Picturebooks as Critical Literacy: Experiences and Perspectives of Translingual Children From Refugee Backgrounds

This multiple case study is part of a larger investigation of literacy practices in “Our Home,” an after-school program that provides learning support to children from refugee backgrounds. I asked, “What happens when translingual children from refugee backgrounds respond to multicultural, transnational, and translingual picturebooks?” Informed by critical literacy theories, I illuminate the experiences and perspectives of four children as they interacted with and engaged in dialogic reading of picturebooks; these critical literacy practices, along with observational data, are reported in profiles. Findings from this study reveal the ways in which children from refugee backgrounds found problematic aspects of assumptions in stories, reflected on different and contradictory perspectives, articulated the power relationships between characters, and offered alternative thoughts centered on social justice. This research expands the field’s knowledge of what doing critical literacy work with young translingual students in an after-school program looks, feels, and sounds like.