Newcomers In and Out of the Social Studies Classroom: How Does Social Studies Teacher

Promote Culturally Responsive Citizenship Education to Newcomer Students?

Claudia Hui
Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
Boston University

Abstract

Using case study methods, the researcher analyzed the beliefs and practices of one
particular social studies teacher who teaches in a racially and socio-economically diverse district
with a high population of newcomer students. Using Ramirez and Jaffee’s (2016) Culturally
Responsive Active Citizenship Education Framework as lens, this study examined how an
experienced practitioner uses newcomers’ cultures, languages, and lived experiences to engage
with citizenship education in and out of social studies classrooms. Findings show that while a
diverse student body helps engage and promote culturally responsive citizenship education, the
lack of diversity among teachers as well as constraints from curriculum and state requirements,
hinders its progress. This study illuminates the need for recruitment and retention of educators of
color, and pushes policymakers to reevaluate the importance of implementing the teaching of
multiculturalism at school.

Purpose

For the past several decades, there has been a growing phenomenon of educators and
researchers advocating for the use of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in the classroom. CRP
empowers students by allowing them to bring in their cultural knowledge in schools, in order to
develop students’ abilities in the areas of academic success, cultural competence, and
sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2014). However, as the immigration pattern of the
United States continues to evolve, with a rapid influx of students who are “largely non-
Europeans, culturally varied, and socio-economically diverse” (Ryan, 2013), social studies
teachers hold the responsibility to stay abreast of how these shifting demographics affect the
dynamics in and out of social studies classroom. The purpose of this study is to investigate how a
social studies teacher integrates culturally responsive teaching and civic knowledge for
newcomers in citizenship education. In this paper, I define newcomers as students for whom
English is not their first language (Short, 2002) and have recently migrated to a new country.
This study examined the following questions: How do self-identifying White social studies
teacher engage racially and linguistically diverse newcomer students in and out of social studies
classroom? What does citizenship education mean to newcomers students? Do social studies
teacher’s practices address the home culture of newcomer students? If so, how and to what
extent? If not, what constraints exist?
 Theoretical Framework

This study uses Culturally Responsive Active Citizenship Education Framework

(Ramirez & Jaffee, 2016) as its lens. Culturally Responsive Active Citizenship Education
Framework emphasizes newcomer students’ cultures, languages, and lived experience to engage
with citizenship education in and out of social studies classroom. Culturally Responsive Active
Citizenship Education Framework draws on the key characteristics of both Culturally
Responsive Teaching and Active Citizenship Education. It highlights the intersection of race and
citizenship education, which promotes active citizenship that is critical for students, especially
newcomer youth who often require active citizenship that is fluid and open based on what they
feel are issues that are most important to them (Ramirez & Jaffee, 2016). Furthermore, Rosaldo
(1997) points out that this framework sees newcomer youth participating in ways they feel they
can make most difference in their community, family, or individual lives, which allow this study
to analyze the data outside of the scope of traditional classroom experience. The two bodies of
work, Culturally Responsive Teaching and Active Citizenship Education, are reviewed below.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

According to Gay (2001), Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) uses the cultural
characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for
teaching them more effectively (p. 106). CRT encompasses instructional elements both in and
out of classroom. These elements include teacher’s knowledge about students’ cultures and
attitudes, which entails understanding students’ well-being both in class and at home (Ndemanu
& Jordan, 2018). Along with validating students’ home culture, Ramirez & Jaffee (2016) argue
that “societal transformation” is also a central characteristic of CRT. Through the idea of societal
transformation, students develop the knowledge and skills needed to become social critics. The
knowledge and skills gained when teacher implement CRT further promotes active citizenship
for newcomer youth, as students learn to analyze the effects of power struggle and inequalities.
Students who have the opportunity to examine the conditions faced by their community members
can develop senses of youth activism and active citizenship.

