Teacher Narratives on Social Justice Teaching for Refugee and Displaced Students

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers as Advocates and Abolitionists (Table 35)

Abstract

Several decades of unprecedented population shifts brought massive refugee resettlement across communities in the U.S. and impacted millions of children and the educators that support them. This presentation explores stories of four K-12 educators as they navigate the complexities of schooling to positively affect the conditions of refugee students’ lives and schooling post-resettlement within several communities located across the Midwest and Northeast U.S. during a span of three years (2019-2022). We narrate the experiences of educators in increasingly complex social, political, and economic conditions that both enable and restrict their abilities to enact social justice pedagogies; these include aspirations toward critical consciousness while embodying aspects of White saviorism and striving towards community building and advocacy.

Authors

• Terri L. Rodriguez, College of Saint Benedict

• Laura J. Mahalingappa, University of Maryland

• Ayan Omar, St. Cloud Public Schools - ISD 742