UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #1029

serial: '1029'
sid: '19741'
uuid: 05fbe33f-131f-4079-b062-d17c62d307a1
uri: /urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal
created: '1751032651'
completed: '1751035122'
changed: '1761768141'
in_draft: '0'
current_page: ''
remote_addr: 108.49.187.33
uid: '0'
langcode: en
webform_id: urop_project_proposal_portal
entity_type: node
entity_id: '1116'
locked: '0'
sticky: '0'
notes: ''
metatag: meta
data:
  roundtable_info:
    - day: 'Tuesday, September 2'
      endingtime: '2:00'
      starttime: '1:30'
      zoomlink: 'https://fsu.zoom.us/my/celiareddick'
    - day: 'Thursday, September 4'
      endingtime: '2:00'
      starttime: '1:30'
      zoomlink: 'https://fsu.zoom.us/my/celiareddick'
  approximately_how_many_hours_a_week_would_the_research_assistant: '5-10 hours'
  are_you_currently_looking_for_students_: 'No'
  confirmation_1: '1'
  contact_email_fsu_email: bwawire@fsu.edu
  contact_email_fsu_email2: ''
  contact_email_fsu_email_if_affiliated_: creddick3@fsu.edu
  faculty_advisor_confirmation: ''
  faculty_advisor_name: ''
  faculty_advisor_s_fsu_email: ''
  fsu_college: 'Education, Health, and Human Sciences'
  fsu_department_if_applicable_: 'Learning Systems Institute / Education Leadership and Policy Studies'
  headshot_optional_: '61901'
  if_the_project_location_is_off_campus_does_the_student_need_to_p: ''
  mentoring_philosophy: 'My mentorship is rooted in the belief that trusting relationships are key to learning. To achieve the kind of trust that enables difficult conversations about inequality and injustice in education, and deep participation in research, I engage students as co-creators in our shared learning. I begin each mentorship relationship by asking students about their own goals for the work, setting regular meeting and deadline expectations, and providing scaffolding and support to encourage increasing independence. I am an educator at heart, and students’ development as scholars, thinkers, and actors motivates my work. I aspire to be a co-thinker with them as we learn together. '
  mentor_handbook_and_faqs: '1'
  name_of_other_faculty_collaborator_if_applicable_: 'Dr. Adrienne Barnes-Story; Dr. Sana Tibi'
  number_of_assistants_needed_faculty_postdoc_max_6_graduate_stude: '6'
  other_faculty_collaborator_s_preferred_pronouns: ''
  overall_research_project_description: |
    The challenge: 
    In a recent conversation with a former staff member of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Tallahassee, Wawire learned that resettled refugee students in Tallahassee are facing challenges at school. “They feel that they just don’t fit in,” this stakeholder explained, pointing to issues of language, culture, and academic progress to explain the challenges they face. “There is also bullying, as well as issues related to financial literacy, health insurance, disabilities, and other concerns,” she continued. Refugee young people and their families in Tallahassee are struggling to find their footing in a small city that is very different from the refugee camps where they most recently lived, this staff member recounted.

    Despite the pressing needs of refugee young people and their families, there is little data about this population in Tallahassee. Even identifying how many refugees live in Tallahassee has been a challenge: while one source claims that there are approximately 90 refugee families in the city (Tallahassee Refugee Connection, 2024), an informal conversation revealed that as many as 450 additional refugees were slated to arrive in Tallahassee in 2024 (Personal communication, January 25th, 2025). Neither our contacts at refugee-serving organizations nor our initial conversations with contacts at the Department of Education could help us pinpoint the total number of refugees in the city or schools, nor which schools they attend. We are in the process of identifying key personnel in the Leon School department who can provide a clear picture of the school-aged refugee population in Tallahassee. What we do know is that refugee newcomer families are supported to access housing, school, and low-wage work by organizations like the International Rescue Committee (IRC, 2025), and that community volunteers and local organizations from the city offer translation and tutoring services (Personal communication, January 19th, 2025). Nonetheless, refugee young people are facing significant headwinds to learning and belonging at school, likely made even more difficult by the knowledge that, for the time being, no further refugee families will be welcomed to the U.S. (The White House, 2025). 

