As we near the end of 2023, it is important that we continue to consider how dominant, majoritarian narratives continue to pervade schools and conversations that surround schools. Students and their families who are part of under-served populations often encounter deficit-based narratives that make it difficult for them to succeed in schools and become an active and engaged part of the school and local communities. The authors in this issue of Multicultural Perspectives provide different ways for teachers, administrators, school-based support staff, and teacher educators to re-think how to support students and their families and create welcoming, supportive spaces that encourage students to share their stories and lives as part of their everyday engagement in schools.
In “Amplifying Newcomer and Emergent Plurilingual Students’ Voice, Agency, and Authority through Enactments of Authentic Cariño”, Ott, Dover, Peters, and Rodríguez-Valls describe how U.S. educational systems routinely dismiss and discount the voices of newcomer and emergent plurilingual students, and instead privilege ideologies of whiteness, ability, and English monolingualism. Through a case study approach, they examine how three educators’ enactment of authentic cariño led them to disrupt culturally and linguistically subtractive practices and co-create educational process that honor and amplify newcomer students’ voices, agency, and authority.
In “The Labeling and Positioning of Refugee Students and Their Refusal to be (Mis)Positioned”, Koyama and Turan interrogate the labeling and positioning of refugee students. They show how refugee students from African and Middle Eastern nations are labeled as African American to bolster a school districts’ racial desegregation data and then put in competition with Mexican-migrant students for services. They also describe how some refugee students refuse the labels and positioning and explore the implications of (mis)positioning of refugee students in schools.
In “Deconstructing the Master Narrative: Active Learning Through Decolonial Pedagogy”, Ramos explores how settler colonialism erases marginalized perspectives, histories, culture, and identity in favor of the white settler perspective. Ramos details how settler colonialism is deeply embedded in the teaching of U.S. history and also the process of how to begin to decolonize history, teaching and learning in public schools.
Finally, in “Pivoting a Bilingual Teacher Preparation Program through a Critical Race Theory Lens”, Lapayese and Sanchez examines the programmatic shifts in a university-based bilingual teacher preparation program, set against the challenges posed by a global pandemic and racial violence in the United States. Specifically, the study investigates the program’s redesigned elements using Critical Race Theory as a lens. It concludes with policy recommendations to enhance bilingual teacher preparation and support.
As near the end of this calendar year of 2023 and prepare for a new year, the editorial team asks readers of the journal to consider how they will actively work to create caring classrooms and communities in the new year. How can you as educators in schools amplify the voices and perspectives of newcomer and emergent plurilingual students in classrooms? How can you as teachers continue to think critically about the ways in which teachers, administrators, counselors and other school-based personnel position refugee youth in schools? How does this positioning occur in negative ways with categorizations that limit, rather than catalyze these students’ success in schools? How can you continue to work toward disrupting and dismantling settler colonialism and center the perspectives, histories, cultures, and identities of students and families often relegated to the margins in schools? Finally, in what ways can you use critical perspectives such as Critical Race Theory to examine bilingual teacher preparation programs and other school-based programs and consider new ways of interrogating belief systems that undergird these programs? All of us can have an impact on the ways in which we continue to think about the schools and teacher preparation programs we work in. What kinds of powerful and positive impact do you plan to have in this new year in order to significantly benefit the students, families, and community members you work with in schools and communities?