A multilingual learner’s lens: Freedom School as a Third Space for translingual and multimodal literacies

Abstract

While monoglossic educational approaches continue to marginalise the linguistic resources of multilingual learners, limited research has explored how informal educational settings can disrupt these constraints and actively support cultural identity formation. This qualitative case study examines how a six-week Freedom School summer literacy programme operated as a ‘Third Space’ for Adam, a second-grade Chinese American child who initially resisted his heritage language. Grounded in Third Space Theory and Critical Translingual Literacies as complementary frameworks, the study analyzes how pedagogical design and student agency work recursively to support identity transformation. Drawing on ethnographic observations, video recordings, student artifacts, home visits, and interviews, findings identify four interconnected conditions that fostered Adam's trajectory from linguistic resistance to confident cultural contribution: (1) routine multilingual invitations normalising linguistic diversity, (2) multimodal literacy activities legitimising visual and embodied expression, (3) culturally affirming texts with dialogic facilitation, and (4) family engagement repositioning home knowledge as academically valuable. Findings demonstrate that cultural identity transformation emerges from dynamic interplay between intentionally designed pedagogical spaces and translanguaging practices students enact within them.

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