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Shawna Shapiro
Writing and Linguistics Programs
10/5/16
From Trauma to Resilience:
New Directions for Literacy
Education Research in Refugee
Resettlement Communities
Overview
Background
The critique: Deficit orientation
An alternative: Asset orientation
Examples
A few concerns/caveats
2
Refugees and the “refugee crisis”
3
The “single story”
The consequence of the single story is this:
It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity
difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.
4
My argument
Deficit discourse creates a “single story” about
refugee-background students, emphasizing
what they lack, and overlooking
what they bring to resettlement communities
In order to resist this “single story,” in educational
research we must broaden our understanding of
Who (former) refugees are
What they need and want
What they can and could do with language/literacy
What they can contribute to our communities
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Sources: UNHCR 2015 Global Trends; UNHCR 2015 Resettlement Factsheet
Global Resettlement
7
Why this matters
Resettled refugees consider themselves the “lucky few” who were able to navigate a complex bureaucracy to be approved for resettlement.
As a result, they are often highly attuned to
Social and rhetorical capital
Status and leadership
Institutional discourses– e.g., labels such as “refugee”
8
(Myanmar)
Cases Inds % of total
Bhutan 83 189 58.15%
Burma (Myanmar) 3 4 1.23%
Burundi 1 5 1.54%
Dem. Rep. Congo 17 52 16.0%
Iran 1 3 0.92%
Iraq 1 1 0.31%
Nepal 1 1 0.31%
Somalia 20 70 21.54%
TOTAL 127 325
Vermont Arrivals: Oct 2015-Aug 2016
source: Refugee Processing Center https://www.wrapsnet.org
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Deficit orientation Effect on school policy/practice
Protectionism:
Refugee-background (RB)
students need safety and comfort
above all else!
Limited Schooling- “SLIFE”:
RB students have little or no
education background!
Low expectations:
RB students are lucky to be here!
They (and their families)
shouldn’t expect too much.
Long-term placement in “sheltered”
ELL classes; Social isolation
Default placement into
low-level/remedial classes
Grade inflation, Social promotion
Focus on HS graduation, rather than
college/career preparation
e.g., Bigelow, 2010; Callahan, 2012; Fritzen, 2011; Keddie, 2012; Mitchell, 2012;
McBrien, 2005; Pinson & Arnot, 2007; Roy & Roxas, 2011; Shapiro, 2014
The “single story”
11
• Victimization
• Suffering
• Powerlessness
Framing of past
• Neediness
• Trauma/PTSD
• Education gaps
Framing of present
• Othering
• “Good enough” mindset
• Limited opportunities
Impact on future
DEFICIT ORIENTATION
ASSET ORIENTATION
What do you lack?
(deficit/need)
Where have you been?
Experiencing trauma
Surviving
Sympathy
Being helped
What do you bring?
(social/linguistic capital)
Where are you going?
Becoming resilient
Thriving
Dignity/Aspiration
Helping others
12 Shapiro, 2014; Shapiro, 2015; Shapiro & MacDonald, forthcoming
What does this mean for literacy education research?
Centrality of student voices and perspectives
What is their lived experience at school and in the
community?
What language/literacy resources and practices are
meaningful to them (and to their families)?
What can we learn from work they produce,
both inside and outside the classroom?
How might awareness of the above inform school
policies, curricula, and instruction?
13
Resisting deficit discourse
(Shapiro, 2014; Shapiro & MacDonald, forthcoming)
“Do you guys accept
us—That we’re
different, that we’re
here, and we’re actually
trying to succeed? . .
.We came here to have
success in life!”
“Give me just one
minute, and I’ll impress
you!”
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“We’re bigger than test scores!. . . .Test
scores has nothing to do with who we are
and who we’re becoming as young men and
women.”
Understanding mismatched expectations
(Used with permission from
Hiorth & Molyneux, forthcoming)
Hsar Hsar imagines his first day of high school
“We [teachers] are so uniform on that
they must know Norwegian.”
BUT
“Our [researchers’] current findings
confirm that those refugees arriving with
no previous higher education may face
challenges as far as English proficiency
is concerned, and may have little chance
of succeeding in the Norwegian
educational system.”
( 15
(Dahl, Krulatz, &
Torgerson, forthcoming)
Cultivating Resilience and Agency
16
Teacher assumptions about PTSD
(Holmkvist et al, forthcoming)
“Familial capital” and
“Community cultural wealth” (Yosso, 2005)
• Madina’s decision to become a teacher (Shapiro, under review)
• Fardowsa : “My mom was always on my side.”
• Botende: “I think for people to be successful they need
to have people that they’re afraid to let down. . .
That’s what did it for me.”
Building community
“I’m gonna just say, this is about
making family. . . if you bring all
kids together and you’re telling
them . . what is good for them. . .
. [saying] ‘This what you need to
be. We want you to have a family,
a future, and we’ll be working
hard on you’. . . . We just got to
bring more love to the
community.” -Najib
(Shapiro & MacDonald, forthcoming)
17
Asset in the curriculum
Najib’s memoir Magnet school curricula in
Burlington School District
18
“I started my own business in
the refugee camp at the age
of eleven or twelve. . . .
