“Le Voy a Adelantar el Camino”: Mothers Paving the Way Through Linguistic Motherwork in Bilingual Kindergarten Classrooms

Abstract

Grounded in the frameworks of motherwork, linguistic motherwork, and Family Language Policy, this critical ethnographic study examined how a group of mothers supported their children’s linguistic and educational development amid shifting school conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although online learning increased their access and positioned them as co-teachers, the mothers faced an overload shaped by intersecting social, linguistic, and institutional demands. As schools continue to recover in the post-pandemic era, these findings call for reimagining family engagement to decenter schools and to listen to all families without essentializing their multifaceted identities. Centering diverse parental experiences disrupts damage-centered narratives of learning loss and reveals how families sustained learning beyond dominant models of school-based involvement.