Symposium 2

Case studies of literacy practice in socioculturally-defined refugee or migrant communities (Nicaraguan, African Muslim and Sudanese) from one research project

This symposium will offer perspectives grounded in work from the Cultural Practices of Literacy Study (CPLS). CPLS is an "umbrella" study that includes a series of case studies of literacy practice in socioculturally-defined communities. All of the CPLS cases involve communities that are marginalized in some way, and many of the cases involve communities of migrants, such as refugees, migrant workers, or other types of immigrants. Framed by theory that views literacy as social and cultural practice, the overall project, comprised of the individual cases, allows for (a) examination of literacy practices in various cultural communities, and (b) principled cross-case analyses. In this symposium, we will offer an overview of the CPLS project, including the theoretical frameworks that ground our project. We will then present analyzed data from three individual CPLS cases: Nicaraguan immigrant families and the schooling of their children in Costa Rica, African Muslim immigrants and refugees in Canada, and Sudanese refugees in the U.S. Each case not only examines a different community, but each case also examines the ways in which issues related to literacy and migration intersect and transact with each other. Thus, using literacy practice as a lens, this symposium will explore issues related to (a) the construction of difference and deficit, (b) health literacy practices, and (c) literacy brokering as a took for community participation. Following the presentation of the cases, we will invite discussion from audience members.

a. Constructions of deficit and national identity in contexts of immigration

This analysis examines the nexus of marginalization, identity, and the mis-education of young children from socially and politically marginalized communities, with a specific focus on immigrants. Drawing on data from a study of literacy practice among Nicaraguan immigrants in Costa Rica and the schooling the Nicaraguan children in Costa Rican schools, this analysis reveals how constructions of deficit and difference for immigrants work to forge and strengthen national identity while positioning the immigrant children as unprepared to learn in school. Ethnographic and descriptive research techniques were used to understand the myriad ways that the Nicaraguan immigrants, a highly stigmatized social group in Costa Rica, engaged in literacy practice to meet their basic and social needs as well as to gain access to the educational system for their children. The data from extensive observations and interviews over a six-month period during which I lived in the community counters the dominant view of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica as illiterate with children who know little about literacy, speak 'poor' Spanish and have limited vocabulary, rendering them 'problems' for the schools. Curricular changes for early literacy instruction, reflecting these findings, were presented nationwide in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. The data used for this analysis were collected as part of an ethnographic case study of literacy practice within Costa Rica and the Nicaraguan immigrant communities and was sponsored by the CPLS project.

b. The social nature of African Muslim immigrant and refugee women’s health literacy practices

Health literacy can be described as the socially situated ways of understanding and utilizing health information that encompasses a myriad of social and cultural practices within the domain of health. This emphasizes health literacy as essentially social and located both spatially and temporally in the interactions between people.  Despite the significant social dimension to health literacy, no study has investigated whether or how social support can moderate the effects of health literacy on individual health and health service use. This year-long ethnographic study set in Canada, is the first study to explore in-depth the social nature of African Muslim immigrant and refugee women’s health literacy practices, under a health literacy as social practice framework.  This CPLS case study focuses on literacy practices at a conceptual level, examining how informal values, beliefs, identities, and pressures of social relations influence health literacy events, including its functions and purposes. Social Network Analysis is used as a methodology to map the flows of the women’s transnational and translocal patterns of social membership.  Relational dimensions within the women’s social networks such as trust in knowledge brokers and quality of social support, in terms of buffering shame and low self-esteem associated with low health literacy, will be explored. A theoretical model for health literacy that accounts for the intersection of discursive language processes, education, culture, gender and power will be discussed to further conceptualize the women’s processes of meaning making and propensities to act, or not act, on health information in certain ways.

c. Navigating a new community: literacy brokering as a tool for community participation among Sudanese refugees

In this analysis, I examine the ways in which the literacy practices of Sudanese refugees in Michigan transact with issues of community participation. Using literacy brokering, or the practice of seeking help with unfamiliar texts or practices, as an analytical lens, I show the ways in which refugees engage in various language and literacy practices to both maintain a sense of Sudanese identity and community while simultaneously embracing their new communities.  Situated within the perspective of literacy as social practice, this analysis explores the following research questions: (1) How do participants’ beliefs and values shape particular language and literacy practices related to community participation?, and (2) How does the practice of literacy brokering transact with community participation? Data for this analysis come from two separate ethnographic studies of Sudanese refugees; both studies are part of the CPLS project. Participants in the first study included three orphaned refugee youth, while participants in the second came from three intact Southern Sudanese families. Data from participant observation, interviews, and textual artifacts were analyzed with a focus on literacy events and practices. Findings suggest that Sudanese refugees have strong beliefs about community that include both (a) maintaining their Sudanese identity and creating a strong Sudanese community-in-exile, and also (b) developing community connections with Americans in their new contexts. Engagement in literacy brokering fostered community participation in a number of areas, such as schooling, religion, and citizenship. These results offer insights into the ways in which migration issues may shape literacy and literacy practices.