Avoiding a train wreck at Railroad High School: refugee English language learners in the social studies classroom

This qualitative case study looks at how students from a refugee background learn academic forms of English in the social studies classroom. Refugees continue to enter the United States each year, and their children are placed into the school system. School administrators and teachers need to have an awareness of the particular challenges that refugees face when they are new to this country. The teacher in this study found that by adapting the state-required social studies curriculum to better match the developing English language skills of the refugee students in her class, they were able to learn the complex vocabulary and concepts that are found in high school social studies courses. However, the effects poverty and academic marginalization disrupted the learning environment in this study despite the best efforts of their teacher to minimize their impact on the learning environment. Issues related to food insecurity, lack of seasonally appropriate attire, violence, bullying, and of administrative practices that marginalized refugee students’ access to academic recognition and college preparatory courses intersected with learning outcomes of the students in this study. Students in sheltered English courses were not given the same opportunities as other students in the school, despite state and federal policies put into place to prevent this very thing from happening.