This article focuses on qualitative research conducted with a group of refugee high school students from the Vietnamese Central Highlands living in the south-eastern region of the United States. As students with limited and/or interrupted formal education, they face linguistic, academic, and social challenges that confound their expectations for success in and beyond school. Analyzed through Bourdieu's theory of field (1977), the research shows that in spite of the students associating school with long-range aspirations, certain normative school structures and interactions prove detrimental to their language learning, their self-esteem and their motivation to succeed. The experiences of this group shed light on the education of newcomer high school refugee youth, building critical understanding for regions with growing linguistic and ethnic diversity. Possibilities for integrative linguistic and academic support for refugees with limited and/or interrupted formal education are discussed.
References
1.
BogerJ.C.OrfieldG. (2009) School Resegregation: Must the South turn back?Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
2.
BourdieuP. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3.
BourdieuP. (1985) The Market of Symbolic Goods, Poetics, 14(1–2), 13–44.
4.
BourdieuP. (1991) Language and Symbolic Capital. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
EschevarriaJ.A.VogtM.J.ShortD.J. (2004) Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model. Boston, MA: Pearson.
7.
FineM.WeisL. (2000) Construction Sites: Excavating race, class, and gender among urban youth. New York: Teachers College Press.
8.
FreireP. (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
9.
GarciaO. (1999) Educating Latino High School Students with Little Formal Schooling, in FaltisC.J.WolfeP.M. (Eds) So Much to Say: Adolescents, bilingualism, and ESL in the secondary school. New York: Teachers College Press.
10.
GeertzC. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
11.
GeneseeF.Lindholm-LearyK.SaundersW.M.ChristianD. (Eds) (2006) Educating English Language Learners: A synthesis of research evidence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
GonzálezN.MollL.C.AmantiC. (2005) Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
14.
GrantR.WongS. (2003) Barriers to Literacy for Language-Minority learners: An argument for change in the literacy education profession, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46(5), 386–394. https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1598/JAAL.46.5.2
15.
HeathS.B.StreetB.V. (2008) On Ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research. New York: Teachers College Press.
16.
Kia-KeatingM.EllisH. (2007) Belonging and Connection to School in Resettlement: Young refugees, school belonging, and psychosocial adjustment, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 12(1), 29–43. https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/1359104507071052
17.
LeeS.J. (2005) Up against Whiteness: Race, school, and immigrant youth. New York: Teachers College Press.
18.
LukeA. (2007) Pedagogy as Gift, in AlbrightJ.LukeA. (Eds) Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education. New York: Routledge.
19.
MilesM.B.HubermanA.M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
McKayS.L.WongS.-L.C. (1996) Multiple Discourses, Multiple Identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students, Harvard Educational Review, 66(3), 577–608.
21.
McSpaddenL.A. (1998) ‘I Must Have my Rights!’: The presence of state power in the resettlement of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees, in KrulfeldR.M.MacDonaldJ.L. (Eds) Power, Ethics, and Human Rights: Anthropological studies of refugee research and action. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
22.
OakesJ. (2008) Keeping Track: Structuring equality and inequality in an era of accountability, Teachers College Record, 110(3), 700–712.
PattonM.Q. (2002) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
29.
PennycookA. (2000) The Social Politics and the Cultural Politics of Language Classrooms, in HallJ.K.EggingtonW. (Eds) The Sociopolitics of English Language Teaching. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
ShortD.J.BoysonB.A. (2004) Creating Access: Language and academic programs for secondary school newcomers. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
32.
Suarez-OrozcoC.Suarez-OrozcoM.M. (2001) Children of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
33.
TuanM. (1998) Forever Foreigner or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
34.
ValdésG. (2001) Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
35.
ValenzuelaA. (1999) Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican youth and politics of caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
36.
WillisP. (1977) Learning to Labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York: Columbia University Press.