    Research intervention:
    Given these challenges, we seek to understand the lived and educational experiences of refugee families and their teachers in Tallahassee, as well as the experiences of their long-term resident peers. This spring, we have initiated a nested research project, conducting a landscape analysis of educational opportunities and challenges for refugee families and their teachers in Tallahassee, alongside an intervention to build bridges between refugee young people and their peers who have spent longer periods in the school system, responding to initial reports of bullying and social exclusion. The long-term objectives of our research are twofold: 1) to gather vital data about the number, place of origin, and school experiences of refugees in Tallahassee in order to enhance educational support for refugee families in the city, and 2) to pilot-test an intervention model that seek to address the social and relational needs of refugee young people and their peers. The following questions guide this research project:
    ●	How do refugee young people and their families experience school in Tallahassee? How do these experiences vary from those of long-term resident young people attending school in Tallahassee?
    o	What opportunities and challenges do they each face? How, if at all, do they work to overcome these challenges?
    o	How can collaborative, arts-based research act on these challenges for refugees and their peers?
    ●	How do stakeholders at the school level (e.g., teachers and principals) navigate their work with refugee learners within the mainstream system? What opportunities and challenges do they face in the context of diverse classrooms, and how do they work to overcome these?
    ●	How do broader dynamics of refugee resettlement in Tallahassee influence children’s and teachers’ educational experiences?

    Research and Intervention Methods. We have begun to undertake a comparative case study (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017), looking across scales to examine education for refugee young people in Tallahassee. This project involves interviews at the family level, with refugee young people and their caregivers; at the school level, with principals, teachers, and peers in classrooms; and at the city level, including with DOE, IRC, and the Tallahassee Refugee Connection, among others. We have begun interviews with Kiswahili and French with families from the Democratic Republic, and in Arabic with families from Syria. We will soon begin interviews wtih Afghan families in Dari and Pashto, and with Venezuelan families in Spanish.

    We will also conduct an arts-based project with refugee children and their peers. During the intervention, students will collaboratively undertake a project to examine, analyze, and share their lived experiences through one of three options: video/photography, a visual representation such as painting/mural, or a book project. The project will be implemented over 3 days this August. During the course of this project, we will collect observational data and data related to the artifacts young people create.
  please_add_any_additional_information_here: |+
    I am looking forward to getting to know you and am happy to answer any questions. Please don't hesitate to reach out!

  please_provide_a_link_to_your_publications_a_video_clip_or_a_web: 'https://celiareddick.com/'
  please_select_the_choice_that_most_accurately_describes_your_exp: 'Partially Remote'
  please_select_the_location_of_your_project_: 'On FSU Main Campus'
  position_availability_for_student_research: 'Flexible schedule'
  position_title: Faculty
  primary_research_mentor_name: 'Dr. Celia Reddick'
  project_keywords: 'refugee education, language, school, families, teachers '
  relevant_student_major_s_: 'The project may be most suited to students studying Education, Social Work, Political Science, Human Rights and Social Justice, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Given that this is a multilingual project, we also welcome students who have previously studied/speak Kiswahili, Dari and Pashto.'
  research_mentor_preferred_pronoun2: she/her/hers
  research_mentor_pronouns: she/her/hers
  research_mentor_supervisor_if_different_from_above_: 'Brenda Wawire'
  research_tasks_for_student_research_assistant_s_: |-
    Research tasks include:
    - Conducting interviews wtih refugee families
    - Transcribing interviews with refugee families
    - Conducting interviews with teachers in Tallahassee schools
    - Transcribing interviews with teachers in Tallahassee schools
    - Conducting literature reviews about refugee resettlement and education in the US
    - Conducting qualitative coding of interviews and thematic analysis
    - Supporting a showcase of students' artwork
  roundtable_times_and_zoom_links: |-
    Tuesday September 2 at 1:30, https://fsu.zoom.us/my/celiareddick
    Thursday September 4 at 1:30, https://fsu.zoom.us/my/celiareddick
  skills_that_research_assistants_may_need_: |
    We welcome research assistants with any of the following spoken and/or written language skills: Arabic, Spanish, Kiswahili, Dari, Pashto, French (recommended). There is also work to be done in English, so if you do not have these language skills, you are still welcome to apply.

    We welcome research assistants with the following previous experiences (recommended): conducting interviews; transcribing interviews; analysing interviews; working with children and adolescents across cultures
  title_of_the_project: 'Strengthening school experiences for refugee young people, families, and their teachers in Tallahassee'
  update_url: 'https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?element_parents=elements/research_mentor_information/headshot_optional_&ajax_form=1&_wrapper_format=drupal_ajax&token=3AhVqbuSsi5lR6L0pPTyHI47zYPK99dTuQrbYnIKGkk'
  urop_performance_evaluation: '1'
  urop_poster_presentation: '1'
  when_potential_research_assistants_are_reaching_out_via_email_2: 'Dr. '
  when_potential_research_assistants_are_reaching_out_via_email_wh: ''
  when_students_are_reaching_out_via_email_what_is_your_preferreda: ''
  would_you_like_to_participate_in_the_urop_research_mentor_round2: 'Yes'
  would_you_like_to_participate_in_the_urop_research_mentor_roundt: ''
  year: '2025'