What do we do?
Re-Imagining Migration transforms educators and the educational ecosystem by leveraging schools, museums, and other educational spaces to promote belonging, knowledge, understanding, and lifelong habits of mind among immigrant and non-immigrant youth so they can thrive in a world of migration and demographic change. These efforts strengthen our diverse communities, counter polarization, xenophobia, and hate, and transform migration from a crisis to an opportunity. We achieve this by re-imagining education as a vehicle for building belonging, which involves:
- Developing and disseminating strength-based approaches to education for immigrant-origin youth that prioritizes teacher-student relationships and belonging.
- Creating bridging opportunities for young people to learn with and from each other across their differences.
- Providing professional learning opportunities and resources for educators to understand the role of migration in community development over time and across the world.
How are we making a difference?
We initiated the development of a unique research-based framework for supporting immigrant-origin youth and teaching about migration to promote belonging to address it and brought that framework to life in the training we offer and the resources we develop. That includes:
- We have developed 650 lessons, tools, and resources that can be deployed at scale to support the implementation of that framework. We continue to develop timely and scalable models of practice.
- 400,000 educators in all 50 states have accessed our resources.
- We have led professional development for over 10,000 teachers in workshops and events based on the framework.
- Over 40 museums, cultural institutions, and high-impact organizations have partnered with us, scaling the adoption of research-based practices for teaching and learning in a world on the move.
What do we know about the impact of the free resources, lessons, and tools we provide educators online?
Each year, over 200,000 people use the resources on our website. They are all free. Educators register to download a subset of the 600-plus lessons, tools, and resources in our collection. We survey them to understand the impact of our resources on their ability to build belonging, educate about migration, and promote dispositions that will help young people and their communities thrive in a world on the move. Below is some of what we heard from an October 2023 survey.
- 100% of those that implemented the Re-Imagining Migration resources say the resources improved their ability to foster belonging among their students.
- 95% of educators say that they felt that Re-Imagining Migration’s resources helped them promote understanding of migration and movement among their students.
What do we know about the impact of our webinars, in-person workshops, and seminars?
- 99% of online and face-to-face workshop participants report that they left feeling more confident in their ability to serve immigrant-origin youth and in the ability to teach about migration.
Educator responses to our in-depth educational seminars reveal the impact of our approach.
- 100% of educators report that the seminar improved their ability to facilitate conversations to counter prejudice and build understanding about migration
- 100% of educators write that the seminar increased their understanding of ways to foster inclusive learning environments
- 100% said that the seminar had increased their understanding of migration as a shared and complex human story
- 100% agreed that the seminar helped them better understand their own personal and professional civic identity
Scholarship
The Re-Imagining Migration framework (that is at the heart of our pedagogy) as well our resources on, and educational approach to, Carola Suárez-Orozco’s Moving Stories Project have been the featured in academic journals and books. Sources include:
Elena Maker Castro, Christian Medina, Carola Suárez-Orozco. “Everyone Has Their Story”: Intergroup Dialogue’s Potential to Cultivate Connection Through the Sharing of Migration Narratives. Psychol Sch. 2023 Apr;60(4):883-901. doi: 10.1002/pits.22801. Epub 2022 Sep 18. PMID: 36937112; PMCID: PMC10022699.
Verónica Boix-Mansilla, Angela K Salmon, and Kiriaki Melliou. 2023. “Collective Stories of Voice and Influence: Weaving Together Stories and Cultures for a World on the Move.” Journal of Research in Childhood Education 37 (3): 423–41.
Adam Strom, Veronica Boix-Mansilla, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, and Carola Suárez-Orozco. 2020. “Teaching Migration as Citizenship-Building in the United States and Beyond.” Springer EBooks, January, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_70-1.