This presentation illuminates a collaboration between the School of Education at a private medium-sized university in the United States and community partners who resettle and support people with refugee backgrounds in the local community. The collaboration includes initiatives that connect undergraduate Teacher Candidates with translingual children, youth, and their families in their homes. Our mission – learning with and from – emphasizes the importance of deeply caring for the children, youth, and families we serve, as well as their communities (i.e., critical love; Sealey-Ruiz, 2019). Based on two years of ethnographic data collection—including fieldwork, written and digital reflections, recorded shared reading sessions, and impromptu interviews—the findings show that fostering relationships of care and dignity enables these partnerships to acknowledge and respect the diverse language and literacy practices in culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Teacher candidates were able to acknowledge and honor the broad range of languages and literacies that occur in homes and across communities. Specifically, reading and writing emerged as historically responsive literacies (Muhammad, 2020; 2023) among Teacher Candidates and translingual children, youth, and families from refugee backgrounds, engaging them in ways that fostered identity, skill development, criticality, intellectual growth, and joy. Therefore, this presentation relates to the field of education by highlighting how culturally and historically responsive approaches can enhance teacher preparation and support equitable language and literacy development in culturally and linguistically diverse educational settings and communities.

Authors:
Nermin Vehabovic, Elon University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Nermin Vehabovic is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Elon University in United States

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