Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

How should activist educators address issues of difference/otherness in actual and online communities, especially in these troubling times? How should activist educators engage the politics of local/global precarity issues that privilege some people, languages, and cultures while dismissing others? This paper takes up these issues using a critical cosmopolitan literacy framework (Hawkins, 2014) that highlights the cultural politics of local/global discursive practices in a local community ESL program in France. With the increase in recent years of transnational migration, as well as hate crimes, France, like many European nations, finds itself struggling to cope with demographic shifts. Today 7.3 million–11% of the population–have at least one immigrant parent, and those with North African origins comprise the largest group of non-European immigrants in France (INSEE, 2017). Through a local community association, one of the co-authors has been conducting a practitioner inquiry project since February 2017 (Campano, Ghiso, & Welch, 2016) using critical literacy ( Behrman, 2006) and translanguaging practices (Canagarajah, 2013) in ESL study groups to explore how students’ immigrant experiences influence their understandings of social justice and their roles in fighting prejudice and oppression. This project explores the question: What do participants’ immigrant stories and discursive practices reveal about transnational students and their perspectives on social justice issues? Data sources include surveys and interviews, group discussions, selected transcripts of audiotaped discussions, students’ written reflections, participant observation, and field notes. In the words of one student, “They don’t want us to bring… our culture to school.”