Here for the Humor: Exploring the Role of Humor in Multilingual K-12 Settings

Abstract

This three-paper dissertation contributes to the fields of teaching and learning, particularly in contexts with multilingual learners (MLs) and teachers of multilingual students. The research is especially fruitful to both teachers and teacher educators, acknowledging humor and its impact on the classroom. Paper 1, a literature review of humor in multilingual educational settings sets the stage for what we know about the topic, humor’s potential in ML contexts, and its role to humanize or dehumanize by putting humor and humanizing pedagogies literatures in conversation. The work then offers the conceptualization of humanizing humor, which is operationalized by five synthesized tenets: cultural, interactional, affective, instructional, and motivational. This foundation led to empirical pieces in elementary school settings. Building further on the affective tenet of humanizing humor from Paper 1, we employed affect as the theoretical lens in Paper 2. The empirical research involved qualitative data collection and discourse analytic methods that were affectively situated, originating from a larger pre-existing study in partnership with Dr. Emily Phillips-Galloway. The concepts focused on in the discourse interaction episodes were embodiment, power shifts and norm violations with taboo, and affective spread. Our findings amplify playful translanguaging and three of its features as one way to rehumanize language spaces. This contributes to the small but mighty corpus of humor studies in elementary contexts with linguistic humor and further develops playful translingual spaces by focusing on the concept of playful translanguaging through discourse episodes. There is a need for humor studies in elementary schools and the following empirical work strives to elevate the authentic uses of humor in ML settings. Paper 3, an ethnographic dual case study partnering with Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers of multilingual students engaged qualitative, affective, and collaborative methods. The analyses share four uses of humor and their impacts on the holistic development of a student as a learner and a person. This manuscript furthers the evolution of humor scholarship in the between moments and proclaims some of the many ways humor is infused in and impacting our classrooms.