Literacy, Capital, and Education: A View From Immigrant Youth

From conservative estimates, as many as 1 in every 5 schoolchildren is an immigrant. Through both sheer numbers and qualitatively different migration practices, these populations have productively created an opportunity and imperative for educational practice to redefine its assumptions, practices, and relevancy. In this article, the author present snapshots of young immigrants navigating schooling and society, and more specifically, elucidate how these snapshots can productively agitate how literacy educators understand and undertake their work. The article uses case studies of two recently arrived immigrant students to examine how classroom practices and educational policies position these students, how literacy pedagogy follows from that framing, and how those frames obscure the complicated ways that textual practices reflect and structure societal experiences for immigrant youth. It provides recommendations for how educators can revamp their work to create educational experiences considerate of and responsive to, first and foremost, these students' lived realities.