research

My dissertation project: “Live in the Along: Interstitial Pedagogy and Design-Based Research in Refugee Education" examines facilitator sensemaking and shifts in research design across two spaces: in particular, a summer program co-designed with refugee students (2017-2024) and a cross-cultural coalition of youth organizing in Chicago. I draw on scholarship around transnationalism, infrastructuring, emergent strategy, and spatial justice to examine how researchers and participants co-design 1) community-based collaborative research, 2) facilitator training in culturally sustaining pedagogy and social emotional learning, and 3) youth-centered/-led learning spaces. 

I discuss infrastructural fractures and paths of desire that underscore openings and tensions in community-based, youth-centered learning design. Furthermore, I propose interstitial pedagogy as a framework for attending to affective, ambulatory moments that emerge in the in-between spaces of design-based research-practice partnerships. Interstitial pedagogy leverages wisdom from organizing and intergenerational learning to notice where and how praxis is animated in design and pedagogy. 

Key words: co-design, culturally sustaining pedagogy, social emotional learning, intergenerational learning, infrastructuring, emergent strategy, spatial justice, transnationalism, youth organizing