Active Citizenship Education

There have been multiple trends of building democratic citizens through formal
education. While citizenship education is crucial to all students, certain researchers have pointed
out that newcomer students require claiming of membership and recognition through citizenship
education. For instance, Salinas (2006) called for re-conceptualizing social studies and
democratic education for newcomer youth to include critical citizenship where “ideals of a more
transnational or bicultural citizenship, multicultural history, and culturally relevant pedagogy”
are enacted (p. 26). Callahan et al. (2008) also addressed how newcomer students’ experiences at
home and in school greatly affect their understanding of citizenship.
It is important to point out that while many believe citizenship education only happen in a
classroom setting, extracurricular activities, as well as communities involvement, also serve as
important tools for newcomer students to navigate their personal and civic identities and
participate in active civics engagement (Keser, Akar & Yildirim, 2011; Ramirez & Jaffee, 2016).

Method

This study is a sub-project of a larger project run by Dr. Christopher Martell, which
examined the role of race and the use of inquiry in social studies classroom. This study presents
an in-depth case study of one female white social studies teacher, Ms. Kris, through verbatim
transcription of both interview and classroom observation data provided by Dr. Martell. Two
semi-constructed interviews and two classroom observation sessions with Ms. Kris were
conducted in 2014. Rather than reporting a general overview of the complete data set, Ms. Kris
was purposefully selected because she represents what Creswell (2015) calls a “critical” case –
one that has great importance in relation to a general problem. Many of the themes in Ms. Kris’s
case can be used as a critical lens to understand the problems faced by experienced teachers
teaching in a racially and socioeconomically diverse school district with a high number of
newcomers.
According to Yin (2009), case study as a research method is particularly beneficial in
answering “how” or “why” questions that aim to address the richness of a particular phenomenon
(p. 6). A closer look at the successes and struggles of Ms. Kris as a social studies teacher
teaching newcomers provides insight into barriers faced despite layers of support, and allows us
to reflect on the merits and shortcomings of the current system in place in supporting in-service
teachers and newcomer students.

Participant

Ms. Kris & Appleton High School

Ms. Kris is a White female social studies teacher teaching in Appleton High School, a
racially and socioeconomically diverse high school in the northeastern United States. The town
of Appleton is a blue-collar town surrounded by a mix of low and middle-income
neighborhoods, with a high population of immigrants from Cape Verde and Angola. Appleton
school district serves over 3,000 students, in which Appleton High School serves roughly 1,200
students in grades 9-12. The school self-identified as about 18% African American in 2010, and
according to Ms. Kris, the town has recently seen an influx of newcomer students from Nepal,
Pakistan, and Haiti. Traditionally, Appleton High serves a large amount of Brazilian and
Ukrainian students as well. Appleton High’s mission statement emphasizes students’ diversity
and excellence through fostering the development of responsible citizens.
At the time of the interview, Ms. Kris has taught at Appleton High for 16 years. Although
she describes the school to be extremely diverse in terms of student population, she points out
that the same kind of racial diversity does not exist among the staff. According to Ms. Kris, “we
have one teacher who is Asian American, [and] we have one female teacher who is black, and I
think that’s it for diversity on staff” (Interview, Nov 3, 2014). Ms. Kris teaches US History 2 and
Literary Heritage of America, which is a film and literature based course on immigration.

Findings

Success: Culturally responsive active citizenship education and student diversity

