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Fostering the Resilience and Cultural Wealth of Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education

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English and Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 54))

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss how educators can promote strengths-based, culturally sustaining pedagogies in their classrooms to effectively support students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). In particular, we focus on K-12 SLIFE who immigrate from Latin America to the U.S. First, we examine how the culture of U.S. schooling does not match SLIFE’ cultural backgrounds. Second, we suggest educators must take into account the existing mismatch between students’ cultural backgrounds and K-12 U.S. institutions, as well as how to take an asset-based, instead of deficit-based, approach to foster SLIFE’ resilience. Then, we introduce a community cultural wealth lens, which suggests underprivileged students, such as SLIFE, possess cultural knowledge, strengths, and skills that are valuable in the classroom. We make practical recommendations for how educators can promote the cultural knowledge that these students have and integrate them into the classroom setting to ensure better academic outcomes and the overall well-being of these learners. We encourage educators to focus on the students’ strengths to create inclusive classrooms that will support SLIFE academically, emotionally, and culturally.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Assimilation refers to an acculturation strategy in which the person does not place value on maintaining their heritage culture and completely acquires the values from the dominant host culture (Berry, 2003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Saskias Casanova & Alicia Alvarez

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  1. Saskias Casanova
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  2. Alicia Alvarez
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Correspondence to Saskias Casanova .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Luis Javier Pentón Herrera

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Appendix: Useful Websites

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Casanova, S., Alvarez, A. (2022). Fostering the Resilience and Cultural Wealth of Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education. In: Pentón Herrera, L.J. (eds) English and Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education. Educational Linguistics, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86963-2_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86963-2_11

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-86963-2

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