Humanizing Power of Counterstories in the Post-Truth Era: Teachers' Understandings of Rural English Learners

• In Event: 75.027 - "Post-Truth" Discourses in Rural Educational Contexts: English Learner Students, Families, and Teachers

Abstract

Purpose
The field of second language education acknowledges the growing number of English learners (ELs) settling in rural areas (NCELA, 2006; Suro & Singer, 2002), where the poverty rate is higher than the national average (Gorski, 2017). While educators are ill-prepared nationally to meet the needs of increasing numbers of ELs in financially challenged school districts (Karabenick & Noda, 2004), rural school settings further challenge teachers' knowledge of their ELs and abilities to address their needs (Eppley, 2015). In addition, learners from immigrant backgrounds are dehumanized by being defined by such terms as ‘illegal’, ‘non-citizen’, ‘non-person’ (Pulitano, 2013). In response, this study explores how counter-stories of migration and daily life for immigrants in the U.S. can transform mainstream teachers’ understandings of the ELs in their classrooms in a high-poverty, rural setting while enrolled in a hybrid university professional development course.

Theory
This study uses Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) as it situates educational understandings of immigrant-background students who are economically and legally affected by their status and seen as raced, stereotyped, and minoritized groups (Gorski, 2008; McCarty, 2002; Shapiro, 2014). CRT suggests storytelling as a powerful instrument of resistance to unpack, problematize, and fight the labeling practices reinforced by the media, scholarship, and politics (Fruja Amthor, 2017; Fruja Amthor & Roxas, 2016; Pulitano, 2013; Shapiro & MacDonald, 2017; Suárez‐Orozco & Carhill, 2008).

Methods
This qualitative study of constructivist nature was designed to explore teachers' understandings of English learners in a high poverty rural setting. Teachers and school leaders (15 in total) were enrolled in a hybrid professional development university course. The participants were enrolled in a course that explored EL education in high-poverty rural settings. The data include observations recorded as field notes, semi-structured individual interviews, online postings, book club posting, and teacher action plans (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The data were analyzed using inductive discourse analytic techniques (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).

Results
The findings suggest that engagement in this PD course provided a mediating space for teachers to reflect on and challenge their understanding of how and why ELs may come to the U.S. and their daily lived realities. The narratives disrupted teachers’ understandings of ELs and their families by exposing the life-threatening journeys to and precarious circumstances of living in the U.S. By imagining their students, and themselves, in these narratives, teachers were able to change their discourse concerning these students and design small but concrete actions towards creating welcoming schools.

Significance
Counter-stories have the humanizing power to make visible and relatable that which is unknown, misunderstood, and even feared by teachers and school leaders whose lived experience differ radically from their EL students. By making ELs lived realities explicit, teachers may develop a more inclusive pedagogy towards ELs and their families.

Authors

• Paula Golombek, University of Florida

• Aleksandra Olszewska, University of Florida