Referring to both CRT and ACE, Ms. Kris implemented a culturally responsive active
citizenship curriculum in two ways: engaging in nuanced discussion and validating students’
home cultures as legitimate by providing a platform for newcomer students to bring in their
personal beliefs. Despite the lack of diversity among staff members, Ms. Kris said that both the
administrators and the teachers generally embraced talking about the issues of race and ethnicity
with newcomer students. She credits the diversity within the student population for this
phenomenon, and argues that without a diverse student body, the level of engagement regarding
difficult conversation surrounding the issue of race or inequality may be much lower. Ms. Kris
said:
“[Since] Appleton is a pretty diverse town, I don’t think that race is such a taboo thing to
talk about… I feel like in a kind of wealthier white suburb, it might be something that’s
touchy. But I don’t think these kids think of it that way.” (Interview, Nov 3, 2014)
In other words, diversity acts as one of the main tools that allowed culturally responsive
citizenship education to thrive in a classroom setting. A diverse student body, especially a
diverse student body with newcomers, also helps with the discussion of civil rights and
citizenship on a more personal level. In one unit about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s-
1970s, Ms. Kris desires to move away from the normal notion of what civic engagement might
mean for newcomer youth (e.g. voting issues and legal aspects of racial segregation). She
designs lessons that touch upon both de jure and de facto segregation, even bringing in the
narratives of the Black Panthers and Black Power movements for her students. In other units,
Ms. Kris is hyperaware of the narrative of inequity and inequality, and strives to instill “civic
mindedness” to her students by breaking away from the traditional black-white binary. When
discussing the problems of inequality and race, Ms. Kris admits that she believes there is an
“American identity”, but there is also “a story that you can view from different perspectives”
(Interview, April 27, 2015). In doing this, she consciously employed multiculturalism and tried
to make the lessons “not just be about African-American versus white”, and that she “tried to
show the Middle Eastern Perspective, and Chinese-Americans” (Interview, Nov 3, 2014).
 At the same time, these types of discussions relating to issues of race, ethnicity, and
citizenship are well received by the newcomer students. When engaging in classroom
discussions, a diverse student body provides students a safe space, and students are unafraid to
discuss controversial topics. When describing the way students respond to difficult
conversations, Ms. Kris said that “there would be a back and forth, an honest back and forth. I
don’t see there being a fight about it. Or I don’t feel like I would have to shut it down so quickly
because I am afraid of where it would go” (Interview, Nov 3, 2014). Not only are the students
receptive of these types of discussions, they also seem to be proactive about them. Students at
Appleton High often voluntarily bring in examples from current events and media to class. For
instance, while talking about the Civil Rights Movement, students inquired about the movie
Selma and whether or not Ms. Kris had watched it. In the unit of the Roaring Twenties, one
student openly asked, “Do you know where the root of Negro comes from?” and the class had a
prolonged discussion surrounding the term (Observation, Oct 30, 2014). Newcomer students of
Asian and African descent were also engaging in active classroom discussion regarding the
stereotypes of Asian and African American in the 1920s and 1930s. Lastly, newcomer students
are also deeply reflective when it comes to choosing their courses. For example, Literary
Heritage of America, despite being an elective, continues to be a popular choice among students
who “are themselves immigrants or relatives of immigrants” because it is a course grounded on
“diversity and immigration” (Interview, Nov 3, 2014).

Constraints: teacher diversity, misplaced focus on classroom experience, curriculum

While a diverse study body positively impacts culturally responsive active citizenship
education, Ms. Kris pointed out several factors that continue to act as barriers in which the
progress of successfully implementing a culturally responsive citizenship education is hindered.
These “constraints” include the level of diversity among teachers, the lack of afterschool and out
of classroom support for newcomer students, and state and curriculum requirements.

Lack of diversity among teachers

Although Appleton High School has an extremely diverse student body with a high
number of newcomer students, Ms. Kris pointed out that out of 80 teachers, there were only two
teachers of color at the time of the interview. According to Ms. Kris, “at the highest year
[Appleton High] ever had… I think we had 3 teachers who were not white in this building.” She
strongly believes that the school needs “young, male, minority teachers,” and she sees a direct,
negative connection between the lack of racial diversity of teachers and the effectiveness of
culturally responsive active citizenship education. She believes that while teachers and
administrators at Appleton High are willing to connect with students’ cultural and racial
backgrounds both in and out of class, students “don’t feel comfortable approaching [the
teachers]” because “they don’t think that we can relate” (Interview, April 27, 2015). Being a self-
identified culturally relevant teacher, Ms. Kris stresses repeatedly the importance of teaching
“what students can relate to”. For one to be a good teacher, she points out that it is essential to
“make students aware of culture, but recognizing that they come to the classroom with their own
set of experience and their own background” (Interview, April 27, 2015). However, she also
admits that it is a very difficult task to accomplish for many teachers at her school.

