Author Identifier (ORCID)
Christine Robinson: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8938-2994
Abstract
Foregrounded in the work of Elizabeth Povinelli and drawing on semiotic theory, translanguaging and play-based learning pedagogies, this article presents findings from a critical participatory action research project conducted in an early years classroom in a remote Aboriginal community school in Western Australia. It describes how two educators, from both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal backgrounds, collaborated to create spaces for the children in their classroom to engage deeply with their land, language and culture through intentional, purposeful and planned play, specifically Playworld Translanguaging. Findings are presented as a narrative account of one child’s meaning-making practices in collaboration with their teachers and peers, focusing on how they co-created shared spaces for play, co-developed semiotic resources through their play and engaged in symbolic play through the transformation of the meaning of objects in the local environment. Following our analysis of the narrative account, we draw out and discuss the centrality of land to knowing, being and doing in Aboriginal contexts, and the connections to language and culture. We conclude by explaining how, through Playworld Translanguaging, educators can combat cultural, linguistic and geographical dispossession and reductive educative expectations caused by colonialism and enacted through education systems.
Keywords
Aboriginal education, Bardi Jawi language, critical participatory action research, early years education, playworld translanguaging, semiotics
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
Publication Title
Language, Culture and Curriculum
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Education
Funding Information
This research project was funded by the Paul Andrew Digby (P.A.D) Robinson Endowment, Curtin University.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Steele, C., Dobinson, T., Dovchin, S., Robinson, C., Oakley, G., Cumming-Potvin, W., Gower, G., Grace, K., & Manado, S. (2026). Exploring land, language and culture through playworld translanguaging: One child’s meaning-making practices. Language, Culture and Curriculum. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2026.2666552