Ignoring Ibrahim: Teaching Black Boys with Refugee Backgrounds in the School/Prison Nexus

• In Event: We Gon' Be Alright: Teaching, Healing, and Resisting with Black Youth

Abstract

This paper reexamines data from this prior study noting the ways that students’ decriminalization remained incomplete. It frames Ibrahim, a Black boy with a refugee background, as a partial outlier in the study, absent from much of the interview and observations data, and ignored in his classroom. Ibrahim’s absence in the data highlights the nuances of the school/prison nexus, especially for Black children of refugees. This paper suggests that teachers may need to adopt additional decriminalizing practices in order to truly ‘see’ the students in their classrooms.

Author

• Maeve Wall, California State University - Northridge