Counteracting Xenophobia and Racism Through Language Education: Co-Designing Anti-Oppressive Language Curriculum With Teachers and Immigrant Youth (Poster 30)

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

Immigrant youth suffer from xenophobia and racism on a regular basis, which impacts their learning, well-being, and identity. Supporting immigrant youth in navigating and addressing xenophobia and racism through anti-oppressive pedagogies is a matter of educational equity. This poster presentation reports on the collective learning from the first stage of the Immigration Literacy & Dignity Project, a participatory action research project that uses multiple methods to explore how an intergenerational research collective of educators, students, activists, and university-based researchers can support immigrant youth to engage in critical inquiry and linguistic activism to counteract xenophobia and racism. This first stage of the project examined how two English language arts (ELA) teachers and the university-based researcher, through collaborative practitioner research, co-created a unit of language curriculum on immigration, inequality, and inquiry for developing immigrant youth’s critical literacy and racial literacy for understanding their lived experiences and engaging in youth participatory action research. Drawing on fieldnotes, interview data, and instructional materials, we – the university-based researcher and the ELA teachers – illuminate (1) the process of us negotiating the concepts of immigration, inequality, and racism for co-designing the curriculum, (2) the affordances and challenges in participatory action research project, and (3) guiding principles in designing anti-oppressive language curriculum that centers immigrant students’ concerns, voice, and agency in teaching literacy for immigration justice, equity, and dignity.

Author

• Kongji Qin, New York University
  Presenting Author