Trauma-Informed Education Through Translanguaging Practices: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for Indigenous Refugee Students in Brazil

• In Event: Indigenous Peoples, Epistemologies And Praxis In Education

Abstract

This critical qualitative case study examined how a rural Brazilian public school supported Warao Indigenous refugee students from Venezuela through translanguaging, trauma-informed pedagogy, and culturally sustaining practices. Drawing on interviews with educators and a Warao community leader, the study reveals how multilingual, relational teaching countered displacement, food insecurity, and cultural erasure. Translanguaging emerged as a pedagogical strategy and emotional anchor, affirming identity and fostering belonging. Findings highlight the integration of storytelling, food rituals, and ancestral knowledge into classroom practice, alongside a school–university partnership. The study calls for trauma-informed teacher education and language justice policies that affirm Indigenous epistemologies and promote equity for forcibly displaced learners in the Global South.

Authors

• Karina O. De Paula, Texas Tech University

• Michelle Angelo-Rocha, University of South Florida

• Maria Janerrandra Fogaça Bispo Pereira, Universidade de Brasilia

• Cátia Regina Guidio Alves de Oliveira, Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development