On Becoming Bilingual

Simultaneously a rigorous account of and a tribute to bilingual children’s agency, knowledge, and creativity, On Becoming Bilingual is a must read for those seeking to understand the complex experiences of children growing up in linguistically diverse environments. Bringing together their experience as researchers of childhood bilingualism in North America and the Caribbean with detailed consideration of contemporary scholarship on bi/multilingualism and immigrant/postcolonial childhoods, Baquedano-López and Garrett offer us a compelling treatise on the social, political, and educational worlds that bilingual children inhabit and help create. Thoughtfully structured for use in graduate and undergraduate seminars, this state-of-the-art volume provides critical tools for discussions of the deficit framings of bilingual children’s skill and knowledge, and of how we can best support them in a dignity-affirming way.

Inmaculada Ma García-Sánchez, Associate Professor of Social Research Methodology, School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles