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Language and Liminality in the Schooling of Nondominant and Immigrant Youth

Thu, April 21, 11:30am to 1:00pm PDT (11:30am to 1:00pm PDT), Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, Floor: North Building, Lobby Level, Marriott Grand Ballroom 4

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Building on classic and contemporary theorizations of liminality, the proposed symposium offers ethnographic examinations of non-dominant youth’s social and educational lives within and across institutional spaces. This conceptual frame is particularly relevant because non-dominant youth (i.e. post-colonial, migrant/refugee, displaced/orphaned) are often represented as caught in the middle of various polarities (nation-states, languages, home/school domains, etc.) or as having to traverse multiple borders (whether geographical or symbolic). Leveraging anthropological evidence from diverse communities and settings across the globe, the symposium focuses on non-dominant youth’s perspectives on their own experiences of liminality vis-à-vis their ability to negotiate identity, language, learning, and belonging. We emphasize how, in navigating spaces and actions, non-dominant youth situate themselves and draw from their rich repertoires of practice.

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