Translanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging in context in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars propose a framework for researching translanguaging “in context,” drawing on the Douglas Fir Group's (2016) transdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. Examining translanguaging in context entails paying attention to who in a classroom wields power, as a result of their greater proficiency in societally valued languages, their more “standard” ways of speaking these languages, their greater familiarity with academic literacies valued at school, and/or their more “legitimate” forms of translanguaging. In our framework for researching translanguaging in context, we propose three principles. The first principle is obvious: (1) not to do so apolitically. The other two principles describe a synergy between ethnographic research and teacher‐researcher collaborative research: (2) ethnographic research can assess macro‐level language ideologies and enacted language hegemonies at the micro‐ and meso levels, and (3) teacher‐researcher collaborations must create and sustain inclusive, equitable classroom social orders and alternative academic norms different from the ones documented to occur in context if left by chance.

Traditionally strict language separation policies in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs reflect parallel monolingualism and have been criticized as failing to recognize the sociolinguistic realities of bilingual students (García, Ofelia & Angel M. Y. Lin. 2017. Translanguaging in bilingual education. In Ofelia García, Angel M. Y. Lin & Stephen May (eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education, 117–130. Cham: Springer International Publishing). To recognize the dynamic nature of bilingualism and leverage bilingual learners’ full semiotic and linguistic repertoire as a resource, this study looks at how to strategically and purposefully develop flexible and multilingual educational spaces in a third grade Chinese Language Arts (CLA) class in a Mandarin-English DLBE program in the New England area, U.S. Drawing upon Sánchez, María Teresa (Maite), Ofelia García & Cristian Solorza. 2018. Reframing language allocation policy in dual language bilingual education. Bilingual Research Journal 41(1). 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2017.1405098, translanguaging allocation policy framework, the researcher and the teacher co-designed and implemented translanguaging documentation, translanguaging rings, and translanguaging transformation spaces in the CLA class throughout the school year of 2018–19. Taking the form of participatory design research (Bang, Megan & Shirin Vossoughi. 2016. Participatory design research and educational justice: Studying learning and relations within social change making. Cognition and Instruction 34(3). 173–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2016.1181879), this collaborative inquiry demonstrates that translanguaging pedagogies could promote student engagement, contribute to their academic learning, and build home-school connections. It aims to provide authentic, sustainable knowledge for both researchers and practitioners to better serve bilingual learners in DLBE programs.

In response to a growing call for developing flexible, multilingual spaces in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, this paper explored how [Sánchez, M. T., O. García, and C. Solorza. 2018. “Reframing Language Allocation Policy in Dual Language Bilingual Education.” Bilingual Research Journal 41 (1): 37–51.] translanguaging allocation policy could be strategically and purposefully implemented in a Grade 3 Mandarin classroom in a U.S. Mandarin-English DLBE program where the majority of the students were English-dominant speakers. Taking the form of participatory design research [Bang, M., and S. Vossoughi. 2016. “Participatory Design Research and Educational Justice: Studying Learning and Relations Within Social Change Making.” Cognition and Instruction 34 (3): 173–193.], I (as a researcher) and a Mandarin teacher worked together to co-design translanguaging spaces within and across three content areas: Chinese Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. Data collection included classroom and design meeting recordings, observational field notes, and teacher and students’ artefacts and interviews throughout one whole school year. Inductive and deductive coding were adopted for data analysis. Findings revealed that it was a balancing act to create translanguaging spaces while maintaining the language-minoritized space and privileging students’ use of Mandarin. Translanguaging spaces took many shapes based on contextual factors such as different learning objectives and curricular demands of each content area. Students were able to demonstrate a fuller picture of their academic performance, develop deeper content understandings, build cross-linguistic connections, and become more aware of their bi/multilingual and bi/multicultural identities.

In response to the multilingual and multicultural realities in U.S. classrooms, it is important to prepare all teachers who understand translanguaging and are capable of implementing it across contexts. This exploratory qualitative study investigates how five pre-service content area teachers grappled with translanguaging in a graduate-level teacher education course which was designed from a translanguaging perspective. Data sources include teachers’ written coursework and exit interviews, and class observations. Using an inductive coding approach, we found that our content area teacher candidates developed a dynamic, holistic view to understand bilinguals’ meaning-making practices. They also perceived students’ home languages as a valuable resource that needs to be incorporated in general education classrooms to boost emergent bilinguals’ academic learning and socioemotional well-being. In addition, all five participating teachers employed a variety of translanguaging strategies (e.g., grouping based on home languages and providing translations) in their content area lesson plans.

Teacher-researcher collaborative inquiry helps illuminate contextual demands and affordances of teaching and learning and how they shape and inform theory and practice. Elaborating on a university-school study in a Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programme in the U.S., we examine how the researcher worked alongside a Grade 3 Mandarin teacher in implementing translanguaging approaches across different content areas. We focus particularly on critical moments of dissonance in their research partnership that capture their changing understandings and constant negotiations of translanguaging stance, design, and shifts. Through open and focused coding of qualitative data, we identified both parties’ evolving perspectives and teaching/research practices. Ambivalence, doubts, and contradictions characterised their collaboration process as both researcher and teacher wrestled with what translanguaging means to Chinese education within a DLBE context where English hegemony reigns both inside and outside school. Important critical moments are highlighted to illuminate how the pair gradually developed a shared understanding about the need for a more comprehensive, critical, and contextualised lens to translanguaging pedagogies and to learn how to orchestrate translanguaging spaces in DLBE programmes while privileging students’ use of Mandarin.