Speaking Distance: Language, Friendship and Spaces of Belonging in Irish Primary Schools
Friendship and Peer Culture in Multilingual Settings
ISBN: 978-1-78635-396-2, eISBN: 978-1-78635-395-5
Publication date: 17 December 2016
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the role of language in constructing spaces of belonging in the relational lives of young migrant children in Ireland. In particular, it investigates how friendship is negotiated in linguistically normative school spaces.
Methodology/approach
The chapter draws on the findings and analysis of a larger study of Irish childhoods, race and belonging. The research involved qualitative work with 42 children, from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds. Research was undertaken with classroom groups in two primary schools in a large town in the west of Ireland, and with a small sample of migrant children and their parents in family homes. Arts-based and visual methods were incorporated throughout the data collection process.
Findings
Findings from the research indicate intersections between constructions of belonging in linguistic spaces such as the school and possibilities/constraints for children’s peer friendships. While ‘home’ languages and bilingual ability were valued in home contexts, even these spaces were inflected by the ‘English-only’ exigencies of school and broader societal spaces. Regarding peer friendship, the findings show that proficiency in speaking English was central, both in terms of accessing friendship rituals through ‘talk’, and, importantly, in terms of narrativizing self as viable school pupil and peer.
Originality/value
The significance of this work lies in its examination of the complexity of language as it functions in children’s relational lives. As well as being a pragmatic skill in negotiating and maintaining friendship, it identifies language as a marker of belonging that is shaped by and shapes school spaces, and which has implications for children’s peer friendships in this context. As such, the study points to a role for schools in engaging with and promoting recognition of children’s multilingual resources.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the children who participated in the research, together with their parents and teachers. My gratitude also to Maryanne Theobald and to the anonymous reviewer, for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter. Additionally, I gratefully acknowledge the guidance and support of Linda Connolly and Caitríona Ní Laoire at UCC; and funding for the research granted by the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP)/Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI), and by IT Sligo.
Citation
McDonnell, S. (2016), "Speaking Distance: Language, Friendship and Spaces of Belonging in Irish Primary Schools", Friendship and Peer Culture in Multilingual Settings (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120160000021004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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