Seminar by Professor Ann Phoenix (University of London) - Title: Adults looking back on childhood wellbeing and language brokering

The few pieces of research done on children who are language brokers do not support such a simple story (e.g. Orellana, 2009). This paper uses accounts from a study of adults looking back on their childhood experiences of language brokering to explore children's agency & creativity in language & cultural brokering; thee ways in which childhood language brokering constitutes a social resource to families and society (and the social contexts in which language brokering arise. The paper examines how adults looking back on their experiences of language brokering consider it impacted on their wellbeing in childhood and how they feel about it and themselves as adults.