Search results

Children who are refugees and who live with disabilities are among the most at-risk groups for marginalization due to compounded disadvantages from the intersection of risk factors such as refugee status and disability status. Despite their high risk, there is no systematic data collected on this group and scant literature on the topic contributing to a feeling of invisibility. The purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of Syrian refugee families with children living with disabilities.

The authors conducted a narrative inquiry into the experiences of two Syrian refugee families with children living with disabilities. Narrative inquiry is a way to understand experience as a storied phenomenon.

In attending to the families’ stories of their experiences across time, place and social contexts, two narrative threads resonated across their experiences including waiting and a struggle for agency as well as disruption and continuity.

Narrative inquiry does not produce generalizable results but, rather, gives insight into the unique experiences of individuals.

To understand the complexities of the experience of a refugee family with a child living with disabilities, attending to their lived and told stories is essential.

Refugees living with disabilities are among the most vulnerable, isolated and marginalized populations, and, of this group, children are particularly vulnerable. The purpose of this study is to identify current knowledge and research gaps specific to the experiences of refugee families who have children with disabilities. The authors assess the quality of evidence and describe the theoretical underpinnings of research that focuses on refugee families who have children with disabilities.

The authors searched nine electronic databases from database inception for English language, peer-reviewed publications. The authors identified themes from the included studies.

The authors identified 10 studies that fit their inclusion criteria and shown key findings in the form of six themes. Families who have children with disabilities experience structural barriers; their experiences are impacted by family factors and the degree and kind of support received, as well as the knowledge of parents about their rights. Gender differences made visible the precarious situations experienced by girls with disabilities. Gaps in educational standards and the capacity of schools, particularly in refugee camps, were highlighted.

The authors show that there is a lack of evidence-based research focusing on refugee children’s own experiences of living with disabilities. Children’s experiences that were visible were, for the most part, attended to through other’s accounts of their experiences. Many studies that the authors found (the current knowledge to date) describe children with disabilities through third-party accounts, including parents, caregivers and those who provided services to this population. There is an urgent need to explore the experiences of children who have disabilities and are displaced from their home country.

This systematic review focuses on refugee children experiences that has not been conducted before and identifies the research gaps for this group. Attention to how disabilities are understood philosophically and who are defined as refugees are needed in order for the research to accrue in ways that build a consistent body of literature. Without some consistency, it is not possible for studies to build on one another.

This brief history of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) documents developments and trends during the decade 2013–2023. To situate recent ISATT history, we begin with an overview of the association's first 30 years (1983–2012). The dominant theme of those early years was developing ISATT as a recognized and influential professional organization connecting researchers on teaching and teacher education from a growing list of nations and regions of the world. During the most recent decade, there has been a concerted effort toward broad internationalization through biennial conferences and regional meetings, and a growing network of national representatives from across the world. Also, the ISATT journal, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, the journal, which began in 1995, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles written by more than 1000 authors and coauthors, contributing to a growing body of knowledge about teaching and teacher education in many cultures. In the last 20 years and especially in the past 10, the locations of ISATT meetings have become significantly more diverse, following a trend of greater internationalization compared with ISATT's European and North American beginnings. At the same time, the number of ISATT members remains stable and small thereby preserving a collegial and collaborative tone in our exchanges. In sum, ISATT's recent decade finds the association intellectually healthy, successful in managing the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, and enriched by the proliferation of multinational points of view and styles of research.

This chapter addresses a sensitive topic in the field of education: the relationship between and among narrative inquiry, critical analysis, and critical theory. It argues that narrative inquirers are critical – but not in the same way that critical theorists are critical, although they may draw on the same literature and terms. To make our point, we unpack three of our peer-reviewed articles and highlight our theoretical frames and research moves to demonstrate criticality in narrative inquiry. We specifically discuss (1) titles and topics, (2) research frameworks, (3) historical and contemporary data, (4) use of participants' voices (words and feelings), (5) themes, and (6) new knowledge. We mostly argue that narrative inquiry exists because of experience. From experience, everything else unfolds – including criticality – depending on where the researcher in relationship with research participants, takes the inquiry. This chapter explicitly addresses a lived issue known both inside the narrative inquiry community and outside of it.

This narrative inquiry centers on teachers' longitudinal experiences of policy-related reforms systematically introduced to T. P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest, second most diverse city in America. The embedded research study, with roots tracing back to 1997, uses five interpretive tools to capture six mandated changes in the form of a story serial. Special research attention is afforded pay-for-performance, the sixth reform in the series. The deeply lived consequence of receiving bonuses for his teaching performance prompted Daryl Wilson, Yaeger's long-term literacy department chair, to proclaim “data is [G]od.” Wilson's emergent, inventive metaphor aptly portrays the perplexing conditions under which his career ended, and how my long-term research project likewise concluded.

Leading up to and now living amid the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers are faced with strong incentives, even pressure to adopt and use digital technologies. Previous research has focused on teaching with digital technologies as a matter of believing in their importance and receiving specific preparation for integration strategies. Further, teaching with technologies must appear “seamless” during instruction to not distract from what is regarded to be the more important subject matter knowledge. In this chapter, I review and problematize digital instruction focused on convincing teachers to integrate strategies that use digital technologies in a “seamless” way and then propose an alternative view emphasizing posthumanist, relational views of integrating digital technologies.

Women leaders are critically underrepresented in academic leadership, and the leadership of diverse groups of women has been profoundly undervalued. Women of color leaders within higher education face a double bind of racial and gender disparity and biases within the education workforce and their institutions. This chapter situates leadership in the education workforce and the process of women of color becoming leaders within an understanding of intersecting social identities and intersectionality. At all levels of higher education, women of color, particularly Black women, have increased over time and present an opportunity to understand how their intersecting identities, feminist standpoint, and collective community contribute to increased racial diversity, gender diversity, and inclusive workplaces.

Disruptive students in the classroom can affect classroom dynamics and individual teacher-student interactions. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to discover perceptions female teachers harbor toward misbehaving African-American elementary school males. The study incorporated a narrative inquiry to investigate perceptions female teachers have toward African-American male elementary school students. The research project involved a purposeful sample of eight female elementary teachers, four African-American teachers and four Caucasian teachers from one public school district in the southeastern United States. The female teachers reflected on their lived experiences and perceptions derived from experiences and encounters they have with African-American elementary school males. Data collection from the study occurred through individual responses from a survey and follow-up telephone interviews. From teacher's descriptions of perceived successes and failures, coded commonalities in reports, labeled themes, conclusions, and recommendations resulted from data collection and analysis. The findings revealed some African-American male elementary school students misbehave in the classroom and others do not. The term “misbehave” is based upon the experiences and type of interactions and exchanges teachers had with African-American male students in the classroom and African-American males outside the school environment. Gender, culture, and language may factor in creating effective teacherstudent interactions to enable better relationships and student outcomes.