"It Sticks With You": Youth Meta-Commentary on the Term "Refugee" in a STEM-Focused After-School Program

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Multilingual, Immigrant, and Refugee Students: Disrupting Linguistic Boundaries and Interrogating Normative Labels (Table 10)

Abstract

Refugee background youth face several challenges to academic success in K-12 schools and in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning contexts. Interrupted formal schooling, poverty, challenges learning English, and racial stereotypes can be factors that impact students as they navigate K-12 and higher education. However, there is no one “refugee experience.” Using a linguistic ethnographic approach, this paper explores how teens with a refugee background define and use the term refugee, and how they relate refugee status to participation in STEM fields. Analysis of students’ metacommentary in naturalistic conversations and interviews revealed ideological tension in the personae associated with the term. Education researchers should consider such tensions when working with youth labeled as refugees.

Authors

• Sarah Braden, Utah State University
  Presenting Author

• Bolaji R Bamidele, Utah State University
  Presenting Author

• Raquel Goldrup, Utah State University
  Presenting Author

• Melanie Valera Garcia
  Presenting Author

• Ricardo Gonzalez, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• Tino Nyawelo, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jordan Gerton
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Matthews
  Non-Presenting Author