Social Studies Preservice Teachers and Documentary Counternarratives of U.S. Immigration

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-24 - Issues of Immigration and Representation in Social Studies Education

Abstract

This descriptive case study examined preservice teachers’ responses to viewing the Academy Award nominated documentary Which Way Home. This film illustrated candid immigration counter-narratives - specifically the experiences of adolescents who hitch hiked the train system of Central America to the U.S. Drawing on pre and post surveys (n=38) and focus group interviews (n=9), findings indicated that PSTs intellectually grappled with immigration counter-narratives and demonstrated two shifts in their thinking about immigration and their future teaching. Nested in the theoretical frameworks of Yosso’s Critical Race Theory Methodology and Freire’s Critical Consciousness Model, this project serves as an example of how social studies methods instructors could use documentaries as pedagogical tools to explore counter-stories of a contemporary social issue, immigration.

Authors

• Jeremy Hilburn, University of North Carolina - Wilmington

• Lisa Brown Buchanan, University of North Carolina - Wilmington