Research strength analysis, pedagogical components, and effectiveness of translanguaging: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This systematic literature review examined 61 empirical studies published from 2010 to 2022 on translanguaging. The review explored the trends and scientific strengths of the studies, the reported pedagogical components, and the affordances and challenges of translanguaging. 70.49% of the studies took place in elementary schools and in 65.57% in the U.S. contexts. The majority of the studies employed ethnographic methods (27.87%) to collect data. Only 37 of the reviewed papers endorsed translanguaging’s agenda of promoting equity and social justice. Our evaluation of the reviewed studies was generally favourable with strengths identified in researchers’ articulation of research context and theoretical frameworks, connections to existent literature, and methods of data collection. However, data analysis in certain studies did not contain adequate information regarding how themes, concepts, and categories were derived from data, and data were not presented in a way that enables readers to judge the range of evidence being used. Adopting thematic analysis, the systematic literature review identified 11 major pedagogical components of pedagogical translanguaging and the affordances and challenges of both pedagogical and spontaneous translanguaging. The paper ends with recommendations for future research and pedagogical innovations that aim to buttress bilingual and multilingual students’ fluid meaning-making practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• pedagogical translanguaging
• spontaneous translanguaging
• systematic literature review
• social justice
• equity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Faculty Research Development Funds.