Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2024

The Diasporic Tellings of Black African Refugee-Background Youth through the Lens of Critical Ubuntu Literacy

Crystal Chen Lee North Carolina State University ; Jennifer C. Mann Duke University

Abstract

This paper explores the diasporic tellings of Black African refugee-background youth through a critical Ubuntu literacy framework. The five tenets of a critical Ubuntu literacy state that participants are (a) already participating in community; (b) reflecting on oneself in relation with others; (c) seeing themselves in relation to community; (d) engaging with text in relation to others; and (e) undertaking a communal process and impact. In this one-year qualitative case study, we examined multiple sources of data from and about twelve Black African refugee-background students, ages 14 to 23, from seven different countries. In examining these data, we came to see how Black African youth from refugee backgrounds wrote about their diasporic histories and lived realities that illuminated the five tenets of a critical Ubuntu literacy framework. Through a thematic analysis, we found that renegotiation of individuality and collective identity was fostered through (a) collective resistance to challenge assumptions; (b) individuality within a collective community; and (c) collective identity that transcended borders. This study has insights for how a critical Ubuntu literacy framework can be used with students in community-based spaces. In addition, it has theoretical and methodological implications for how honoring students’ epistemological frameworks can reframe traditional literacy frameworks and research.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2024-11-01
DOI
10.58680/rte2024592213
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
qualitative research literacy studies
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (49) · 1 in this index

