Multilingual Children Resettled as Refugees Critically Respond to Multicultural and Translingual Picture Books

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Learning From and Working With Refugee Communities: Policies and Practices

Abstract

As children respond to multicultural and translingual picturebooks that represent various cultural and linguistic groups, they also draw from their lived experiences. Using a critical framework for doing literacy work, the purpose of this study is to consider the ways in which multilingual children resettled as refugees are being, living, and doing. Multiple case studies (Stake, 2006) are used to privilege the voices and gestures of four children who were born in different countries in Africa and resettled as refugees in the Southeastern United States. Findings indicate that all four children recognized and critically responded to multimodal representations of power and marginalization on the basis of race/ethnicity, language, and newcomer immigrant/refugee status.

Author

• Nermin Vehabovic, University of Missouri - St. Louis