Pursuing True Stories of Young Refugee Children and Evidence-Based Educational Practices

• In Event: Being Responsive to Childhood Adversities

Abstract

This paper discusses five main challenges refugee children face in learning and living in host countries, highlighting the need to reexamine their learning strengths and needs. It further reports an asset-based participatory project involving 18 preservice teachers and 85 young refugee children in an after-school program. This research aims to: a) pursue true and alternative stories of refugee children as multilingual learners; b) investigate pedagogical strategies that can promote their learning agency and experiences. The researcher's field notes, the PTs' reflection logs, interviews with children, inquiry papers, and artifacts were examined through qualitative and discourse analysis. The results reveal different stories of refugee children, their assets, contributions, and learning potential and demonstrate five evidence-based educational practices for working with them.

Author

• Huili Hong, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author