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The United States resettled over 70,000 ethnic Karen refugees between 2006 and 2019 due to a protracted civil war in Burma. The vast majority of these refugees have been resettled in urban areas despite the fact that most of them are from rural villages. The refugee-resettlement experience can be daunting, but the challenges are often more acute for elders (Johnson 2017). The aim of this study was to examine how a rural lifestyle may help older Karen as they adjust to their new lives in the US. Our findings suggest that rural living may soften the effects of certain acculturation stressors due to the familiarity of rural living and other factors. In particular, a rural lifestyle may mitigate acculturation stress specifically for elders in three ways: (1) promoting a healthy lifestyle; (2) sustaining or building relationships between elders and grandchildren and other youth; and (3) promoting skills and knowledge that can lead to feelings of self-worth and dignity for older people with a refugee background. In this article, we discuss how the experiences of one community of resettled Karen refugees seem to offer a counter-narrative to the “vulnerability trope” (King et al. 2017) that often dominates portrayals of older resettled refugees.

This study explores the social and cultural uses of digital literacies by adolescent immigrants to cope with their new lives in the United States. This case study focuses on three adolescent ethnic Karen brothers. Two years of participant observations in their home and Karen community, accompanied by formal and informal interviews, served as the data. Findings report the ways in which these adolescent's digital literacy skills serve them and their family throughout the resettlement process by facilitating: (1) the maintaining and building of co‐ethnic friendships, (2) connection to the broader Karen diaspora community, (3) the sustaining and promoting of ethnic solidarity, and (4) the creation and dissemination of digital productions. We argue that the Internet facilitates these youth as they cope with the economic, educational, and social demands of resettlement. This study can inform teachers and others working with immigrant communities about the literacy practices of their students. FREE author podcast

The scholarship of language education, particularly with reference to learning and use of English, is marked by varieties of English. One may note two broad models: (1) ENL, ESL, and EFL; (2) EIL, ELF, and WEs. Although the scholarship is replete with debates, the debates seem to only construct and maintain that learning English and its use are neutral activities that earn and equip a learner with certain capital rather than make him/her as such. This paper draws upon Foucault's theories of discourse and disciplinary power. This paper takes Pakistani state-mandated English textbooks of Grades 1-5 as official documents that contain qualitative data. The qualitative data are analyzed thematically. Two major themes of male body and female body are found which are analyzed and discussed through the Foucauldian lens. The paper holds that learning English and its use perpetuate and produce docility. The paper contends that neither is language a neutral tool nor are its use and learning value-free activities in any of its varieties.

This theoretical review paper investigates the role of first language (L1) in the mainstream scholarship of second/foreign (L2/FL) language education in the context of language learning, teaching, and bilingual education. The term ‘mainstream’ refers here to the scholarship that is not informed by sociocultural theory in general and Vygotskian sociocultural theory in particular. The paper later explains a Vygotskian perspective on the use of L1 in L2/FL language education and discusses how the perspective may help content teachers in (a) employing L1 in teaching L2/FL content and (b) helping L2/FL students to become self-regulative users of the target language.

This study explores the social and cultural uses of digital literacies by adolescent immigrants to cope with their new lives in the United States. This case study focuses on three adolescent ethnic Karen brothers. Two years of participant observations in their home and Karen community, accompanied by formal and informal interviews, served as the data. Findings report the ways in which these adolescent's digital literacy skills serve them and their family throughout the resettlement process by facilitating: (1) the maintaining and building of co-ethnic friendships, (2) connection to the broader Karen diaspora community, (3) the sustaining and promoting of ethnic solidarity, and (4) the creation and dissemination of digital productions. We argue that the Internet facilitates these youth as they cope with the economic, educational, and social demands of resettlement. This study can inform teachers and others working with immigrant communities about the literacy practices of their students.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how teachers can use their Sgaw Karen students’ names as a means to gaining awareness of their students’ home culture, language and personal stories. Design/methodology/approach This case study uses interviews with four Karen families to explore the meanings behind the names and nicknames given to Karen individuals. Findings The findings of this study reveal that Karen names can provide teachers important insights into Karen culture, history and language. Moreover, Karen names can also provide important biographical information about the student. Research limitations/implications This study only focuses on Sgaw Karen names and does not include other Karen subgroups like the Pwo Karen, who are also resettling in the USA. This study does not include all Sgaw Karen names, but the authors have made efforts to include Karen names from various regions of Burma and of different religious backgrounds. Practical implications Teachers and others working with culturally and linguistically diverse students like the Karen will gain a better understanding of the various ways that names are given across cultures. While this paper focuses on one particular ethnic group, it is believed that teachers need to expand their notions about how other non-European groups name their children and how these names may reveal something about the student’s heritage culture, history, language and the unique lived experiences of their students. Social implications Too often teachers and others working cross-culturally do not realize that other cultures follow different naming practices than those used in the USA. Teachers often mispronounce or misunderstand students’ names when the student comes from a cultural group unfamiliar to them. This paper helps a general audience better realize the unique approach Karen culture takes to naming children and how these names are often transformed to fit American naming conventions. As the title suggests, Karen students often feel embarrassed and take on a negative opinion of their given name as a result of a lack of awareness by teachers and others. Originality/value This paper provides a unique perspective in the literature on the ways cultural naming conventions can serve teachers aspiring to incorporate biography-driven instruction into their classroom practices.