Immigrant Students’ and Nonimmigrant Teachers’ Experiences of Classroom Instruction: Meaning Making in Heterogeneous Classrooms

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Immigrant and Indigenous Students in European Contexts

Abstract

This paper reports results of a case study in the framework of a research project to evaluate a current Austrian school reform program. The paper focuses specifically on students’ and teachers’ experiences of classroom instruction in order to find out which reform measures are experienced as helpful in reducing marginalization of immigrant students. We describe marginalizing processes as instructional practices that - instead of opening up substance - close or narrow down learners’ opportunities to develop meanings of content. By drawing on the lived experience descriptions of immigrant students, and by juxtaposing these experiences with the instructional intentions and practices of their non-immigrant teachers, the study is expected to shed light on meaning-making processes across social and cultural contexts.

Authors

• Neda Forghani-Arani, University of Vienna

• Bernadette Hoermann, University of Vienna