Complex Citizenship: Examining the Civic Engagement of Iraqi and Eritrean Youth in Predominantly Latinx Settings

Abstract

Culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education (CLRCE) seeks to address and challenge the limitations of traditional, normative notions of citizenship for Latinx, newcomer, K-12 youth. This paper uses a comparative case study approach to examine the questions: To what extent does the CLRCE framework apply to multi-ethnic and multilingual contexts? In what ways do multilingual Eritrean, Iraqi, and Latinx youth engage with social studies and citizenship education? Our goal is to examine the emergent CLRCE framework and the extent to which it provides insights into the civic engagement of historically marginalized youth beyond newcomers, Latinx, and/or Spanish-speaking students. Our findings provide insights into how thirteen multilingual youth take up and extend the CLRCE framework in their particular contexts and communities, and how they approach and negotiate complex notions of citizenship.

Keywords:

• Culturally and linguistically relevant
• multilingual youth
• social studies
• civic engagement