Language, Resilience and Ethnography

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT Copyright University of Reading

LANGUAGE, RESILIENCE & ETHNOGRAPHY

Migration, care, language and identity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Dr Tony Capstick

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Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT

OUTLINE 1. Researching migration from multidisciplinary perspectives

2. Language for Resilience research project

3. Research participants

4. Methodology

5. The findings

6. Next steps

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• Migration literacies (Capstick 2016): how are texts reused and recontextualized as they move between physical and social spaces? How are these literacies part of migrants’ wider language practices?

• How can Critical Discourse Analysis be combined with ethnography to explore the help that text producers and consumers seek in their migration literacies (three waves of migration)

• What knowledge is required to interpret the discourses of migration instantiated in visa texts and Facebook postings by literacy mediators and cultural brokers (Capstick 2016)?

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2. LANGUAGE FOR RESILIENCE PROJECT

The Language for Resilience project takes the position that the role of language is central to building resilience and envisages that there are language learning interventions which can be transformational in supporting people’s ability to overcome the effects of the current crisis.


RESILIENCE

‘the ability of individuals, households, communities and institutions to

anticipate, withstand, recover and transform from shocks and crises.’

(UNICEF 2014)

Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan 2015 -2016: the need for interventions to build resilience among individuals, communities and institutions across sectors is central

(UNHCR 2015)


RESILIENCE

• Identifying protective factors: e.g. personal qualities such as ‘autonomy’ or ‘high self-esteem’

• Understanding underlying protective processes: how child, family and environment contribute to positive outcomes

• To design appropriate prevention and intervention strategies for individuals facing adversity (Luthar 1993; Masten et al 1990)


RESILIENCE AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS

The key issue has been the shift in the level of analysis from research on students’ competences and acquisition processes in linguistic programmes to concern over the effects of the social distribution of linguistic resources (Martin Rojo 2010).


https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/11174052664/


RESEARCH QUESTION How does language enhance as well as constrain Syrian refugees’ resilience once they have arrived in Jordan, Kurdistan region of Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey?

Lebanon: November 2015

Turkey: December 2015

Jordan: December 2015

Kurdistan region of Iraq: January 2016


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3. RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

School teachers, coordinators and principals who (1) have and (2) have not participated in teacher development initiatives designed to help refugees and/or their teachers.

School students who are ideally taught by the teachers in (1) and (2) above and are old enough to be interviewed about their language and learning.

(3) Parents of school-aged children

(4) Children and parents outside formal education

(5) UN; Government; NGO; Civil Society; Donors; about their programmes


4. METHODOLOGY • Multiple methods (including participant observation)

• Understanding the participants’ perspectives – the ‘emic’ perspective

• Reflexivity about researcher’s position: issues of representation

• Often (but not always) critical

Generate understandings from descriptive (often textual) data, by:

• Identifying patterns (and deviations from patterns) across the data, and

• Describing complexities of specifics in detail

• Reducing a big dataset to a manageable-sized set of meanings

NOT: Language extracted and studied as an autonomous system

BUT: Language-in-use or language as a cultural practice (language as used by specific people in specific contexts)


5. THE FINDINGS 1. Home language and literacy development: creating the foundations for shared identity,

belonging and future study through home language use

2. Access to education, training and employment: Language competence provides access to, and engagement in, the world of education, training and employment

3. Learning together and social cohesion: Language learning activities as a basis for developing individual resilience, ensuring dignity, self-sufficiency and life skills

4. Addressing the effects of trauma on learning: Language programmes as a supportive intervention and a way to address the effects of loss, displacement and trauma on behaviour and learning

5. Building the capacity of teachers and strengthening educational systems to create inclusive classrooms: Professional training for language teachers to build institutional resilience

(Capstick and Delaney, 2016)

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REFERENCES Capstick, T. (2016) Multilingual Literacies, Identities and Ideologies: Exploring chain migration from Pakistan to the UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Capstick, T. and Delaney, M (2016) Language for Resilience. British Council: British Council London. Available at https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language-for-resilience-report-en.pdf

Garc´ıa, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Torres-Guzman, M. E. (2006). Weaving spaces and (de)constructing ways for multilingual schools: The actual and the imagined. In O. Garc´ıa, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. E. Torres-Guzman (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and globalization (pp. 3–50). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Heller, M. (2007) Bilingualism as ideology and practice. In Heller (Ed), Bilingualism: A Social Approach (pp.1-24). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Masten, A. (1994) Resilience in individual development: Successful adaptation despite risk and adversity. In Wang, M., Gordon, E (Eds). Educational resilience in inner-city America: Challenges and prospects. Erlbaum: Hillside.

UNICEF (2014) The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014-2017: Realizing the rights of every child, especially the most disadvantaged. Available at http://www.unicef.org/strategicplan/

UNHCR (2015) 3RP Regional Refugee Resilience Plan 2015-2016. Available at file:///C:/Users/gt912774/Downloads/3RPRegionalOverview2016-2017.pdf

Werner, E. and Smith, R. (1992) Overcoming the odds: High risk children from birth to adulthood. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY.

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https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language-for-resilience-report-en.pdf










http://www.unicef.org/strategicplan/

http://www.unicef.org/strategicplan/

C:/Users/gt912774/Downloads/3RPRegionalOverview2016-2017.pdf





QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS

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Language, Resilience and Ethnography

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