Edited by: Vaughn W. M. Watson, Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, Patriann Smith
Foreword by: Awad Ibrahim
Publication Date: June 28, 2024
Pages: 256
Series: Language and Literacy Series
This book illuminates emerging perspectives and possibilities of the vibrant schooling and civic lives of Black African youth and communities in the United States, Canada, and globally. Chapters present key research on how to develop and enact teaching methodologies and research approaches that support Black African immigrant and refugee students. The contributors examine contours of the Framework for Educating African Immigrant Youth, which focuses on four complementary approaches for teaching and learning: emboldening tellings of diaspora narratives; navigating the complex past, present, and future of teaching and learning; enacting social civic literacies to extend complex identities; and affirming and extending cultural, heritage, and embodied knowledges, languages, and practices. The frameworks and practices will strengthen how educators address the interplay of identities presented by African and, by extension, Black immigrant populations. Disciplinary perspectives include literacy and language, social studies, civics, mathematics, and higher education; university and community partnerships; teacher education; global and comparative education; and after-school initiatives.
Book Features:
Vaughn W. M. Watson is an associate professor of English education at Michigan State University. Michelle G. Knight-Manuel is dean of Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver. Patriann Smith is associate professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.
“Educating African Immigrant Youth is, in essence, about how to bring forth the full humanity of African immigrant and refugee youth who find themselves in North American schools, an outline of a cartography that allows possibilities of vibrant schooling and civic lives for these young people.”
—From the Foreword by Awad Ibrahim, professor, vice-provost, equity, diversity and inclusive excellence, University of Ottawa
“This groundbreaking volume offers powerful windows into understanding and interrogating the educational experiences of African immigrant youth and their families. The breadth of chapters in the volume document the heterogeneity of African immigrant youth and their families, while simultaneously connecting them with broader African diaspora themes and cultural practices shared among these youth and families with those of African descent who were born in the United States. The breadth of contexts documented is expansive, from implications for and experiences in disciplinary classrooms, to mathematics, history, and digital learning classrooms. Chapters further examine the complexities of how these youth and families navigate civic participation in this country along with sustaining transnational relationships. Overall, this volume expands our conceptualization of Blackness as experience, ideology, and complex heterogeneous identities. The breadth of the historical literature review of this topic invites the audience into a field of study that deserves our full attention.”
—Carol D. Lee, Edwina S. Tarry Professor Emerita, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Contents
Foreword Awad Ibrahim vii
1. Introduction 1
Vaughn W. M. Watson, Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, and Patriann Smith
Part I: Schooling and Classroom Perspectives and Contexts
Sandra Boateng and Vaughn W. M. Watson
2. Toward a Reckoning and Affirmation of Black African Immigrant Youth in U.S. P–12 Schools 21
Omiunota Nelly Ukpokodu
3. Africanfuturism and Critical Mathematics Education: Envisioning a Liberatory Future for Sub-Saharan African Immigrants 43
Oyemolade (Molade) Osibodu and Nyimasata Damba Danjo
4. African Lives Matter Too: Affirming African Heritage Students’ Experience in the History Classroom 54
Irteza Anwara Mohyuddin
5. A Narrative Inquiry Into Experiences of Black Women in Undergraduate STEM Disciplines in Ontario 68
James Alan Oloo and Priscila Dias Corrêa
Part II: Participatory and Communal Approaches to Learning and Civic Engagement
Michelle G. Knight-Manuel and Dorothy Khamala
6. Always Remember What’s Behind You So You Can Reach What’s in Front of You: The Transnational Civic Engagement of a West African High School Student 87
Patrick Keegan
7. An Affect-Centered Analysis of Congolese Immigrant Parent Perspectives on Past-Present-Future Learning in School and at Home 99
Liv T. Dávila and Susan A. Ogwal
8. Imaging and Imagining Activism: Exploring Embodied and Digital Learning Through Filmmaking With African Immigrant Girls During the Pandemic 110
Maryann J. Dreas-Shaikha, OreOluwa Badaki, and Jasmine L. Blanks Jones
9. Social Cohesion, Belonging, and Anti-Blackness: African Immigrant Youth’s Civic Exploration in a Culturally Relevant-Sustaining, After-School Club 129
Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, Natacha Robert, and Sibel Akin-Sabuncu
Part III: Literacies, Languages, and Learning: Toward Emerging Practices and Approaches
Patriann Smith
10. Unboxing Black Immigrant Youth’s Heritage Resources 147
David Bwire Wandera
11. Opening Space to Participate—One Nigerian Girl’s Use of Visual Arts to Navigate School-Based Linguistic Discrimination 161
Lakeya Afolalu
12. Theorizing Rightful Literary Presence and Participatory Curriculum Design With African Immigrant Youth 173
Joel E. Berends, Vaughn W. M. Watson, and Dinamic Kubengana
13. Conclusion 191
Vaughn W. M. Watson, Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, and Patriann Smith
References 197
Index 228
About the Editors and Contributors 241
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