Humour as playful resistance : a trauma-informed framework for refugee language education

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Mohajeri, Mehrdad and John, Tomasz and Cassidy, Claire (2026) Humour as playful resistance : a trauma-informed framework for refugee language education. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. ISSN 0019-042X (https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2025-0359)

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Abstract

This article examines how humour functions in refugee ESOL classrooms as an affective, interactional, and pedagogical resource. Refugee learners may enter language classrooms with experiences of displacement, uncertainty, and linguistic marginalisation; yet humour in these settings remains under-theorised, especially in relation to trauma-informed pedagogy. Drawing on 85 hours of classroom observations, interviews with teachers and learners, and a creative role-play stimulus, the article analyses how humour operated across classroom moments and proficiency levels. The findings suggest that humour can ease anxiety in some moments, support participation, strengthen peer connection, and support recognition of multilingual identities, while also carrying risks when cultural knowledge, power asymmetries, or emotional boundaries are misread. The article makes three contributions. First, it examines how humour functions differently across refugee ESOL interactions rather than as a uniform technique. Second, it conceptualises playful resistance as humour through which learners may participate, reposition themselves, and resist deficit framings while remaining engaged in the pedagogical task. Third, it translates these findings into trauma-informed implications for teachers, especially around humour selection, boundary-setting, and repair when humour misfires.

ORCID iDs

Mohajeri, Mehrdad, John, Tomasz ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3696-080X and Cassidy, Claire ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3088-1721;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)