Legitimizing and resistance identities in immigrant students' school essays: towards a culturally sustaining pedagogy

Title: Legitimizing and resistance identities in immigrant students' school essays: towards a culturally sustaining pedagogy
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2016, vol. 42, iss. 1, pp. [5]-22
Extent
[5]-22
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
The aim of this paper is to show that the ambivalent identities projected by immigrant students could serve the goals of a culturally sustaining pedagogy which seeks to perpetuate cultural pluralism at school. In our view, language teaching should not limit itself to correcting their lexicogrammatical "errors", but could also concentrate on the content of immigrant student essays, so as to bring their identities to the surface. To this end, we investigate the ways young immigrants living in Greece position themselves towards the dominant assimilationist discourse in Greek society. We discuss immigrant students' ambivalent identities showing their wish to legitimize themselves as members of the host community and simultaneously to resist its monoculturalist pressures. We finally argue for the exploitation of immigrant students' texts involving their experiences and identities: such texts could enhance all students' critical language awareness and could foster multiculturalism and multilingualism at school.
References
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