Asset‐Based Pedagogies With Multilingual Learners in Content Areas: Weak and Strong Versions

It has become nearly axiomatic in TESOL that pedagogies should leverage the assets that multilingual learners (MLs) bring. Despite this apparent consensus, asset‐based pedagogies can diverge in their purposes for leveraging students' assets. In this article, I propose weak and strong versions of asset‐based pedagogies with MLs in content areas. Whereas a weak version leverages MLs' meaning‐making assets for the purpose of transitioning students to privileged ways of making meaning in content areas, a strong version leverages MLs' assets for the purpose of expanding what counts as legitimate meaning‐making. After contextualizing weak and strong versions in the dialogue around asset‐based pedagogies in education research broadly, I highlight examples of research efforts that embrace the strong version in relation to three meaning‐making assets: (a) multiple modalities, (b) multiple registers, and (c) multiple named languages. Then, I discuss implications for policy and practice that build on momentum in research toward the strong version. By establishing a common vocabulary for the different ways asset‐based pedagogies have been conceptualized and enacted in TESOL, this article aims to ensure TESOL educators (including researchers, policymakers, and practitioners) are not talking past each other in their shared commitment to more equitable and just educational experiences for MLs.