Psychosocial and language needs of culturally and linguistically diverse immigrant students: how can drama help?

Abstract

This thesis is a critical literature review that proposes to show the way in which drama practices can help with the psychosocial and language needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) immigrant learners. The situation of CLD immigrant students in Special Needs Education is a complicated one, as their misrepresentation in the Special Needs Education field contributes to unequal opportunities, not only in education but also afterwards. There are 27 sources that were consulted to write this critical literature review. These sources were analyzed according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and then the results were reported using a critical review methodology. This critical literature review will first report the findings regarding the role that drama practices play to help the psychosocial and language needs of CLD immigrant learners. Then, it will discuss the topic, analyzing how drama practices help with psychosocial and language development. The discussion follows in analyzing how drama can help CLD immigrant learners with the understanding of the new culture, and, as well, the challenges that can be faced when using drama activities with this group of students. This review found that the reported articles establish that drama is a profitable source for the development of the skills CLD immigrant students need. It showed that drama can contribute to the development of psychosocial and language skills. There are few studies that deal with this topic using a longitudinal process, so the results of the review can provide researchers with an idea for the development of more longitudinal studies to be done with drama and CLD immigrant students in relation with Special Needs Education.