Examining Minnesota schools’ discursive positioning and intended educational opportunities for refugee-background students

Abstract

Minnesota is known for its large concentrations of Hmong, Somali and Karen refugee-background students (RBSs). Drawing on an equity/heritage framework that centres educational equity and the sustaining of the cultural and linguistic practices of minoritized communities, this study examined how district/school websites with the highest enrolment of each student group described equity/heritage focused educational opportunities for RBSs and discursively represented and positioned these students. Our findings show that these school websites largely lacked indications of equity/heritage-based educational opportunities for RBSs, especially for Somali and Karen RBSs. While the websites had a strong visual representation of their RBSs, equity/heritage-focused textual discourses were limited. Instead, discourses of neoliberalism, meritocracy and accountability driven by the global human capital framework were prevalent. We argue that RBSs should be supported with equity/heritage-focused educational opportunities and discourses at schools instead of solely on the basis of global human capital focused discourses. A limitation of our study is that the implementation and impact of these website policies on RBSs’ educational experiences were not explored. However, we also note that examining discourses embedded within these critical online spaces is crucial because they communicate certain ideologies and motives to the public that can influence their perspectives about RBSs and their educational opportunities.