Language Shift and Social Change: Participatory Action
Research in a Pakistani-American Community
Participants
Dr. Tasha Darbes
With
Puja Shah, Graduate Assistant
School of Education, Pace University
Submitted to AERA 2018
• Purpose
The Pakistani-American community in
New York has experienced challenges in
accessing and developing home language
resources. This paper will present
preliminary results of a participatory
action research project that investigated
the multilingual ecology of this Pakistani-
American community in order to enact
social change.
Preliminary findings reveal complex
plurilingual practices; however, data also
suggest rapid home language loss that
may underlie family communication
problems. This study highlights particular
challenges for communities to access
public school spaces and can inform
initiatives to improve family
communication and advocate for
bilingual education.
Dr. Darbes and Puja Shah with
community co-researchers