  1. Acquaye (2017)
    PTSD, optimism, religious commitment, and growth as post-trauma trajectories: A structura…
    The Professional Counselor  ↗
  2. Acquaye (2020)
    Using the post-traumatic growth model to explore trauma narratives in group work with Afr…
    The Journal for Specialists in Group Work  ↗
  3. Anzaldúa (1987/2012)
    Borderlands: La frontera: The new mestiza
  4. Baldridge (2017)
    Toward a new understanding of community-based education: The role of community-based educ…
    Review of Research in Education  ↗
  5. Braun (2006)
    Using thematic analysis in psychology
    Qualitative Research in Psychology  ↗
Show all 49 →
  1. Bryan (2020)
    “I had to get tougher”: An African immigrant’s (counter)narrative of language, race, and …
    Teachers College Record  ↗
  2. Chasi (2015)
    Ubuntu and freedom of expression: Considering children and broadcast news violence in a v…
    Journal of Media Ethics  ↗
  3. Chen (2016)
    Fostering a humanizing pedagogy: Imagined possibilities for African immigrant girls
    Education Leadership Review
  4. Crandall (2016)
    Writing with ubuntu in support of refugee and immigrant youth
    English in Texas
  5. Dávila (2019)
    “J’aime to be funny!”: Humor, learning, and identity construction in high school English …
    The Modern Language Journal  ↗
  6. Dryden-Peterson (2022)
    Right where we belong: How refugee teachers and students are changing the future of education
  7. Enciso (2011)
    Storytelling in critical literacy pedagogy: Removing the walls between immigrant and non-…
    English Teaching
  8. Fetters (2013)
    Chinua Achebe’s legacy, in his own words
  9. Freire (1970)
    Pedagogy of the oppressed
  10. Freire (1987)
    Literacy: Reading the word and the world
  11. He (2017)
    Imagined community of education: Voices from refugees and immigrants
    Urban Education  ↗
  12. Hill (2011)
    Urban literacies: Critical perspectives on language, learning, and community
  13. Janks (2010)
    Literacy and power
  14. Kiramba (2023)
    “It’s like they don’t recognize what I bring to the classroom”: African immigrant youths’…
    Journal of Language, Identity & Education  ↗
  15. Kiramba (2020)
    Navigating multiple worlds of Ghanaianborn immigrant adolescent girls in US urban schools
    International Journal of Intercultural Relations  ↗
  16. Knight (2014)
    Toward participatory communal citizenship: Rendering visible the civic teaching, learning…
    American Educational Research Journal  ↗
  17. LeCompte (2010)
    Designing and conducting ethnographic research: An introduction
  18. Lee (2019)
    “Invite their languages in”: Community-based literacy practices with multilingual african…
    International Journal of Multicultural Education  ↗
  19. Lee (2019)
    “My life’s blueprint”: Publishing critical youth narratives in community-based organizations
    English Teaching
  20. Lev-Aladgem (2008)
    Between home and homeland: Facilitating theatre with ethiopian youth
    Research in Drama Education  ↗
  21. Lewison (2002)
    Taking on critical literacy: The journey of newcomers and novices
    Language Arts  ↗
  22. Mangena (2023)
    Hunhu/Ubuntu in the traditional thought of Southern Africa
    Interview Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource
  23. Mann (2022)
    “They just go by making their own hate story”: Interrogating stereotypes with refugee stu…
    Language Arts  ↗
  24. Marciano (2019)
    Writing toward change across youth participatory action research projects
    Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy  ↗
  25. Mkabela (2014)
    Ubuntu as an axiological framework for human rights education
    Indilinga African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems
  26. Morrell (2015)
    Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation
     ↗
  27. Ndemanu (2018)
    Culturally responsive pedagogy for African immigrant children in U.S. P-12 schools
    Journal of Black Studies  ↗
  28. Ngo (2017)
    The costs of “living the dream” for hmong immigrants: The impact of subtractive schooling…
    Educational Studies  ↗
  29. Ngo (2018)
    Connecting as “family” in educative relationships: Insights from a media program serving …
    Urban Education  ↗
  30. Norton (2019)
    #WE SPEAK: Exploring the experience of refugee youth through participatory research and poetry
    Journal of Youth Studies  ↗
  31. Omogun (2021)
    From Haiti to Detroit through Black immigrant languages and literacies
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  32. Patel (2016)
    Decolonizing educational research: From ownership to answerability
  33. (2023)
    Refugee arrivals by state and nationality fiscal year 2023
  34. (2020)
    Refugee Resettlement: North Carolina
  35. Smith (2020)
    Silencing invisibility: Toward a framework for Black immigrant literacies
    Teachers College Record  ↗
  36. Turner et al. (2020)
    Brown Girls Dreaming: Adolescent Black Girls’ Futuremaking through Multimodal R…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  37. (2022)
    The Refugee Brief
  38. Vasquez (2019)
    Critical literacy as a way of being and doing
    Language Arts  ↗
  39. Vehabovic (2020)
    Stories as life performances: Humanizing research as honoring, respecting, listening to, …
    Multicultural Perspectives  ↗
  40. Walls (2021)
    Tangles and glimmers: How African immigrant students in an urban charter school describe …
    The Urban Review  ↗
  41. Wandera (2020)
    Resisting epistemic blackout: Illustrating afrocentric methodology in a kenyan classroom
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  42. Watson (2017)
    Challenging popularized narratives of immigrant youth from West Africa: Examining social …
    Review of Research in Education  ↗
  43. Watson (2020)
    Humanizing the Black immigrant body: Envisioning diaspora literacies of youth and young a…
    Teachers College Record  ↗
  44. Woodman (2011)
    The future of African customary law
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Mar 2026
    Surveys as UXR: Using Design Thinking to Shape a Survey-Based UX Assessment for Rural Audiences ↗
    Kaitlin J. Coyle; Derek G. Ross
    assessment technical communication qualitative research literacy studies
  2. Journal of Writing Research Feb 2026
    “It’s giving AI”: Reading ambiguously-authored texts and the role of felt sense ↗
    Elizabeth Velasquez; Christa Teston
    qualitative research literacy studies
  3. Written Communication Feb 2026
    Precarious Participation: Chinese International Students’ Transnational Digital Literacies ↗
    Zhaozhe Wang
    qualitative research digital rhetoric multilingual writers literacy studies community literacy
  4. College Composition and Communication Feb 2026
    Research Brief: Community-Engaged Writing ↗
    Jessica Pauszek; Veronica House; Paula Mathieu
    service learning teacher development collaborative writing labor and working conditions archival research qualitative research literacy studies race and writing
  5. Written Communication Jan 2026
    Writing Instruction for Adult L2-Learners: A Case Study From Three Swedish Classrooms ↗
    Clara Palm; Ann-Christin Randahl; Liss Kerstin Sylvén
    genre theory writing pedagogy teacher development qualitative research literacy studies