ABSTRACT
This chapter tracks three critical junctures in my research journey and demonstrates how they worked as opportunities for learning (OfL). By researching the social and discursive construction of itinerant farmworkers’ children in relation to literacies learning, it became apparent that deficit discourses were dominant within the research school and the wider community. This was the first juncture that inspired my ongoing search for positive, productive stories and suitable pedagogies for the literacies learning of mobile children in general. The other two junctures involved the application of theory to educational practice and further classroom research to investigate teachers’ pedagogies. Although many OfL arose along the way, the three junctures are examples of deliberate moves towards investigating positive stories and “what works” pedagogically for mobile students. Using a testimonio approach, my first-person narratives explain how such OfL enabled a move beyond deficit discourses towards learning about pedagogy.
