Date of Award
7-1-2026
Document Type
Non Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Education
Program
Trauma and Resilience in Educational Settings
Capstone Instructor
Meagan Reissy
Second Reader
Theresa Marty
Keywords
culturally responsive teaching, multilingual learners, trauma-informed practices, social-emotional learning
Abstract
This Capstone paper examined how trauma-informed (TI) and culturally responsive (CR) belonging of multilingual learners (MLs) in K-12 classrooms. This study evaluated the intersection of TI education and CR teaching as a framework to support MLs. With MLs representing approximately 10% of the U.S. student population (NCES, 2024), schools faced an urgent need to address the academic, linguistic, and social-emotional challenges due to adverse childhood experiences, migration-related stress, displacement, and cultural adjustment. The literature review included qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and intervention-based studies examining MLs, refugee-background students, teacher perceptions, professional development, school-based interventions, and CR instructional practices. This paper explored how integrating TI care and CR teaching approaches influenced language acquisition, emotional regulation, and students’ sense of belonging in school. The analysis revealed that effective TI strategies promoted language development and student engagement, highlighted ways educators integrated CR teaching with trauma-sensitive approaches, and identified the barriers schools encountered when implementing these supports. Overall, the findings suggested that MLs experienced greater engagement, language growth, resilience, and school connectedness when educators adopted asset-based, culturally affirming, and trauma-responsive approaches.