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Accepted Paper:
“‘You are Americans, not American’ts!’: Teaching the Flawed Discourse of the American Dream to Refugee High School Students”
Ida Leggett
(Middle Tennessee State University)
US schools fail refugee youth by encouraging ideals of the American Dream that these students—by virtue of their history and future desires—have little chance of absorbing, while also creating unexpected results as the students push back.
Paper long abstract:
One of the main institutions shaping the daily experiences and future aspirations of refugee youth resettled in the United States is the education system. Using data from interdisciplinary research at a Tennessee high school conducted from 2015-2017, my presentation explores how the US school system fails its refugee students through its presentation of moral “lessons” on the American Dream. Interspersed throughout classroom modules on American history, and even mathematics and science, educators attempt to carve out a perspective of the universe that revolves around models of American success. Unfortunately-- or perhaps fortunately-- these are lessons that refugee students, by virtue of their own history, culture, and desires for the future, have little chance of absorbing. By trying to reshape these youths’ perspectives on their transnational pasts and possible futures, the educators set up an unattainable goal for both the students and for the education system. However, these lessons on idealized American identity take on interesting forms in the classroom, and refugee students resist and push back in unpredictable ways. My presentation argues that, while teachers present an American Dream that is almost impossible to realize, the schools have also given rise to new and more global ideas of citizenship and success.