)
- Series
- AERA Online Paper Repository
- Publisher
- AERA
- Number of pages
- 10
- Resource Type
- Conference paper
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- School of Education; Communication
- Other Identifier
- 991021811735404721