Narrative Forms of Migration as Lived Experience
With Prof. Dr. Roger Dale Jones, Klagenfurt
Project Description
Historical narratives can function as resonance spaces in which individual reflections on cultural codes and identity constructions take shape. This project investigates that premise through learners' engagement with authentic texts from the archive "The Many Voices of Texas" on nineteenth-century migration.
Project Details
Designed as an exploratory case study, the project draws on latent thematic analysis to trace how twenty secondary school students in Hesse negotiate cultural values, norms, and identity constructions as they work with these materials. Their engagement was captured through text-productive tasks and documented via videography, learning products, and semi-structured interviews, allowing the mediation of historical narratives to be linked to the development of communicative skills and critical reflection.
The resulting analysis focuses on the tension between romanticized historical narratives and the lived hardships of migration, revealing how students construct "as-if" learning worlds in response to this friction. In doing so, the study offers insight into how authentic historical materials can foster "futures literacy", helping learners deconstruct linguistic identity constructions and actively shape the narrative structures of their own future.