Exploring Teachers’ Experiences, Perceptions, and Agency When Teaching Children Labeled 'Asylum Seekers'

• In Event: Experiences of Immigrant Families and Students in Inclusive Education

Proposal

Background/Context:
In Venezuela, a decade of political turmoil and economic collapse exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the largest forced migration movement in Latin American history and one of the largest external displacements in the world (UNHCR, 2023). This humanitarian crisis has led increasing numbers of Venezuelans to seek asylum in the United States, where New York City currently hosts the fourth largest Venezuelan migrant population in the country (Migration Policy Institute, 2023). Since 2022, an additional 36,000 Venezuelans have settled in NYC (The New York Times, 2023). Although the NYC DOE does not collect information pertaining to immigration-status, it is estimated that 5,800 of these people are children who enrolled in NYC public schools during the fall of 2022; of the 369 public schools who enrolled children from this group, 70% were elementary schools (NYC Comptroller, 2022).

Though commonly referred to as ‘asylum seekers’ or ‘newcomers’ within the school system, these children can be more accurately understood as ‘Transnational Emergent Multilinguals’ (TEMs)—those who move “across national borders [while continuing] to maintain affinity ties and social networks in more than one country” (Hornberger, 2007, p. 326 in Linares, 2022, p. 164). The term intentionally foregrounds the assets these children bring, building upon Dr. Ofelia García’s notion of the ‘emergent bilingual’ (2009) and an understanding of transborder literacies as a valuable form of social and cultural capital (Linares, 2020).

Despite their deep funds of knowledge, however, TEMs are often positioned as linguistically and academically deficient upon entering the U.S. education system (Decapua and Marshall, 2011; Linares, 2022; Garcia, 2016; Hos, 2016). Schools often construct children in relation to narrow ‘academic standards’ that do not do not account for TEMs’ ways of knowing; consequently, standards-based curricula are often unsupportive, unengaging, and disempowering for TEMs. The recent influx of TEMs in NYC public schools and the expectations surrounding standardized curricula create unique circumstances for public school teachers. In this context, it is essential to consider the role of teacher agency, an ever-expanding body of research which emphasizes that teaching is complex, intellectually demanding, and relational work, and which posits that teachers are uniquely well-positioned to shape education systems (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2006).

Focus of Study / Research Question:
This study seeks to investigate the ways in which teachers interpreted and responded to the presence of Spanish-speaking TEMs labeled ‘asylum seekers’ (henceforth referred to solely as TEMs) in NYC public elementary and middle schools during the 2022-2023 school year. Specifically, it poses the following questions:
-How did teachers adapt their pedagogy and/or curricula in response to TEMs?
-What opportunities and/or challenges did teachers perceive when teaching TEMs?
-What resources did teachers perceive as valuable when teaching TEMs?

Research Design:
This study takes a qualitative approach and draws upon ethnographic tools including interviews, recordings, and artifacts. All participants were teachers in NYC public elementary and middle schools who taught Spanish-speaking TEMs during the 22-23 academic year. The study author relied upon her professional networks and on journalistic publications to identify an initial set of 15 schools that had enrolled significant numbers of children from families seeking asylum (a comprehensive list of these schools is not publicly available) and employed snowball sampling to reach additional participants. Teacher-participants were invited to share their perspectives in one or more of the following ways: 1) completing an anonymous online survey; 2) providing an individual interview; 3) participating in an inquiry group that met over the course of two months.

Data was analyzed using a grounded-theory approach rooted in critical theoretical frameworks. The study takes up a critical sociocultural theory of literacy—a perspective which understands 'literacy' not only as the practice of reading and writing, but as a complex set of communication practices shaped by cultural and societal factors and embedded within larger power structures (Street, 1996). Additionally, this study draws upon the tenets of trauma-informed pedagogy, which aims to cultivate educational spaces that are responsive to trauma; it also draws upon the field of trauma-studies, in which trauma is conceptualized as a source of human connection, knowledge, and engagement (Dutro, 2019) rather than merely an affliction to be ‘cured’.

Findings/Results:
While data analysis is currently underway, early findings suggest the following:
-Standards-based curricula, which presume a linear, normative progression through school systems, are not supportive of TEMs;
-Teachers in grades 3-8 do not feel adequately prepared or supported to teach foundational print literacy skills to older children who are new to print;
-Teachers believe it is important to attend to the social, emotional, and psychological impact of forced migration in their work with children; however, they do not always feel that they have the language skills or resources to do so sufficiently;
-Classroom context and teachers’ Spanish language skills are important factors that shape how teachers perceive working with TEMs;
-Spanish-speaking teachers in transitional language programs with significant numbers of TEMs take up curricular and pedagogical innovation that is academically and socially-emotionally responsive to this group. In particular, they tend to: 1) employ trauma-informed pedagogy and consider students’ opportunities to process/make meaning from traumatic experiences, often providing these opportunities on a whole-class level; and 2) use the literacy curriculum as a site for affirming transborder identities and attachments.

Conclusions / Recommendations:
Early findings suggest that the current neoliberal model of education is especially harmful for children labeled ‘asylum seekers’—in this case, Spanish-speaking TEMs. Teachers’ experiences and perceptions highlighted the ways in which mandated curricula in NYC public schools does not adequately support these students. Based on these early findings, it is recommended that education policy-makers and school administrators expand the availability of transitional language programs in Spanish, value and support teacher innovation within these spaces, and establish education policies and practices that allow teachers and schools to support TEMs’ social-emotional—as well as academic—wellbeing.

Author

• Victoria Henry, Columbia University Teachers College