Countering deficit narratives with translanguaging – the Australian research context

Multilingualism, plurilingualism and translanguaging are terms commonly used by applied linguists and those involved in educational attainment in Australia. They are also fields of research which attract researcher attention throughout the academic world. This paper is a scoping review of 52 papers reporting on research, theorizing and practice in Australia. The authors looked at research conducted in Australian classrooms since 2000 and aligned each of these papers to three inductive themes: culturally sustaining pedagogies, multiliteracies, and linguistic framing. The largest group of researcher papers are under the culturally sustaining pedagogies theme and it is argued in the paper that this research interest is driven by the goal for equity and quality schooling outcomes for refugee, multilingual and Indigenous learners in Australian schools. The paper asks questions about engaging with policy makers and considering English language learners’ needs in a more nuanced manner.