Teachers’ perceptions of challenges in digital multimodal composing with newcomer adolescent students from refugee backgrounds

Abstract

Research has shown ways in which digital multimodal composing (DMC), defined as the use of digital tools to make meaning with multiple modes (e.g. languages, visuals, sounds, gestures), including video production, can empower adolescent newcomers from refugee backgrounds in school settings. However, few studies have examined teachers’ challenges with these pedagogies, particularly involving ­refugee-background learners, some of whom may have experienced ­significantly interrupted formal education. Comprehensively understanding teachers’ perceived challenges with pedagogies involving DMC to help meet these learners’ needs is a particularly urgent objective in Canada, which is increasingly committing to refugee resettlement. This qualitative case study explored teachers’ perceived challenges in DMC with newcomer adolescent students from refugee backgrounds in a secondary school setting. Guided by a multimodal approach to literacy and an identity investment perspective on participation in learning, reflexive thematic analysis led to the identification of the following teacher challenges: navigating expectations and required scaffolding, mitigating risks associated with difficult knowledge, and students’ ‘cloak of invisibility’. The study contributes an in-depth discussion of these patterns, including possible implications, to better empower educators and teacher educators to address the needs of adolescent newcomer learners from refugee backgrounds in an increasingly complex language and literacy landscape.