Lack of afterschool and out of classroom support for newcomer students

The lack of diversity among teachers affects not only newcomer students’ in class
experience, it also directly affects the amount of afterschool/ out of class support students receive
(e.g. extracurricular or school-wide events). One of the core values of both CRT and ACE
stresses the need for teachers to understand the home cultures of students in an informal setting
outside of the classroom. While previous literature have shown that newcomer students can
receive culturally relevant citizenship education through afterschool programs, Appleton High
fails to provide such opportunities for their students. According to Ms. Kris, there were only 1-2
clubs dedicated for newcomer students or minority students. For instance, after the 2008
earthquake in Haiti, there was a large influx of Haitian students entering Appleton High. Out of
about 1,200 students, the school has about 60 students who identified as Haitian. As a result of
the earthquake, there was a Haitian club, but it was never popular and Ms. Kris “doesn’t know if
that exists anymore”. Then, there was some chatter about a Jewish student club, but it also
“never got off the ground”. The only remaining support network for newcomer students is an
organization for minorities students taking honors or AP classes, which is run by an Asian
American teacher – one of the only two teachers of color in Appleton High. Ms. Kris fails to
identify the name of said organization, and she explains that this is due to the club not being
extremely successful because the lack of teacher diversity contributes to the lack of recognition
of afterschool organizations that include newcomer students.

Curriculum & State Expectation

While Ms. Kris already self-identified as a culturally relevant teacher, she openly
admitted that she has not made any progress towards being a more culturally relevant in her
teaching during her exit interview. She explains that this is due to “the state… have put so many
have-to’s in our lap that there a lot less time to be able to do things like that” (Interview, April
27, 2015). When speaking about incorporating culturally relevant activities into supporting
newcomer students in and out of the classroom, Ms. Kris felt an immense amount of pressure
from “a pacing schedule”: that although no one had explicitly stopped her from incorporating
these activities, she felt as if she can not “do fun stuff… because it would come at the expense of
- I’m not going to be able to cover five pages of the book - so I can’t do that.” Furthermore, she
points out that being more culturally relevant is neither a priority for Appleton High nor the
district administrators, and that the evaluators focus on “statistics” and “facts”. While it never
used to be the case, in the past few years, Ms. Kris senses an increasing amount of control from
both the state and curriculum requirements. Ms. Kris further explains that the school’s current
goal is on common assessments, where each term has a test that students take at the start of the
term, and then at the end of the term to hopefully see progress. She believes that students were
largely uninterested in these assessments, but she still has to set aside time to implement them
because, in her words, they are “tied to my job evaluation”. However, in an ideal world, when
asked about her personal preference, Ms. Kris expressed a strong interest in putting aside
assessment and instead investing energy in culturally responsive teaching (e.g. implementing
more culturally relevant activities in class).

Discussion & Significance

Using Ramirez and Jaffee’s (2016) Culturally Responsive Active Citizenship Education
Framework as lens to take a more intimate look into Ms. Kris’s experience as a teacher teaching
at Appleton High, several unexpected themes emerged. While the framework strictly focuses on
the use of newcomer students’ personal background and experience to ensure success and
positive development of civic identity, Ms. Kris’s case highlights how the very real problems of
the lack of after school activities, the failure of recruitment and retention of educators of color, as
well as pressure from state and curriculum requirement continue to act as barriers preventing the
success of culturally responsive active citizenship education.
This study makes several contributions to our understanding of culturally responsive
teaching, active citizenship education, and newcomer students in the field of social studies. First,
while educational researchers are becoming more and more cognizant of the growing number of
immigrant and newcomer students, there continues to be a gap in the literature when it comes to
supporting newcomer youth in and out of social studies classroom. This study adds on to the
literature by examining how newcomer students continue to strive for success despites flaws in
the education system. Second, this study pushes both practitioners and lawmakers to reevaluate
their current understanding and their effort in understanding newcomer students. Although the
high level of student diversity at Appleton High helps facilitate discussion surrounding the issues
of race, ethnicity, power, inequity/ inequality, not every newcomer student has the chance to
study in such an environment. How can practitioners continue to support these students and
maintain culturally relevant teaching and active citizenship education despite facing issues such
as teacher attrition and state-enforced student assessments? Further research should expand the
scope of this study and look at how other practitioners may adjust to these issues. Additional
studies also needed to be performed in order to investigate how systematic issues continue to
affect newcomer students in and out of social studies classroom.
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