Collaborations in Advocacy: New Research on Advocacy Work for Equitable Education of Immigrant-Origin Youth

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Educators, scholars, and educational stakeholders are redefining advocacy for immigrant-origin youth by collaborating in complex, multi-level partnerships that cross boundaries and linguistic barriers (Haneda & Alexander, 2015). In this symposium, presenters share research on the collaborative advocacy work of educators for immigrant youth in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Presenters will describe collaborations between researchers and practitioners to advocate through curriculum, and between teachers, students, and families to advocate through linguistically responsive pedagogy, mobile bilingualism, and spatial justice. Together, these papers demonstrate how advocacy is being enacted to support immigrant-origin youth by disrupting homogenizing practices and refocusing educational stakeholders on curricular, pedagogical, and organizational supports.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Second Language Research

Chairs

• Catherine Michener, Rowan University

• Sora Suh, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Papers

• Curriculum as Advocacy: How Teachers and Students Shape the Content of the "English" Classroom - Kate Seltzer, Rowan University

• SuperBilingüe: Advocacy and Emergent Bilinguals in a Community-Based Writing Center - Stephanie Lynn Abraham, Rowan University; Kate E Kedley, Rowan University

• Practicing Teachers Narrating the Politics of Funds of Knowledge in Schools - Meredith McConnochie, University of Saint Joseph

• "Strength in Numbers": Collaborative Advocacy of Teachers to Provide Linguistically Responsive Teaching for Emergent Bilinguals - Catherine Michener, Rowan University; Sora Suh, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Discussant

• Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Graduate Center, City University of New York