Survey Information for Educators of Refugee and other Displaced Students (Spring 2018 Project at University of Wisconsin-Madison Curriculum & Instruction)

Title of Study:

Making Empathetic Multilingual Environments in Schools: MEMES to Support Refugees and Displaced Students 

To the right (content being added) you will find links to the information, surveys and spaces for this current project at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. It is a space for teachers to share problems and difficulties, seek solutions, and find resources. It should be easily accessible and provide even urgent solutions. Despite the title, the focus is not only language, but transcultural understanding, recognizing that students often have (had) another life in their own (at time heritage) languages. By using the acronym MEMES, we hope to use a popular symbol shared ubiquitously to advocate for participation and change.

It is a permanent resource, comparative, and not a mere study. The website pages will be a permanent resource and contribute to building a policy like Wisconsin's Act 31 that requires the teaching of history and culture of the First Nations of Wisconsin (U.S.A.), with resources, and teacher training program.

People we want to support, to hear, and to contribute:

Teachers (subject or language), administrators, support staff, other school personnel; policymakers; who deal with refugee and displaced students (see definition). International Locations: U.S., Canada, Turkey, Lebanon, Sudan (active recruitment); all places are welcome

Teachers and other educators are being recruited to fill out an anonymous Qualtrics survey about their experience(s). If interested, he or she can also participate in an online asynchronous discussion group (anonymously or not) on Piazza.com or Facebook; and can also attend a live video meeting on Zoom (could also attend anonymously by creating an account with a pseudonym and not turning on the video).

please email Dr. Kristine Harrison with questions at kmharrison@wisc.edu

A few references:

Dawson, G., & Farber, S. (2012). Forcible Displacement Throughout the Ages: Towards an International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Forcible Displacement. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Fábos, A. (2015). Refugees in the Arab Middle East: Academic and policy perspectives. Digest of Middle East Studies, 24(1), 96–110. 

Kambel, E. (2016). Translanguaging: the answer to 21st century multilingual classrooms? Rutu Foundation. Retrieved at http://www.rutufoundation.org/translanguaging-multilingual-classrooms/

Sugarman, Julie. 2017. Beyond Teaching English: Supporting High School Completion by Immigrant and Refugee Students. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. 

United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). (2016). Figures at a Glance. Geneva. Retrieved at http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html  

REFERENCE AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION FOR THIS PAGE

This web page has a copyright. It may be referred to and quoted, or reproduced and distributed for educational purposes according to fair use legislation only if the following citation is included in the document:

This information was originally published on the website of the International Network for Language Education Policy Studies (http://www.languageeducationpolicy.org) as

Harrison, K.M. (2018). Survey Project Info: Making Empathetic Multilingual Environments in Schools: Memes to Support Refugees and Displaced Students. In F. V. Tochon (Ed.), Language Education Policy Studies (online). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin—Madison. Retrieved from: http://www.languageeducationpolicy.org (access date).