Living “Glocally” With Literacy Success in the Midwest

Abstract

This article examines the concept of glocality as a way to better understand why immigrants, poor people, print-illiterate families, and boys are short-changed by schools that often operate under a deficit model or deprivation model in which students' economic, language, and gender status is the main determinant for school success. The author offers for discussion a set of themes that address (a) the challenges of recent immigration and resettlement in the Midwestern region of the United States, (b) the concept of glocality in connection to youth literacies and transnationalism, (c) the Midwest as a glocal context, and (d) the implications of success in relation to teachers and schools. Examples of glocality are drawn from research on Middle Eastern youth immigrant and refugee populations from Yemen and Iraq, as well as low socioeconomic American youth.

Acknowledgments

Loukia K. Sarroub is an associate professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.