Writing Rights to Right Wrongs: A Critical Analysis of Young Children Composing Nationalist Narratives as Part of the Larger Body Politic

Abstract

Many researchers have considered recent and intergenerational immigrant children’s perspectives on immigration policies. Fewer have investigated nonimmigrant children’s views despite children’s sociopolitical identities forming long before they can vote. Drawing from data generated in spring 2017, the author illustrates how young children at an urban, midwestern school argued against the Republican administration’s (anti-)immigration policies. Framed as an ethnographic case study, the author focuses on how third graders enacted justice-oriented identities as they wrote to congressional representatives about contemporary immigration policies. By attuning to how children embedded multiple institutional and political contexts in their written rationale, the author explicates the tensions and possibilities for nonimmigrant children in writing policies and possibilities for tomorrow. Ultimately, the author argues adults must intentionally sustain children’s civic participation in ways beyond the niceties that plague early years classrooms.

“This is a Very Sensitive Point”: Bilingual Teachers' Interactions with Neo‐Nationalism in a Two‐Way Immersion Program in the United States

“…This study calls for attention to the insidious ways that bilingual instruction for language‐minoritized young students can be affected by, and in turn reproduce, neo‐nationalist ideologies (Meadows, 2020). In light of the great urgency in this political moment to understand children's experiences with pressing social issues and events (Brownell, 2022), this study has implications for the field of TESOL by documenting language educators' perceptions and pedagogical moves that built boundaries of inclusion/exclusion in TWI classrooms. These boundaries dictated, for example, that some students' narratives of im/migration did not belong in classroom settings, carrying problematic messages about whose lived experiences and “comfort” matter in formal schooling spaces.…”

“…Despite the generative potential of engaging young learners in conversations about social issues in their classrooms, there is still a reluctance to approach themes like immigration in U.S. schools. As stated by Brownell (2022), "recent battles about critical race theory, 'diverse' books, and ethnic studies are present-day examples of how schools undermine immigrants' and racialized individuals' experiences" (p. 3). This reluctance can be particularly detrimental to the education of racialized bilingual children with recent histories of immigration, as they may be in search of safe spaces and caring adults to help them navigate immigration experiences.…”

“…Yu (2020) reported on an Asian American ethnic studies curriculum that she codeveloped with her first‐grade students, disrupting dominant narratives by building on students' experiential knowledge, teaching multiple perspectives, and centering marginalized voices in the curriculum. Others explored how elementary classroom educators mobilized various pedagogical moves to discuss immigration‐related issues in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and election (Brownell, 2022; Brownell & Rashid, 2020; Durán & Aguilera, 2022; Payne & Journell, 2019). Payne and Journell (2019) showed how a fifth‐grade teacher allocated time and space for students to make connections to current issues and openly reference immigration status, race, and gender.…”