“My Way Is a Little Bit Wrong”: How Refugee-Background Students Negotiate the Boundaries of American Academic Literacies

Abstract

Within the context of forced migration, literacy can facilitate liberation and participation, though literacy often serves instead to exclude. Given the ongoing global refugee crisis, literacy researchers must work toward understanding how literacy shapes the livelihoods of those impacted by forced migration. The purpose of this study was to interrogate the ways in which certain literacies were valued or disregarded in the pursuit of a college degree and to uncover the ways that refugee-background students navigated these limitations. Using a multiple case study, this research explored the experiences of six students from refugee backgrounds as they navigated the literacy expectations of the college program. This chapter highlights two themes – our way versus their way and playing the game – that highlight the ways that participants pushed against the literacy constraints that they perceived in the program.

Citation

Hoff, M. (2022), "“My Way Is a Little Bit Wrong”: How Refugee-Background Students Negotiate the Boundaries of American Academic Literacies", Assaf, L.C., Sowa, P. and Zammit, K. (Ed.) Global Meaning Making (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 39), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 203-223. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720220000039012