Focused Discussions
For work that is best discussed or debated, rather than reported on through a formal presentation, these sessions provide a forum for an extended “roundtable” conversation between an author and a small group of interested colleagues. Summaries of the author’s key ideas, or points of discussion, are used to stimulate and guide the discourse.
A Peer-to-Peer Initiative to Foster Inclusion and Belonging of All Students on a Diverse University Campus
Focused Discussion Agnes Gottlieb
When an ugly racist incident threatened to derail the semester, Seton Hall University took a pro-active approach to calm fears and to educate. Among our many responses was a peer-to-peer training program to foster inclusion and belonging among all students on our already diverse campus. We recruited upper-class student leaders to lead discussions about racism and discrimination in all its forms in our freshman-level University Life course, which is a core course required of all new students. In this session, we describe how we secured buy-in for our initiative from current students. The discussion will provide a blueprint for the step-by-step process in which we planned our program, recruited our upper-class discussion leaders, trained them to lead these difficult discussions, and then monitored the success of the conversations that took place in sixty+ small class settings. A discussion about our desired outcomes and how we assessed the program through pre-testing and post-testing of the student leaders, the planners, and the new students is also included.
Changing Policies and Ideologies of Refugee Resettlement: Analyzing Third Country Resettlement within a Human Rights Framework
Focused Discussion Jessica Lee, Kimberly Moffett
This study provides a comparative discussion of immigration and refugee resettlement policies among the thirty-seven countries that participate in the UN Refugee Agency’s resettlement program. The 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees and the 1967 Protocol outline the legal concept of the “refugee” (UNHCR, 2018). In the United States, the Refugee Act of 1980 adopted the UNHCR’s definition of refugees; this has shaped US refugee resettlement policies. It established a presidential privilege for deciding on annual allocation to determine refugee admission numbers for each fiscal year (Uzabakiriko, 2011). Among the resettlement countries, the United States has received the largest numbers of refugees through the UNHCR program. However, due to policy changes since 2016, the number of refugees admitted into the US has sharply declined. Presently, policy changes and nationalist sentiments worldwide are polemical. This focused discussion will examine the social and legal construction of forced migration by posing the question, “who is a refugee?” Using a human rights framework and examples from qualitative data, the presenters will facilitate a timely dialogue on changing immigration policies in multiple countries and analyze the implications for the human rights of refugees worldwide.
Navigating New Worlds with Children with Disabilities
Focused Discussion Susan Lewis, Laura Cutler, Di Liu, Danielle Riser
Connecting educational systems to the refugee family system is one that is critical to impacting positive outcomes for children and families. Understanding how families of diverse backgrounds are navigating and interacting within new educational contexts, specifically with children with disabilities age birth to five, is the focus of this discussion. Identifying international perspectives of the interplay between the special education system and the child care system, and how coordination across these systems is facilitated in different international contexts is important to our work as educators and policy makers. Identifying barriers both families and education systems face is critical to supporting consistent and collaborative special education services to children with special needs. Navigating the world of child care and formal school systems is another complex layer that can be difficult for many families to face, especially when in a foreign country. Considering perspectives that represent within-group dimensions of individual difference (e.g., ethnicity, race, socio-economics) among families who have children with disabilities is also considered within this focused discussion.
Mutual Learning and Its Effects: A Deeper Look Into Dual Language Immersion Programs in the United States
Focused Discussion Griselda Escobedo
When diversity is an everyday normal, equitable policies and programs are needed to appropriately and positively address the needs of the people who use them (Makarova, E., Makarova, E., & Korsakova, T. (2019). The United States of America is a multicultural society and as a country who puts a high value on education, programs that represent the diversity of learners are very crucial for an equitable education system. English Language Learners, especially those from immigrant and refugee backgrounds, have not been adequately supported in their learning as many bilingual programs lack critical pedagogy and community support (Whitney, 2005). However, in the recent decades, Dual Language Immersion Programs have seen an expansion in states across the United States and provide a framework for developing and implementing equitable programs that benefit both English Language Learners and Native English Speakers. This discussion considers the structure of Dual Language Immersion Programs and how they differ from more traditional bilingual programs and policies, and the effects that these programs have on the children and communities they serve as well as some of the issues.
