Seeking Discomfort: Constructing the Ally in a High School ELA Classroom with Somali American Youth

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 a.m. Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Refusing Fragmentation: Constructing Belonging With/in Black and Immigrant Communities (Table 12)

Abstract

This paper engages critical and feminist pedagogies to explore the ways in which a White teacher constructed alliances and community in classroom spaces. It draws on my reflections across ten years as a teacher of Somali immigrant students. I contend that constructing allies happens in classrooms when students are able to disrupt normative binaries through creating coalitions based on difference. Queer pedagogy allows teachers to support students to become allies by seeing connections across multiple, sometimes conflicting identities.

Author

• Nicole Richardson, University of Minnesota