"My Student Was Apprehended by Immigration": A Civics Teacher's Breach of Silence in a Mixed-Citizenship-Status Classroom

• In Event: 35.039 - Immigrant Youth and Citizenship Education

Abstract

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court established that undocumented youth were entitled to a free public K-12 education in the landmark case Plyler v. Doe, acknowledging the educational rights of a population that historically has been present since the creation of immigration restriction (Ngai, 2004). However, the implications of teaching undocumented youth have yet to be fully understood, especially within the social studies. This gap is especially apparent in state-mandated civic education, a requirement for all students in the U.S., regardless of status. A primary assumption of civics curriculum is the need to prepare youth who are presumed to be moving toward an adult life of full political rights. While some aspects of immigrant diversity (i.e., language diversity) are increasingly visible (e.g., Schleppegrell, Greer & Taylor, 2008), other aspects (e.g., variations in legal status) directly implicated in teaching about citizenship are nearly invisible in social studies research. This paper asks: How do teachers and youth navigate through the contradictions of legal status in civic education, particularly when teachers are aware of students’ differential legal status in their own classrooms?

Drawing from a year-long ethnographic study (2012-2013), this paper focuses on one case-study of a veteran social studies teacher who worked in an urban high school with a large population of immigrant youth from around the world (i.e., Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe), including undocumented students whose status she was aware of (due to students’ private self-disclosure). This paper strategically samples from two key episodes where—despite her general policy of not disclosing her political views—she revealed her stance on immigration policy while sharing deportation narratives with her students. These narratives were situated within a larger month-long unit designed to encourage students to develop their political voices by writing letters to elected officials. The paper closely examines the deportation narratives and students’ responses.

Analysis contrasts (a) undocumented students’ silence with naturalized immigrants’ talk during classroom episodes, and (b) 5 focal students’ classroom talk with their private interview responses to her instruction. (Focal students ranged in status and ethnic origin, including: an undocumented Latino student, a Latino U.S. citizen of undocumented parents, a naturalized African immigrant, an Asian immigrant student with temporary status, and a White non-immigrant U.S. citizen.) Emerging findings suggest that students from undocumented families also weighed their disclosure options and kept silent even when the issues discussed directly implicated them.

This paper illuminates aspects of the processes teachers and youth negotiate in state-sponsored civic education when normative assumptions about citizenship are interrupted in official classroom space.

Author

• Dafney Blanca Dabach, University of Washington - Seattle