Ron Darvin

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Assistant) at University of British Columbia

This paper asserts that creativity and criticality are interlocked constructs that converge through the shared impetus of challenging existing norms, practices and relations of power. Drawing on data from a student YouTube adaptation of a play about Filipino migrants from a literature textbook, it examines how high school students in the Philippine...

Located within distinct epistemological terrains, investment and motivation are complementary theories that both examine the extent to which individuals are able to engage with and commit to L2 learning. While motivation originates from social psychology, investment is a sociological construct that signals how the relationship of learners to a targ...

The year 2020 marked the 25th year since Bonny Norton published her influential TESOL Quarterly article, ‘Social identity, investment, and language learning’ (Norton Peirce, 1995) and the fifth year since we, Darvin and Norton (2015), co-authored ‘Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics’ in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics...

This chapter highlights how critical digital literacies (CDL) involve an examination of how power operates in digitally mediated spaces. It emphasizes that digital tools are never neutral, as platform designs and algorithms often index the interests of specific institutions and individuals. Recognizing how ideologies are embedded in the designs of...

This paper examines how Chinese university students negotiate their second language (L2) motivational dynamics, including their ideal and ought-to L2 selves, to participate in informal digital learning of English (IDLE) mediated by generative artificial intelligence (AI). It demonstrates the extent to which enjoyment, the most observable positive e...

Recent advancements in natural language processing and large language models have ushered language learning into the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Recognizing the affordances of generative AI tools, this paper aims to examine the degree to which L2 learners accepted and leveraged large language model platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Bing Chat) for...

This Element asserts how identity as a construct enables a critical awareness of how speakers position themselves and are positioned by others in intercultural encounters. It discusses how identity vis-à-vis culture has been theorized through social psychological, poststructuralist, and critical lenses, and how identity is discursively constructed...

Based on data from a qualitative case study of two Chinese university EFL learners from rural backgrounds, Andy and Jimmy, this study traces their progress from being struggling English language learners to confident speakers of English. Drawing on Darvin and Norton's (2015) model of investment that recognizes the intersection of identity , capital...

Based on a study of the digital literacy practices of immigrant Filipino students in Vancouver, this paper focuses on how learners with unequal access to resources engage with different tools to locate information and find opportunities for language learning online. Data was collected through interviews and observations of participants as they used...

Recognizing the immense popularity of TikTok among the over 200,000 Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, this paper examines the translingual practices of these migrants from the Global South on a social media platform known for its act out memes, dance and lip-synch videos. Drawing on data from interviews and the multimodal discourse analysis o...

Discourses surrounding digital technologies have often foregrounded their capacity to connect people however, in reality, online communication can also result in fragmentation, polarization and modes of exclusion. To address these issues, this paper highlights the need for learners to develop a critical digital literacy (CDL) that contributes to a...

One of the most downloaded apps in the world, TikTok is known widely for its act-out memes and lip-sync videos, where music and sound clips are remixed among users. While most social media platforms serve as sites of self-presentation and identity management, embedded in TikTok’s design is a memetic logic that encourages imitation and replication a...

This chapter examines to what extent the designs of online platforms like Google Scholar, Academia.edu and ResearchGate shape the way scholars negotiate their academic identities. Drawing on Darvin and Norton,.Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 36–56, 2015) model of investment, it demonstrates how competing and colluding ideologies are embedd...

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Learning - edited by John W. Schwieter June 2019

In this chapter, Darvin and Norton examine the potential of collaborative writing between student and supervisor as a means of academic socialization. Drawing on the model of investment (Darvin and Norton in Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 36–56, 2015), they discuss how investing in socializing practices within the academic community is lo...

Recognizing the importance of technology to achieve agentive participation in the knowledge economy, this paper examines to what extent social class differences between youth shape their digital literacies. Drawing on a case study of adolescents of contrasting social positions, it discusses how the material and relational differences of home enviro...

This chapter discusses how the constructs of identity and investment highlight language learning as a social practice implicated in relations of power. In an increasingly mobile world, English language learners navigate more complex, multiple spaces, where they need to continually reframe their identities and develop wider linguistic and non‐lingui...

Responding to observations in ELF research that Anglophone-centric attitudes towards English are eroding among speakers of a younger generation, this paper demonstrates that attitudes towards English can in fact vary among youth of different social class backgrounds. Drawing on a case study of immigrant Filipino adolescents in Vancouver, this paper...

Technology has revolutionized the way we produce and exchange information and developed new modes of communication and socialization. Implicated in relations of power, these digitally mediated practices are not ideologically neutral. They shape the representation of meanings and identities, the circulation of knowledge, the construction of social n...

The construct of investment, developed by Norton in the mid-1990s, represents the historically and socially constructed commitment of learners to language learning. Now considered a significant explanatory construct in language education research (Cummins 2006; Douglas Fir Group 2016; Kramsch 2013), this construct serves as a sociological complemen...

The construct of investment, developed by Norton in the mid-1990s, represents the historically and socially constructed commitment of learners to language learning. Now considered a significant explanatory construct in language education research (Cummins 2006; Douglas Fir Group 2016; Kramsch 2013), this construct serves as a sociological complemen...

Recognizing how the social landscape of language learning has shifted with innovations in technology, this chapter examines how critical pedagogies have responded to the new structures and relations of power that have evolved in increasingly digital times. As learners perform multiple and dynamic identities in this new world order, how they navigat...

Technology has revolutionized the way we produce and exchange information and developed new modes of communication and socialization. Implicated in relations of power, these digitally mediated practices are not ideologically neutral. They shape the representation of meanings and identities, the circulation of knowledge, the construction of social n...

The construct of investment, developed by Norton in the mid-1990s, represents the historically and socially constructed commitment of learners to language learning. Now considered a significant explanatory construct in language education research (Cummins 2006; Douglas Fir Group 2016; Kramsch 2013), this construct serves as a sociological complemen...

Recognizing how the social landscape of language learning has shifted with innovations in technology, this chapter examines how critical pedagogies have responded to the new structures and relations of power that have evolved in increasingly digital times. As learners perform multiple and dynamic identities in this new world order, how they navigat...

This article examines the construct of investment in language learning, developed by Bonny Norton from the mid 1990s (Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000; 2013), and expanded in more recent research with Ron Darvin (Darvin & Norton, 2015). A sociological complement to the psychological construct of motivation, investment has become a pivotal construc...

This article discusses how drama as a multimodal performance can be a powerful means to represent marginalized identities and to stimulate critical thought among teachers and learners about material conditions of existence and social inequalities.

This article locates Norton's foundational work on identity and investment within the social turn of applied linguistics. It discusses its historical impetus and theoretical anchors, and it illustrates how these ideas have been taken up in recent scholarship. In response to the demands of the new world order, spurred by technology and characterized...

A necessary component of the neoliberal mechanisms of globalization, migration addresses the economic and labor needs of postindustrial countries while producing new modes of social fragmentation and inequality (Crompton, 2008). As migrant students insert themselves into segmented spaces, their countries of origin are themselves implicated in a glo...

As technology enables migrant learners to maintain multi-stranded connections with their countries of origin and settlement, they engage with the world with transnational identities that negotiate a complex network of values, ideologies, and cultures. How teachers and peers recognize that migrants come with specific histories, knowledges and compet...