Race, Politics, and Arab American Youth

Abstract

Educators concerned with creating equitable school environments for Arab American students must focus on how contemporary global and national politics shape the lives of these youth and their families. Arab immigrants and Arab American citizens alike experience specific forms of racial oppression that hold implications for school curricula, practices, and policies. Practitioners committed to social justice must assess how schools teach about culture, educate students for knowledgeable deliberation of global politics, and support students and teachers to explore the passions of patriotism. The questions raised by the education of Arab American youth have profound implications for teaching for social justice in a world characterized by global interdependence and increasing transnational migration. No longer can national boundaries mark the limit of concern for social justice. Educating for social justice requires that we teach youth to confront racial, economic, social, and political injustices within and beyond the borders of nation-states.