I always have been a
problem-solver..”
Asset in the curriculum (cont’d)
“Photovoice” projects
Used with permission from Papa, forthcoming
Sending clothes to family
in Guatemala.
My name in Khmer . . . I think.
A blessed string worn for
protection
19
Multiliteracies
From Shafac’s screenplay:
BOY: I don’t want to fight you,
Muhammad [Ali]. I want to be you, to
be strong, to achieve, to dream and
keep the faith.
Cut to: inside of a bus. Camera moves
to boy, age eleven, traveling across
Africa.
MOTHER: (wiping off sweat) You
were fighting again.
.
Elizabeth’s use of Romanized
Karen in a multimodal composition
(Used with permission from Omerbašić , forthcoming; Crandall, forthcoming) 20
Heritage language learning
Nepali classes for children in Burlington and Winooski,
Vermont
*Special thanks to the Center for
Community Engagement, my RAs.
Hannah Sobel and Ojaswi Pandey,
and to Prof. Netta Avineri (MIIS).
Also supported by: 21
Complicating my own story…
The danger of romanticizing the “other”
o Are students gaining access to the
“culture of power”? (Delpit, 1988)
Can asset discourse become
empty rhetoric?
The importance of political context
“[I said] We are human beings as well, we have equal rights to
go to school like German youth. And he [social worker] told me,
‘there is no school for foreign youth.’”
(cited in Korntheuer et al, forthcoming)
22
“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to
dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to
empower, and to humanize.”
23
(Re)Humanizing Discourse
Thank you!!
For these slides and more, go to
http://sites.middlebury.edu/shapiro
Or email me directly:
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from Shapiro, S., Farrelly, R., and Curry, M.J [Eds].
Educating refugee-background students: Critical issues and dynamic contexts
(under contract with Multilingual Matters).
Crandall, B. R. “The future wasn’t always open”: Perspectives on writing from Somali-born
male youth with limited and interrupted formal education.
Dahl, A. Krulatz, A. & Torgerson, E., “The role of English as a foreign language in educating
refugees in Norway: A structuration theory analysis.”
Hiorth, P. & Molyneux, A. “Bridges and Barriers: Karen refugee-background students’
transition to high school in Australia.”
Holmkvist , E., Sullivan, K., & Westum, A. “Adult refugees with Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder learn Swedish.”
Korntheuer , A., Gag, M. Anderson, R., & Schroeder, J. “Educational Participation of
Refugee Youth in Germany. Case Studies in the multicultural urban centres Hamburg and
Munich.”
Omerbašić , D. “Students with refugee backgrounds creating digital landscapes of knowing.”
Papa, E. “Using Photovoice to uncover community cultural wealth.”
Adichie, C. (2009, July). The danger of a single story. TEDGlobal Conference. Oxford, England. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com .
Bigelow, M. (2010). Mogadishu on the Mississippi: Language, racialized identity, and education in a new land. Wiley-Blackwell.
Callahan, R. (2005). Tracking and high school English Learners: Limiting opportunity to learn. American Education Research Journal, 42(2), 305-328.
Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's children. Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), 280-299.
Fritzen, A. (2011). Teaching as sheltering: A metaphorical analysis of Sheltered Instruction for English Language Learners. Curriculum Inquiry, 41(2),
185-211.
Hirano, E. (2011) Refugees negotiating academic literacies in first-year college: Challenges, strategies, and resources. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgia
State University, Atlanta: GA.
Keddie, A. (2012): Pursuing justice for refugee students: addressing issues of cultural (mis)recognition. International Journal of Inclusive Education,
16(12), 1295-1310.
McBrien, J. L. (2005). Educational needs and barriers for refugee students in the United States: A review of the literature. Review of Educational
Research, 75(3), 329-364.
Mitchell, K. (2012) Race, difference, meritocracy, and English: Majoritarian stories in the education of secondary multilingual learners. Race Ethnicity
and Education,1, 1-26..
Pinson, H., & Arnot, M. (2007). Sociology of education and the wasteland of refugee education research. British Journal of Sociology of Education,
28(3), 399-407.
Roy, L. A., & Roxas, K. C. (2011). Whose deficit is this anyhow? Exploring counter-stories of Somali Bantu refugees' experiences in" doing school."
Harvard Educational Review, 81(3), 521-542.
Shapiro, S. (2014). “Words that you said got bigger”: English Language Learners’ lived experiences of deficit discourse. Research in the Teaching of
English. 48(4), 386-406.
Shapiro, S. (2015). A slippery slope toward “too much support”? Ethical quandaries among college faculty/staff working with refugee-background
students. In E. Feurherm and R. Ramanathan (Eds). Refugee Rexttlement in the United States: Language, Policy, Pedagogy. Multilingual Matters.
Shapiro, S., & MacDonald, M. (forthcoming in 2017). From deficit to asset: Locating discursive resistance in a refugee-background student’s
written and oral narrative. Journal of Language, Identity & Education.
Yosso, T. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.
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