scholarly journals We The People: Immigration Counter-Narratives in the High School Visual Arts Classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Alisha Mernick
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Classroom Culture ◽  
Student Work ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
The People ◽  
Arts Curriculum ◽  
Work Samples ◽  
Dominant Narratives

Immigrant students are deeply impacted by the xenophobic dominant narratives about immigration in the United States today, and are at risk of developing a deficit mindset about their own cultures. Our classrooms can serve as spaces of resistance to anti-immigrant and neo-nativist values by intentionally raising student critical consciousness about these oppressive forces, and centering our student’s lived experiences and funds of knowledge in the curriculum. This article looks at one high-school arts curriculum unit prompting students to critically analyze the dominant narratives about immigration, interview real immigrants in their lives, and create a counter-narrative art work for public display. The aim for this project was to give immigrant students a space to process, analyze, and counter the xenophobic narratives surrounding them. Summary of the unit plan, student work samples, classroom culture, and alumni testimonials are included.

Experiences of Secondary Hispanic Immigrant Students: Their Stories of Challenge and Triumph

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Mccartney ◽  
Sandra Harris ◽  
Vicky Farrow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Hispanic Students ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Narrative Techniques

Secondary Hispanic immigrant students have many struggles and barriers to overcome. This qualitative study investigated the experiences of 10 secondary immigrant Hispanic students, all non-English speakers, as they lived and attended high school in the United States. Narrative techniques were used to explore the challenges they faced in culture, immigration, and education. As students told their stories of struggle and success, the following four themes emerged: (1) respect for homeland, family, friends, and others; (2) responsibility to family; (3) resiliency; and (4) hope.

The Sojourner Experience of Yemeni American High School Students: An Ethnographic Portrait

2001 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loukia Sarroub
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
High School Girls ◽  
School Girls

In this article, Loukia Sarroub explores the relationships between Yemeni American high school girls and their land of origin. She also illustrates the tensions that often arise between immigrant students' lives and the goals of U.S. public schooling. Sarroub begins by providing historical background on Yemeni and Arab culture and international migration. Then, drawing upon a larger ethnographic study set in the Detroit, Michigan, area, she presents a case study of one girl's experiences in the contexts of home, school, and community in both the United States and Yemen. Throughout the study, Sarroub makes thematic comparisons to the experiences of five other Yemeni American high school girls. She uses the notion of the "sojourner" to highlight the fact that many Yemenis "remain isolated from various aspects of American life while maintaining ties to their homeland." Sarroub describes the relationships between Yemen and the United States as social and physical "spaces" from which high school girls' networks and identities emerge. She suggests that in this particular Yemeni community, which was fraught with ritual and sanctioned norms, public schooling was both liberating and a sociocultural threat. This duality sometimes led girls to disengage with home and school worlds and to create "imagined" spaces that could bridge their Yemeni and American lives. Sarroub's study provide a larger lens through which to understand the multiple spaces students must negotiate and the sojourner experience of this Yemeni community in the United States. (pp. 390–415)

scholarly journals Identity Negotiation in Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry into Experiences of an African Immigrant High School Student

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Lydiah Kiramba ◽  
James Oloo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
High School Student ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Systems ◽  
African Immigrant

Background/Context Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically known about their histories, cultures, expectations, and achievements. Purpose Using the narrative inquiry approach and the Natural, Institutional, Discursive, Affinity, Learner, and Solidarity (NIDALS) theoretical lens, we explore the lived experiences of one African immigrant high school student in the midwestern United States. Research Design Using narrative inquiry, we qualitatively explored the lived cultural, racial, and ethnic identities and self-images experienced by a Ghanaian-born female high school student, Akosua (pseudonym), as she navigated and resisted identities ascribed to her in the midwestern U.S. Findings The student's narratives speak to issues of culture, identity, and self-image, as well as her literate life in multiple languages and literacy contexts in and out of school. The findings reveal narratives of ascribed identities, racialization, and perceived language hierarchies in the participant's daily life and indicate a need to challenge such narratives about African immigrant students and disrupt the reproduction of linguistic and racial inequality in the school system. Recommendations While school systems do follow state-sanctioned linguistic norms and ideologies, when educators draw on students’ experiences and funds of knowledge as resources already in the room in order to find ways of negotiating and disrupting language hierarchies and the ascribed identities they support, it allows all students, including multilinguals, to have their identity affirmed, even in school systems that have historically marginalized them. This, in turn, supports educational achievement, broadly realized, not only psychologically for all students but also economically and nationally for the country—a critical accomplishment in an era when educational quality in the U.S. is losing ground to foreign achievements.

