Resettled Refugee Teens’ Perspectives: Identifying a Need to Centralize Youths’ “Funds of Strategies” in Future Efforts to Enact Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

• Published in: The Urban review 2019-09, Vol.51 (3), p.345-368
• Main Authors: Daniel, Shannon M., Zybina, Maria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent Attitudes; Adolescents; Community and Environmental Psychology; Culturally Relevant Education; Difficulty Level; Education; Educational Attitudes; Immigrant students; Individual Power; Learning; Learning Strategies; Multicultural education; Pedagogy; Refugees; Secondary Education; Secondary school students; Secondary schools; Sociology; Strategies; Teachers; Teaching; Teenagers; Youth
• ISSN: 0042-0972; 1573-1960
• DOI: 10.1007/s11256-018-0484-7

This paper examines how refugee youth strategically navigate learning during the first years of resettlement. Interweaving frameworks of youth agency and culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), we investigate how refugees learn, how they perceive instruction in the U.S., and what they recommend teachers do to support them. Analysis of interview and observational data reveals that teens engage in productive learning strategies after school but have less agency to enact these strategies during school. Also emphasized in this study is teens’ desire for more rigorous coursework in secondary schools. Drawing from our findings, we theoretically propose that teens—not just teachers—have roles in implementing CRP. Thus, implications for research include the need for a greater focus on how resettled refugee youth mediate learning for one another and how teachers can learn about and empower youth to draw upon their Funds of Strategies as they strive to implement CRP.