‘I don’t want sad stories’
Family storytelling with young children in refugee resettlement communities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jmtp.26051Keywords:
community cultural wealth, critical refugee studies, culturally sustaining pedagogies, family storytelling, refugee resettlement communitiesAbstract
Foregrounding the agency and voices of families who sought refuge in the United States, we investigated their storytelling by asking: What kinds of stories do parents/guardians choose to share? And what are the purposes of their storytelling? Assisted by interpreters, we worked with nine families with children aged from five to eight years, who had come from Nepal, Somalia and South Sudan, observing their storytelling and conducting interviews. The storytelling and interview sessions were video-recorded and translated/transcribed. Adapting Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework, we employed emergent coding and constant comparative analysis to identify themes of stories and purposes for storytelling. Our findings revealed two important patterns. First, the families focused on traditional stories with explicit moral lessons and these stories illustrated six forms of CCW: familial, navigational, social, aspirational, resistant and linguistic capital. Conspicuously, stories of forced displacement over-represented in literature were missing. Second, the storytelling was intended for their children to learn moral lessons, maintain home cultural heritage and language, and have fun. They also expressed the desire to share their stories in schools. Our study highlights the efforts of families who experienced forced displacement to counter dominant narratives of trauma and deficit. Based on the findings, we discuss how schools and society can leverage the CCW of communities to support their children’s learning and development.
References
An, S. (2022a). Critical juxtaposing of war and migration: A content analysis of Southeast Asian refugee children’s literature. The Social Studies, 113(5), 249–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2022.2046996
An, S. (2022b). Teaching about the Vietnam War: Centering Southeast Asian refugee voices through children’s literature. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 34(4), 13–18. Retrieved on 11 April 2024 from https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/2022-04/YL-3404222.pdf
Booker, C. (2004). The seven basic plots. New York: Continuum.
Coles, J. A. (2023). Storying against non-human/superhuman narratives: Black youth Afro-futurist counterstories in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(3), 446–464. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2035455
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G. and Thomas, K. (eds) (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: The New Press.
Delgado, R. and Stefancic, J. (2023). Critical race theory: An introduction (4th ed.). New York: New York University Press.
DeNicolo, C. P., González, M., Morales, S. and Romaní, L. (2015). Teaching through testimonio: Accessing community cultural wealth in school. Journal of Latinos and Education, 14(4), 228–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2014.1000541
Eder, D. J. (2007). Bringing Navajo storytelling practices into schools: The importance of maintaining cultural integrity. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 38(3), 278–296. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2007.38.3.278
Espiritu, Y. L., Duong, L., Vang, M., Bascara, V., Um, K., Sharif, L. and Hatton, N. (2022). Departures: An introduction to critical refugee studies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gandhi, E. L. E. and Nguyen, V. (eds) (2023). The Routledge handbook of refugee narratives. London: Routledge.
Hope, J. (2018). ‘The soldiers came to the house’: Young children’s responses to The Colour of Home. Children’s Literature in Education, 49(3), 302–322. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-016-9300-8
Hope, J. (2023). Applying RefugeeCrit to recent middle grade/young adult children’s literature about refugees. In E. L. E. Gandhi and V. Nguyen (eds), The Routledge handbook of refugee narratives (pp. 191–201). London: Routledge.
Hopkins, L. (2009). Why narrative? Reflections on the politics and processes of using narrative in refugee research. Tamara Journal, 8(2), 135–145. Retrieved on 11 April 2024 from https://tamarajournal.com/index.php/tamara/article/view/327
Joyner, F. F. (2012). Storymining: Eliciting stories and mining their content for cultural levers. Human Resource Development International, 15(5), 627–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484316656658
Kisiara, O. (2015). Marginalized at the centre: How public narratives of suffering perpetuate perceptions of refugees’ helplessness and dependency. Migration Letters, 12(2), 162–171. https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v12i2.250
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3876731. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035007003
Ladson-Billings, G. and Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104
Limbu, B. (2023) Refugee narratives and humanitarian form. In E. L. E. Gandhi and V. Nguyen (eds), The Routledge handbook of refugee narratives (pp. 39–49). London: Routledge.
Marin, A., Halle-Erby, K., Bang, M., McDaid-Morgan, N., Guerra, M., Nzinga, K., Elliott-Groves, E. and Booker, A. (2020). The power of storytelling and storylistening for human learning and becoming. In M. Gresalfi and I. S. Horn (eds), The interdisciplinarity of the learning sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) (pp. 2199–2206). Nashville, TN: ICLS.
Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D. and Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534
Paris, D. and Alim, H. S. (eds) (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. New York: Teachers College Press.
Perry, K. H. (2008). From storytelling to writing: Transforming literacy practices among Sudanese refugees. Journal of Literacy Research, 40(3), 317–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/10862960802502196
Rajaram, P. K. (2002) Humanitarianism and representations of the refugee. Journal of Refugee Studies, 15(3), 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/15.3.247
Reese, L. (2012). Storytelling in Mexican homes: Connections between oral and literacy practices. Bilingual Research Journal, 35(3), 277–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2012.734006
Roy, L. and Roxas, K. (2011). Whose deficit is this anyhow? Exploring counter-stories of Somali Bantu refugees’ experiences in ‘doing school’. Harvard Educational Review, 81(3), 521–542. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.3.w441553876k24413
Smith, L. G. E., McGarty, C. and Thomas, E. F. (2018). After Aylan Kurdi: How tweeting about death, threat, and harm predict increased expressions of solidarity with refugees over time. Psychological Science, 29(4), 623–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617741107
Stanton-Salazar R. D. and Spina S. U. (2000). The network orientations of highly resilient urban minority youth. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 32, 227–261. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.67.1.140676g74018u73k
Strekalova-Hughes, E. (2019). Unpacking refugee flight: Critical content analysis of picturebooks featuring refugee protagonists. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 21(2), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v21i2.1871
Strekalova-Hughes, E., Bakar, A., Nash, K. T. and Erdemir, E. (2018). Refugee critical race theory in education: An emerging ontological and epistemological lens. America Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, New York, April.
Strekalova-Hughes, E. and Peterman, N. (2020). Countering dominant discourses and reaffirming cultural identities of learners from refugee backgrounds. The Reading Teacher, 74(3), 325–329. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1944
Strekalova-Hughes, E., Peterman, N. and Lewman, K. (2019). Legally scripted fictions: Fathers and fatherhood in English language picturebooks with children from refugee backgrounds. CLELE Journal, 7(2), 10–36. Retrieved on 11 April 2024 from https://clelejournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Legally-Scripted-Fictions-CLELE-7.2.pdf
Strekalova-Hughes, E. and Wang, X. C. (2019). Perspectives of children from refugee backgrounds on their family storytelling as a culturally sustaining practice. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 33(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2018.1531452
Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15
UNHCR (1979). Handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Retrieved on 11 April 2024 from https://www.unhcr.org
United Nations General Assembly (1951). The 1951 Refugee Convention. Retrieved on 11 April 2024 from https://www.unhcr.org/au/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention
Vasquez, V. M. (2017). Critical literacy across the K-6 curriculum. London: Routledge.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006