Transformative Pedagogies and Partnerships: Advocacy for Immigrant and Refugee Youth in U.S. Public Schools

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Immigrant and refugee youth in U.S. schools are often characterized as problematic: school leaders worry because they “bring down” standardized test scores, and mainstream classroom teachers struggle with knowing how to provide robust support for youth who are simultaneously learning content and English. This panel session aims to disrupt these deficit views by engaging the audience in a critical dialogue about how exemplary teachers employ transformative pedagogies that provide spaces for immigrant and refugee youth to develop language, literacy, agency, and wellbeing. Partnership—among researchers, teachers, and community organizations—is a central theme that will be highlighted as a proposition for how we can move the needle toward an asset-based network of support for immigrant and refugee youth.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Language and Social Processes

Chair

• Carrie Symons, Michigan State University

Papers

• The Catastrophic Migrations of the 21st Century: Implications for Education - Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, University of California - Los Angeles

• How Do Refugee-Background Youth Mobilize and Language Emotion for Critical Media Literacy? - Martha Bigelow, University of Minnesota; Cynthia J. Lewis, University of Minnesota

• Lessons From an Expert Teacher of Immigrant Youth: A Portrait of Socially Just Teaching - A. Lin Goodwin, The University of Hong Kong; Rebecca Stanton, Community Health Academy of the Heights

• Composing Agentive Identity With Translingual-Transnational Refugee Youth - Christina M. Ponzio, Michigan State University

• Schools Cannot Do It Alone: A Community-Based Approach to Refugee Youth's Language Development - Carrie Symons, Michigan State University

Discussant

• Peter Ignatius De Costa, Michigan State University