The Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth (CLAIY): Implications for Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, we draw from the Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth study to present key issues and implications related to teachers' work with immigrant youth. This synthesis draws on data and analyses from over six years of work examining the experiences, skills, and roles of teachers of immigrant youth as they navigated the complex terrain of teaching topics of citizenship in settings when not all youth had formal citizenship rights. Major themes include: the significance of building trusting relationships with immigrant students; the importance of approaches to teachers' knowledge building and legitimization of their immigrant students; and, finally, the prevalence of teachers' concern with the safety of their undocumented students. Subsequently, we pose questions for the field of teacher education in an era when immigration, education, and citizenship are intersecting in complex ways. Amid over-generalized conceptions of teaching for diversity, this article contributes to understanding how experienced teachers who supported immigrant rights practiced their craft, creating affirming environments in schools.

Acknowledgments

Both authors contributed equally to this publication. Authors are listed alphabetically. We thank additional members of the research team, especially Adebowale Adekile, Natasha Hakimali Merchant, and Mee Joo Kim for data collection and their role in collaborating on analyses over the years. We also thank Cristian Soraida Ramon, Michelle Hur, Elizabeth Castro, and Jennifer Charoni for their dedicated work on the project. Most of all, we thank the teachers and students in our study, from whom we learned a great deal.

Notes

¹ With respect to our terminology, we refer to those born abroad as immigrants and, following Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco (2001), we refer to both immigrants and their children as immigrant-origin. Additionally, we use “undocumented” rather than “illegal” to refer to undocumented immigrants. Using “illegal” to refer to people is dehumanizing (see Jefferies & Dabach, 2014).

² We use the terms Latinx and Chicanx rather than Latino or Chicano when referring across genders, using language that acknowledges the nonbinary nature of identity (Salinas & Lozano, 2017). Latinx also indexes indigeneity (Martínez-Prieto, 2018). (For a critique on the adoption of Latinx see Martínez-Prieto, 2018.)

³ Julio Salgado's work can be found at http://www.juliosalgadoart.com; Favianna Rodriguez' work can be found at http://www.favianna.com

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was funded by the Spencer Foundation and the University of Washington's Research Royalty Fund (RRF). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the funding agencies. We thank the Spencer Foundation and the RRF for funds to conduct this research.