Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Relevant Social Studies for Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Youth

“The book offers suggestions and ideas as to how teachers can change the social studies curriculum to heal from trauma and harm and instead focus on the celebration and sustainment of multiple languages.” —Journal of Education for Multilingualism

Through research, storytelling, curriculum development, and pedagogy, this book will help educators engage emergent bilingual and multilingual (EBML) students with social studies and citizenship education. Chapters are written by well-known and new scholars who are enacting teaching and research that center the needs, interests, and experiences of EBML youth.

Drawing from multiple, intersecting, and interdisciplinary frameworks that focus on culture and language, chapters highlight social studies in varying disciplinary and nondisciplinary spaces (e.g., community, geography, family, civics, history) both inside and outside the classroom. Examples of frameworks include culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies, linguistically responsive teaching, LatCrit and critical pedagogy, translanguaging pedagogy, and transnational citizenship. This insightful volume also directly challenges oppressive structures, policies, and practices that continually marginalize EBML students and are rooted in racism, linguicism, and xenophobia.

This unique collection is designed for scholars, teachers, and teacher educators to actively read, reflect on, and enact the approaches shared by educators who are doing this work.

Book Features:

• Highlights research conducted with youth and teachers in elementary, middle, and secondary school contexts, as well as with preservice teachers and teacher educators.
• Written in a user-friendly format for quick and informative access to theoretical and practical approaches.
• Outlines specific ideas for how to prepare pre- and inservice teachers for working with EBML students.
• Includes case studies, unit and lesson plan examples, and vignettes.
• Concludes with expert commentaries on where the field of social studies must go next to best meet the dynamic and multifaceted needs of EBML students.

Ashley Taylor Jaffee is the assistant director of social studies and lecturer in the Program in Teacher Preparation at Princeton University. Cinthia Salinas is associate dean pro tem for educator workforce development at the College of Education and Ruben E. Hinojosa Regents Professor in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin.

”The book offers suggestions and ideas as to how teachers can change the social studies curriculum to heal from trauma and harm and instead focus on the celebration and sustainment of multiple languages.”

—Journal of Education for Multilingualism

“This edited volume centers the knowledges, experiences, histories, languages, and cultures of those students and communities that traditional social studies curricula typically erase or ignore, and notes implications for teachers and scholars moving forward. If social studies educators and researchers take the advice offered within these pages seriously, our collective futures will be much closer to the vision of liberty and justice for all that the United States purportedly aspires to achieve.”
—From the Foreword by Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, assistant professor of elementary education and educational justice, Michigan State University

“This timely volume is an invaluable resource for today’s civic educators. With contributions from new and seasoned scholars, the book's 14 chapters amplify the voices and strengths of linguistically diverse youth, sharing important and useful insights for educators striving to support the academic growth and civic engagement of emergent bilingual and multilingual students. This insightful volume is a major step forward for social studies education and essential reading for educators committed to inclusive, critically relevant civic learning.”
—Beth C. Rubin, professor of social studies education, Teachers College, Columbia University