Beyond the Pragmatic and the Liminal: Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students Code-Switching in Early-Years Classrooms‪.‬

Introduction International economic restructuring has had global and local affects. Globally, it has ensured (among other things) increased mobility of labor markets and cross-cultural contact (Burbules & Torres, 2000; Cummins, 2005). Locally, students in North American elementary schools are more culturally and linguistically diverse than they have ever been (Obiakor, 2001). In the Canadian context, a significant number of children in elementary schools located in urban centers speak a first language (L1) other than English or French (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2003). Despite these changing demographics, researchers have noted a dearth of research about culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in early childhood education (ECE) and disparity in providing for these students (Bernhard, Lefebvre, Chud, & Lange, 1995; Toohey, 2000; Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Falconer & Byrnes, 2003). Further, the limited scholarship about young children learning English as second language (ESL) has traditionally been methods-focused, with little produced from sociocultural and critical perspectives (Toohey). In contrast, this study contributes to the more recent growing body of work in early-years literacy research grounded in sociocultural theory as it informs early literacy (Bourne, 2001; Gee, 2001; Boyd & Brock, 2004) and also draws on critical multiculturalism as an analytic lens (McLaren, 1994; Kincheloe & Steinburg, 1997; May, 1999; Ladson-Billings, 2004).