Challenges of being a digitally savvy principal

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayson W. Richardson ◽  
Jeremy Lucian Daniel Watts ◽  
William L. Sterrett
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Student Work ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
Leading Schools ◽  
Single Data ◽  
Work Samples

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to better understand the challenges faced by leaders who have demonstrated excellence in integrating technology into teaching and learning in P-12 schools in the United States.Design/methodology/approachThis case study of technology savvy P-12 school principals provides insights into how building leaders overcome digital technology innovation challenges. In the summer of 2017, the authors interviewed 12 of the 18 recipients of the NASSP Digital Principal Award. These principals serve as examples of how to lead schools in the digital age.FindingsUsing Bolman and Deal's (2013) conceptual framework, the authors analyzed the data around the four frames (i.e., political, structural, human resources, and symbolic) to understand the challenges of being a digital principal. Bolman and Deal posited leaders who function predominantly in a single frame may miss essential organizational change elements.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors recognize several limitations in this study. First, the nominating process for the NASSP Digital Principals award involves an application process. Thus, while these principals were recognized for meeting these criteria, it is possible that these awardees were selected based on their nomination materials rather than on actual longitudinal evidence. Second, this study's data were gathered through interviews. The authors did not gather data through student work samples, teacher and staff interviews, or other data points, but rather the single data point of principal perspectives through interviews.Originality/valueOne silver lining from the pandemic is that leading schools cannot be detangled from the digital needs of diverse stakeholders. As such, digital principalship has become the new norm where the principal leads on a screen, teachers teach on a screen, and students learn on a screen. The award-winning digital principals in this study played an integral role in how they message their school's story, how they navigate and design structures, how they overcome political realities, and how they invest in addressing the needs of individuals.

Religion and Mythology in the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland: Preparing for the End Times?

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
T. Jack Thompson
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The People ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Interesting Difference ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
End Times

Superficially there are many parallels between the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland – both were anti-colonial rebellions against British rule. One interesting difference, however, occurs in the way academics have treated John Chilembwe, leader of the Nyasaland Rising, and Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the Irish Rising and the man who was proclaimed head of state of the Provisional government of Ireland. For while much research on Pearse has dealt with his religious ideas, comparatively little on Chilembwe has looked in detail at his religious motivation – even though he was the leader of an independent church. This paper begins by looking at some of the major strands in the religious thinking of Pearse, before going on to concentrate on the people and ideas which influenced Chilembwe both in Nyasaland and the United States. It argues that while many of these ideas were initially influenced by radical evangelical thought in the area of racial injustice, Chilembwe's thinking in the months immediately preceding his rebellion became increasingly obsessed by the possibility that the End Time prophecies of the Book of Daniel might apply to the current political position in Nyasaland. The conclusion is that much more academic attention needs to be given to the millennial aspects of Chilembwe's thinking as a contributory motivation for rebellion.

Safe Spaces: Gay-Straight Alliances in High School

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Fetner ◽  
Athena Elafros ◽  
Sandra Bortolin ◽  
Coralee Drechsler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
High Schools ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Safe Space ◽  
Safe Spaces ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
The People

In activists' circles as in sociology, the concept "safe space" has beenapplied to all sorts of programs, organizations, and practices. However,few studies have specified clearly what safe spaces are and how theysupport the people who occupy them. In this paper, we examine one sociallocation typically understood to be a safe space: gay-straight alliancegroups in high schools. Using qualitative interviews with young adults inthe United States and Canada who have participated in gay-straightalliances, we examine the experiences of safe spaces in these groups. Weunpack this complex concept to consider some of the dimensions along whichsafe spaces might vary. Participants identified several types of safespace, and from their observations we derive three inter-related dimensionsof safe space: social context, membership and activity.

Telling Cases That Inform an Understanding of Factors Impacting the Development of Inventors From Diverse Backgrounds

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
Stephanie Couch ◽  
Audra Skukauskaite ◽  
Leigh B. Estabrooks
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Young Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
School Students ◽  
School Year ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds

The lack of diversity among patent holders in the United States (1-3) is a topic that is being discussed by federal policymakers. Available data suggests that prolific patent holders and leading technology innovators are 88.3% male and nearly 94.3% Asian, Pacific Islander, or White, and half of the diversity that does exist is among those who are foreign born (3). The data shows that there is a need for greater diversity among patent holders. Few studies, however, are available to guide the work of educators creating learning opportunities to help young people from diverse backgrounds learn to invent. Educators must navigate issues that have complex sociocultural and historical dimensions (4), which shape the ideas of those surrounding them regarding who can invent, with whom, under what conditions, and for what purposes. In this paper, we report the results of an ongoing multimethod study of an invention education pro- gram that has worked with teachers and students in Grades 6 through 12 for the past 16 years. Findings stem from an analysis of end-of-year experience surveys and interview transcripts of six students (three young men and three young women) who participated in high school InvenTeams®. The data were used to investigate three topics: 1) ways high school students who have participated on an InvenTeam conceptualize the term "failure" and what it means to "learn from failure," 2) what supported and constrained the work of the three young women during their InvenTeams experience and the implications for policy makers concerned about the gender gap in patenting, and 3) ways the young men and young women took up (or didn't take up) the identity of "inventor" after working on a team that developed a working prototype of an invention during the previous school year.

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