Situated in the multilingual context of Montevideo (Uruguay), this contribution presents some findings resulting from a collaborative research partnership between a primary school, children’s families and four museal institutions – the Cabildo Historic Museum, the Pre-Columbian and Indigenous Art Museum, the Migration Museum and the Photography Center – in the construction and implementation of a Plurilingual and Interdisciplinary Project (Carinhas, Araújo e Sá & Moore, 2020). The project is grounded in an approach of plurilingualism as an asset (Grommes & Hu, 2014) that bridges learning in schools, families and communities, anchors the education of children in the ecological landscape of the place, and promotes the recognition of linguistic diversity and the multi-situated aspect of knowledge (Dagenais, et al, 2009). In this presentation, we will focus on one particular multi-site set of activities involving teachers, families and curators around the documentation of children’s linguistic landscapes and the historical narratives that build their identities in relation to the neighbour that surrounds them: the Ciudad Vieja.
Multimodal data sources include visual and sound documentation of the linguistic landscape at and around the school and the museums in the Ciudad Vieja (Montevideo), as well as child-initiated digital photographs, drawings and collages, researchers’ field-notes and photographic and video recordings of children’s interactions, collected while in the process of documenting their learning during the walks, workshops and exhibit visits.
The contribution will trigger a discussion on didactic implications of linguistic landscapes as tools (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008) in the construction of multi-situated and cross-disciplinary pedagogical scenarios, as well as on the importance of plurilingual education to foster learning bridges across contexts, and facilitate communities and families’ engagement to create new and transformative learning spaces for young learners (6 to 12 years old).