Maneuvering through undocumented and documented status: Liminal legality and civic education of a migrant social studies teacher

ABSTRACT

Theoretically framed by liminal legality, this narrative inquiry study focused on a social studies migrant teacher named Ms. Ali who had maneuvered through the multilayered categories of legal status—undocumented, DACA recipient, and permanent resident—and explored how her continuous liminal legality had influenced her personal, professional, and civic educational trajectories. The findings of the study demonstrate how Ms. Ali’s legal vulnerability had impinged on her life in multiple ways, creating various barriers, particularly in the face of increasingly restrictive and hostile immigration policymaking and rhetoric. The ways in which Ms. Ali’s liminal legality informed and cultivated her multiple, dynamic, and critical understandings and approaches to civic education for her newcomer and emergent bilingual students are also highlighted. The findings of the study form a new contribution to the highly underexplored research area of migrant teachers with undocumented/DACA backgrounds and provide several implications for social studies teacher education and civic education.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic education
• liminal legality
• migrant teachers
• narrative inquiry
• social studies
• teachers with undocumented/DACA backgrounds

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Throughout this paper, I use the term migrants in preference of immigrants to acknowledge and validate their ongoing and multi-stranded transnational connection and aspiration to their home countries, even after relocating to their new countries of residency.

2. Pseudonyms have been used for all names and other potentially identifying information.