Translanguaging for and as learning with youth from refugee backgrounds

Abstract

Although host countries generally integrate refugees into public education, wide-spread and comprehensive understanding of teaching and learning with children and youth who have experienced forced displacement and migration remains an unmet goal within most education systems. This article explores the educational needs of these children and youth, exploring teacher perceptions of and approaches to students’ language and literacy practices. Sharing insights from case study research conducted in one Canadian school, the article discusses how educators at the school drew upon and engaged students’ linguistic resources as key to student learning, relationships and engagement, catalyzing new configurations of language in education. Analyzing these processes through a translanguaging theory of language, the article discusses how teachers and students engaged “translanguaging instinct” and created “translanguaging spaces” (Li, 2018) in their classrooms to support teaching and learning. Finally, the article proposes a three-dimensional matrix for teachers to use in reflecting on language teaching and learning, comprising axes of (1) teacher- and student-initiated translanguaging; (2) planned and spontaneous engagements with translanguaging; and (3) translanguaging as either a scaffold or a resource for learning. Illustrated with examples from practice and elaborated with teacher reflections, the article describes why such approaches are of critical importance in response to circumstances of forced migration and resettlement of vulnerable populations. Findings arising from this work further support and respond to the call for nuanced understanding of how translanguaging practice and pedagogy materialize within situated educational contexts.

The Impact of Principals’ Distributed Leadership Behaviors on Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Multiculturalism: Social Justice Leadership as Mediator

“…Banks and Banks (2010) defined multicultural education as a kind of education that provide students from different gender, race, language, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds with the same educational achievement opportunities. Principals and teachers are expected to be tolerant toward diversity and meet these students' needs at school and in the classroom (Kang & Hyatt, 2010;MacNevin, 2012;Yuan, 2018). Generally, when educators are not aware of their positionality (e.g., political, ethnic, racial, linguistic), they tend to adopt negative attitudes toward multiculturalism, which could cause discriminatory practices (e.g., Kovinthan, 2016;Stewart, 2012).…”

“…Teachers play a critical role in removing refugees' academic and social constraints and increasing their wellbeing (Banerjee, 2016;Richman, 1998). This role is very demanding in terms of having positive multicultural attitudes toward others, believing the necessity of working for social justice, and having theoretical and practical knowledge to create a positive school environment for all (Kovinthan, 2016;MacNevin, 2012). This equitable distribution of the educational resources and aiming the educational excellence for all without differentiating their "gender, race, culture, or socioeconomic status" is called social justice leadership (Brooks et al, 2007;Feng & Chen, 2019).…”

Plurilingualism, Equity, and Pre-service Teacher Identity: Centring [Linguistic] Diversity in Teacher Education

“…Yet K-12 classrooms remain overwhelmingly English monolingual instructional environments, despite individual and societal ideals of inclusivity. Despite plentiful evidence that children's home languages and language varieties provide foundational resources for learning (e.g., Accurso et al, 2021;Lau et al, 2021;Van Viegen, 2020), standardized English maintains a hegemonic status. Such standardized language practices tend to privilege White middle-class cultural and linguistic norms (e.g., Dyson, 2016;Flores & Rosa, 2015).…”

Spoken Word Poetry with Multilingual Youth from Refugee Backgrounds

“…The case study (Duff, 2018) from which this article draws is part of a larger, multisite study examining the language and literacy practices of youth from refugee backgrounds. Collaborating with teachers and administrators, the broad purpose of the study is to help school districts and community groups understand how to support youth who have experienced forced displacement and migration and to develop policies and pedagogic practices that engage with the digital, multimodal literacy practices of today’s youth (Van Viegen, 2020). With participating classes, we explored various approaches to engaging students’ funds of knowledge (González et al, 2006; Marshall & Toohey, 2010) and understanding students’ language and literacy resources.…”

“…Youth who have entered the country as refugees, particularly those who have had limited or interrupted access to formal schooling prior to their arrival, face intersecting challenges to learning, social adjustment, and academic success. Educators in secondary schools frequently struggle to identify, understand, and meet the language and literacy teaching and learning needs of these youth (Guo et al, 2019; Shapiro et al, 2018; Van Viegen, 2020; Yohani et al, 2019). For these reasons, we viewed the aims of language and literacy teaching as the development and expansion of students’ repertoires of practice, to afford students’ greater participation in and circulation across diverse cultural–linguistic spaces.…”