RESUMO A chegada da pandemia de COVID-19 nos trouxe desafios tanto nos âmbitos individual, quanto no coletivo. Diante deste cenário, encontramos dados que nos alertam para a (falta de) atenção dada às populações menos amparadas pelas políticas públicas, como a população negra. Nos atentamos às desigualdades já existentes antes do período de crise sanitária, e que urgem serem consideradas nas pesquisas de diferentes áreas do conhecimento, entre elas a Linguística Aplicada. Diante do exposto, o objetivo de nosso estudo é analisar interações discursivas entre usuários do Facebook, ao terem visto uma imagem de divulgação de um debate online (live) acerca da representação negra em livros didáticos, postada pela Secretaria Municipal de Educação do Rio de Janeiro (SME/RJ). Os resultados mostram tanto os discursos silenciadores da iniciativa que visou a promoção do debate racial na esfera educacional, bem como os discursos de valorização desta prática. Dessa forma, reforçamos que as pesquisas em Linguística Aplicada, que possuem a linguagem como papel central nas interações entre os sujeitos, devem problematizar os usos da linguagem que minimizam iniciativas de promoção da justiça social.

Through data generated in an ethnographic research project, which studies language learners (future English teachers), it was possible to observe that learners voice the importance of being in control of their own learning. Nevertheless, in the academic context, it seems they have an imaginary territory, where they can or cannot exercise autonomy. In the classroom, they agree that the one who owns the knowledge (teacher) should be in charge of class management, which includes the determination of content, duration of the activities etc. From the learners’ perspective, besides being the one who knowsthe content, the teacher is the one that knows the best way to learn too. Outside the classroom, though, the situation changes: they feel freer to act according to their own learning beliefs and empowered to make their own decisions. All these data have been collected during a whole school year, at Catholic University of Pelotas – Brazil, when the researcher tried to construct an emic view with her participants using a range of research methods.

Her research interests are related to identity, power, and language learning. Her work has influenced not only us Brazilian researchers and language educators, but professionals involved with education worldwide. Her efforts to bring social justice and fight inequality through her research findings are endless, specially calling out attention to relevant issues as gender, ethnic and social class differences. Norton is a highly productive scholar, her publications include 5 books, 4 journal special issues, and 125 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her current research addresses multilingual literacy for children in African, Canadian, and other global communities. Este é um artigo de acesso aberto, licenciado por Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0), sendo permitidas reprodução, adaptação e distribuição desde que o autor e a fonte originais sejam creditados. Norton, Nicolaides e Mira-Identity and investment in language education Calidoscópio-v. 18, n. 3, setembro-dezembro 2020 768 Interviewers Christine Nicolaides (CN) is a professor and researcher at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, and her research interests are related to language learning based on the Vygotskyan sociocultural theory, more specifically she discusses and analyses the concept of sociocultural autonomy, originally brought up by Rebecca Oxford, in different language learning environments. Caio Mira (CM) is a researcher and professor at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, and his research concerns oral narratives, identities, discourse and social interaction, conversation analysis in institutional contexts and interactions in the context of Alzheimer illness.

No abstract

Transnational movements raised by globalization to a status of normality, let alone to absolute necessity, have reshaped the world and social practices (VERTOVEC, 2007; WEI & HUA, 2013). As a social practice, language dimension acquires a renewed importance in the way people use and consume languages functioning as an agent in the exercise of social and political power. Language ideologies, whether individual or socioculturally constructed, may be a source of empowerment or, conversely, disempowerment, forging asymmetries in the way people consume languages. Thus, the pursuit of autonomy in language learning with the combination of its technical, psychological, sociocultural and political dimensions constitutes a space for (inter)personal emancipation and social transformation. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the collective aspects of learner autonomy, based on the sociocultural autonomy concept (OXFORD, 2003). Drawing on Bakhtin's (1929/2006;1981) and Vygotsky's (1991) contributions used as groundwork for research in learner autonomy and in consonance with ideas of fluid and hybrid identities (HALL, 1992; BAUMAN, 2005; MOITA LOPES, 2006), this paper discusses agency, empowerment and identity through sociocultural autonomy development in multicultural environments. This chapter, then, is an attempt to show issues of empowerment, autonomy and agency being processed across real-life social language practices. Its findings and results come from two research projects conducted by the authors in two different contexts but related to the same research interest. Both projects aimed to analyze language learning autonomy, agency and empowerment in the continuous process of learners (re)constructing their identities, while learning a second language. Data generation was based on interviews with two speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and learners of English as an additional language, while taking part in exchange programs for international mobility - one of them in the U.S and another one in Australia. Results show that both participants seem to reframe their multiple identities, so that they can adapt and readapt themselves to the new communities of practice (COP), in which they have emerged. Factors like agency, empowerment and sociocultural autonomy seem to be essential and decisive in this process of reframing identities.