"Real" Opportunities and Educational Belonging for Teenage Newcomers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Students' Ways of Knowing and Navigating Belongingness Across Educational Context

Abstract

Many schools that serve newcomers are ill-equipped to support them, yet newcomers are not passive recipients of their education. They come to school with goals, passions, curiosities and a will to belong. This critical ethnographic and collaborative qualitative study of one 12th grade class in a New York City newcomer school defines educational belonging with newcomers and their most supportive teachers. Newcomers understood belonging in terms of being instantly connected upon arriving at their schools, feeling honored for their cultures and languages, and having “real” access to opportunities. The presentation will illuminate the experiences of newcomers, the tensions and possibilities in their teacher’s practices, and considerations in the crafting of an education that culturally sustaining, anti-racist, and humanizing for newcomers.

Author

• Pamela D'Andrea Martinez, New York University