Crossing linguistic boundaries with community literacies

This chapter shares research that is part of a continuing effort of a university group of teacher educators and pre-service and in-service teachers who share an interest in exploring the local cultural and linguistic texts from the surrounding neighborhoods of the historic center in Bogotá. We draw on the contributions of ethnographers and sociologists like Fals Borda (1991), Rappaport et al. (2008), and Pink (2008). Pink (2008) exhorts us to attend to, investigate, and analyze the existing local visual culture which influences how we participate visually in this environment. We carried out ethnographic research for two years in the historic center of Bogotá as a prime space to examine multicultural resources for learning and teaching. Our work included participatory workshops with 26 teachers in two schools, walking the local neighborhoods to identify and collect texts from the rich historical, commercial, and touristic landscape of La Candelaria, and interviews with graffiti artists and university students. Our research interests and practices within teacher education to advocate the use of community resources by integrating these critically into curricula represents an epistemology of education and teacher development, linking academic knowledge, knowledge gained in school and that offered by the community as essential elements for democratic education (Zeichner et.al., 2014)

Linguistics · Sociology · Cultural and political discourse analysis · Educational theories and practices · History · Literacy and Educational Practices · Philosophy

• University as a Knowscape for Epistemic Emancipation

  Open Access•Hamza R’boul•European Journal of Education•2026

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