Immigrant and Refugee Parents and Youth’s Enactments of Solidarities for Social Change

• In Event: Re-imagining Equitable Inclusion: Immigrant and Refugee Parents and Youths’ Experiences of Dis-engagement

Abstract

Objectives
Immigrant and refugee parents and youths’ lack of representation in decision- and policy-making processes in public schools is one of the most pressing educational problems today. Specifically, research has more often reported on the marginalization and exclusionary practices they experience with educational institutions and educators, and focused less on their responses and actions aimed at transforming these practices (López, 2001; Turney & Kao, 2010).

To gain a deeper understanding of how immigrant and refugee parents and youth can—and do—shape educational processes, this paper addresses findings from a study of parents and youths’ efforts toward equitable inclusion. Findings demonstrate that parents in particular actively, consistently, and intentionally realized opportunities and resisted their (in)visibility.

Theoretical Framework
This study is guided by Lugones’ (2003) conceptualization of oppression and resistance as pilgrimages/peregrinajes, or movements, that conceive of the thoughts, subjectivities, and actions of collectives and coalitions as potentially transgressive of institutional and structural oppressions. By challenging hegemonic discourses that construct some movements as political and as resistance—or not (e.g., rallies vs. withdrawing affection)—she invites a relational analytic focus on oppressing/being oppressed ↔ resisting spaces. This framework allows us to conceptualize immigrant and refugee parents and youths’ perspectives, sensing, sensemaking, and embodied knowledge as pilgrimages/peregrinajes ripe for coalitional possibilities.

Methods & Data Sources
The following research questions guided the study: (1) How do immigrant and refugee parents and youth seek inclusion in the context of exclusionary educational policies and practices? (2) How do immigrant parents and youth recognize opportunities for and mobilize toward equitable inclusion in decision- and policy-making processes? Data sources included audio-recorded parent focus group interviews, individual parent interviews, and observation notes (see Appendix A). We undertook inductive data analysis and coding procedures to identify themes pertaining to parents’ and youths’ sensing and resistant sensemaking (Saldaña, 2021).

Results
This paper addresses three major findings. First, analysis demonstrates that parents were actively engaged with educators and educational policies and practices in varied ways (e.g., requested meetings, monitored children’s progress, etc.). Further, they were knowledgeable about the hierarchical nature of educational systems, or their different “levels” (i.e., teachers, Board members, etc.). Second, parents and youth experienced dis-engagement as their attempts, movements, and efforts were routinely thwarted. For example, parents reported, “we don’t have a teacher that interprets for Latino parents, so…we don’t even go to the meetings.” Third, parents expressed distress about the patterned neglect of their children’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. They reported examples of educators losing children, lying about children’s well-being, and being neglectful when children needed medical attention (e.g., broken arms).

Significance
This paper expands conceptualizations of parent engagement. It demonstrates the antistructural and resistant movements that parents and youth enacted as they made visible their critical consciousness about and resistance to their (in)visibility and positionality, and those ideologies and practices that negatively affect immigrant and refugee children’s schooling.

Authors

• Mariana Pacheco, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Taucia Gonzalez, University of Arizona

• Hetal Ascher Patel, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Andrea Espinoza, University of Arizona

• Carlos Orozco-Wagner, University of Wisconsin - Madison