Maximizing Learning Opportunities With Refugee Multilingual Learners in Urban Schools: An Asset-Based Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Culturally Responsive Schools

Abstract

This paper reports an asset-based participatory research with 18 preservice teachers (PTs) and 85 refugee multilingual learners (RMLs) in an after-school program homed in an urban public elementary school in the U.S. This research study aims to articulate the overlooked assets of RMLs that counter narrated the widespread deficit thinking of them. It offers teachers, especially PTs, a renewed perspective of RML students and alternative pedagogical approaches to maximize their learning opportunities. The findings made visible the RMLs students’ assets and positive potentials with a hope that more high-quality teachers would become more interested in teaching in urban education settings.

Author

• Huili Hong, Vanderbilt University