Post-Traumatic Growth in the Global South: Possibilities in Relational Ethics from Communities to Classrooms

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Post-Traumatic Growth in the Global South: Possibilities in Relational Ethics from Communities to Classrooms
Language: English
Authors: Suresh Canagarajah (ORCID 0000-0002-1292-2366), Canista Arthie Hensman (ORCID 0009-0000-1956-8729)
Source: TESOL Quarterly. 2026 60(1):S186-S208.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 23
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Ethics, Foreign Countries, Trauma, Universities, College Students, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Developing Nations, Teacher Attitudes, Student Attitudes, Trauma Informed Approach, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, College Faculty
Geographic Terms: Sri Lanka
DOI: 10.1002/tesq.70061
ISSN: 0039-8322
1545-7249
Abstract: This article reports on a qualitative study of the way instructors and students understand and respond to traumatizing events in a Sri Lankan university. It shows how the attitudes and practices in the society at large are carried over to classrooms even though local institutions do not have a programmatic trauma-informed pedagogy. Relational ethics practiced in the community, deriving from local understandings of life as inter-dependent and vulnerable, have significant implications for classroom relations. Having been socialized into such ethical practices in the community, instructors and students respond to the needs of trauma-affected students to facilitate learning in ESL classrooms. Such practices also help such students toward post-traumatic growth, when traditional scholarship treated "post-traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD) as the likely outcome that caused learning and communicative disabilities. The study presents these experiences as typical of many Global South communities which experience historical and collective trauma from years of colonization, different from the Global North theorizations of trauma as event-based, individual, and pathological.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1508747
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:This article reports on a qualitative study of the way instructors and students understand and respond to traumatizing events in a Sri Lankan university. It shows how the attitudes and practices in the society at large are carried over to classrooms even though local institutions do not have a programmatic trauma-informed pedagogy. Relational ethics practiced in the community, deriving from local understandings of life as inter-dependent and vulnerable, have significant implications for classroom relations. Having been socialized into such ethical practices in the community, instructors and students respond to the needs of trauma-affected students to facilitate learning in ESL classrooms. Such practices also help such students toward post-traumatic growth, when traditional scholarship treated "post-traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD) as the likely outcome that caused learning and communicative disabilities. The study presents these experiences as typical of many Global South communities which experience historical and collective trauma from years of colonization, different from the Global North theorizations of trauma as event-based, individual, and pathological.
ISSN:0039-8322
1545-7249
DOI:10.1002/tesq.70061