Full Description
This book takes a distinctive approach to exploring the experiences and identities of minoritized Latinx mothers who are raising a child who is labeled as both an emergent bilingual and dis/abled. It showcases relationships between families and schools and reveals the myriad of ways in which school-based decisions regarding disability, language and academic placement impact family dynamics. Treating the mothers as experts, this book uses testimonios to explore not only what mothers know but also how they develop funds of knowledge and how they apply them to their child's education. The stories shed light on how mothers perceive their child's disability, how they engage with their child and the value they place on bilingualism. The narratives reveal the complex lives mothers lead and the ways in which they strive to meet the academic and socioemotional needs of their children, regardless of the financial, physical and emotional costs to them. This book has significant implications for researchers and professionals working in bilingual education, special education, inclusive education and disability studies in education.
Winner of the AAAL First Book Award 2023.
Contents
The Able Bendiciones of Latina Mothers: A Foreword
Preface: A Note on Positionality
Part 1: The Social Constructions of Motherhood - Poverty, Monolingualism and Disability (by Proxy)
Chapter 1. Introduction: Why Mothers? Why These Mothers?
Chapter 2. 'They don't care, they don't understand, they're in denial': Constructions of Mothers as Others
Chapter 3. Other People's Stories
Chapter 4. Setting the Stage: An Introduction to the Mothers and the Significance of a Place and Time
Chapter 5. At Home with the Testimonialistas
Part 2: Testimonios: Mothers Speak
Chapter 6. Mothering With, Through and Alongside Dis/ability Labels
Chapter 7. Broken Promise: The Security of Bilingualism for the Future and the Ambiguity of Bilingualism in the Present
Chapter 8. Teacher? Student? Both: Mothers as Language Brokers
Chapter 9. Bending Roles: Resisting Exclusion, Creating Paths for Engagement
Chapter 10. Broken Spirits: Challenges Faced by MoEBLADs
Chapter 11. Motherhood as Purpose
Part 3: Making Room for Mothers
Chapter 12. Repairing Broken Systems: Radical Possibilities
Chapter 13. Moving Forward Together
Making Personal, Professional and Global Connections: An Afterword
