Caroline Kerfoot

Biography

My research focuses on multilingualism, epistemic justice, and the construction of social orders in schools characterised by high levels of diversity and flux. My research shows how young adolescents use their multilingual repertoires to negotiate identities, restructure hierarchies of value including language, ‘race’ and ethnicity, and construct emergent social orders in which differences are re-formed and sometimes partially dissolved. At the same time, I suggest that social and academic identities partly constitute each other and that pedagogies which draw on all students’ linguistic resources can help address issues of epistemic justice. Overall this research has implications for transformative policies, practices and pedagogies.

Research Interest

multilingualism, epistemic justice