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Educating African Immigrant Youth

Schooling and Civic Engagement in K–12 Schools

Edited by: Vaughn W. M. Watson, Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, Patriann Smith

Publication Date: June 28, 2024

Pages: 256

Series: Language and Literacy Series

Available Formats
PAPERBACK
ISBN: 9780807769805
$48.95
HARDCOVER
ISBN: 9780807769812
$147.00
EBOOK
ISBN: 9780807782446
$48.95
Educating African Immigrant Youth 9780807769805
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  • Description
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • Contents

Description+

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:

  • A focus on honoring and affirming the range of youth and community’s diverse, embodied, social-civic literacies and lived experiences as part of their educational journey, reframing harmful narratives of immigrant youth, families, and Africa.
  • Chapter authors that include Black African scholars, early-career, and senior scholars from a range of institutions, including in the United States and Canada.
  • Chapters that draw on and extend a range of theoretical lenses grounded in African epistemologies and ontologies, as well as postcolonial and/or decolonizing approaches, culturally relevant and sustaining frameworks, language and literacy as a social practice, transnationalism, theater as social action, transformative and asset-based processes and practices, migration, and emotional capital, and more.
  • A cross-disciplinary approach that addresses the scope and heterogeneity of African immigrant youth racialized as Black and their schooling, education, and civic engagement experiences. Implications are considered for teachers, teacher educators, and community educators.

Author+

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 a professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.

Reviews+

“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

“This compelling book provides educators and school administrators with critical lessons on decolonizing our teaching and learning methodologies and research approaches to create sustainable schooling communities particularly (but not exclusively) among African immigrant students in the United States, Canada, and other global contexts. The rich interdisciplinary perspectives offered on learning communities also add to the book’s broader global appeal and reach. The weave of global diaspora narratives across multiple geo-spaces has powerful lessons for educators interested in engaging the complex past, present, and future challenges of decolonial teaching and learning by interrogating the social civic literacies affirming learners’ identities and cultural and linguistic heritages.”
—George J. Sefa Dei, professor of social justice education and director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

“As global migration continues to shape the demographics of classrooms in the United States, African immigrant youth represent one of the fastest growing and most diverse student populations in many countries. The authors of Educating African Immigrant Youth have unearthed the complexities of the educational experiences of African immigrant youth and offer unique practical strategies. This comprehensive guide is an essential resource for teachers, educators, and policymakers who are committed to the success and well-being of African immigrant students and the broader vision of education as a powerful tool for social integration and inclusion in the U.S. educational system.”
—Alex Kumi-Yeboah, associate professor of education, Department of Educational Theory and Practice, School of Education, University at Albany-SUNY

"Educating African Immigrant Youth is significant, necessary, and timely. It helps the reader understand the increased marginalization of African immigrant youth in U.S. schools and curricula and provides an avenue for them to honor their multiple and transnational identities, unique funds of knowledge, and lived experiences, which are often ignored. The authors remind the reader that immigrant and diasporic children are not monolithic groups and that they deserve teachers who will recognize and humanize their heterogeneity through classroom learning and teaching processes. I commend the editors for this inspiring volume and recommend it to all those involved in the education of our children."
—Bekisizwe S. Ndimande, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Texas at San Antonio, and honorary professor, University of South Africa

“This rich collection illuminates the complex interplay among schooling, identity development, and civic engagement for African immigrant youth. Drawing from research and practice, it equips educators with strategies to create inclusive and affirming learning environments. This essential resource advances our understanding of African immigrant children's experiences while providing practical tools to support their full humanity and potential in schools and society.”
—Carola Suárez-Orozco, professor in residence, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Contents+

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

$48.95

Professors: Request an Exam Copy

Print copies available for US orders only. For orders outside the US, see our international distributors.

Books In This Series
Educating Emergent Bilinguals
Educating Emergent Bilinguals
Teaching Beyond Spoken Words
Teaching Beyond Spoken Words
Amplifying the Curriculum
Amplifying the Curriculum
Reading, Writing, and Talk
Reading, Writing, and Talk
When Teaching Writing Gets Tough
When Teaching Writing Gets Tough
Reading and Relevance, Reimagined
Reading and Relevance, Reimagined
Equitable Literacy Instruction for Students in Poverty
Equitable Literacy Instruction for Students in Poverty
A Cyclical Model of Literacy Learning
A Cyclical Model of Literacy Learning
Teaching With Arts-Infused Writing Pedagogies
Teaching With Arts-Infused Writing Pedagogies
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