FINDINGS
While immigrants are generally more educated than the Canadian-born, they, especially refugees, face a number of challenges in accessing PSE, including language barriers, social exclusion, and mental health issues. There are four key points that should be given greater attention when discussing challenges faced by immigrant youth in the education system. First, their type of immigration trajectory (admission class) plays a major role in their educational success. Economic migrants often face fewer hardships than refugees, and perform better than Canadian-born youth in their educational attainment. On the other hand, refugees often struggle coping with their pre-migration experience and the process of integration. Secondly, age at
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A study conducted in the United States found that parental education matters enormously for children’s academic pathways. Highly literate parents are better equipped to guide their children in studying, accessing, and making meaning of educational information. However, many immigrant parents have had limited schooling. Moreover, low parental education is compounded by parents’ limited English or French language skills, which are related to the support children receive for learning the language of instruction at home. Such disadvantaged backgrounds have implications for the students’ educational transition; youth arriving from families with lower levels of education tend to struggle academically while those who come from more literate families with strong language skills often …show more content…
A study on the aspirations of refugee youth attending school at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) found that several youth’s previous educational level was not properly recognized in Canada. Some youth participants in the study mentioned that they were misplaced in what they perceived to be an inaccurate grade or academic stream. The study also found that high school students from specific origin groups, immigrants who arrive during adolescence, as well as those with poor English-language or French-language skills may be streamed into lower ability groups, such as the college or workforce stream. A separate study on refugee youth also noted that school are often focussed on getting immigrant youth out of high school. Instead of focusing on streaming them to take academic level courses, they often stream them to low-stream courses to finish high school with their peers. Moreover, teachers who are placed in the low performing schools also tend to be less experienced. This has a major implication for immigrant youth to pursue PSE as it limits their ability to get accepted to PSE
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
Valenzuela utilizes various compilations of research to construct her exceptional argument regarding the issue of subtractive schooling with regards to 2nd generational immigrant students. She thoroughly analyzes and assesses the multitude of differences between 1st generation and 2nd generation students and their affinity for education. She divides the topic into 3 categories and asserts how each one adds to the issue of inadequate education for Mexican/Mexican-American students in the US public school system. Her research is conducted at Seguin (pseudonym) High School in Houston, Texas. She examines the effects of substandard education in regards to the students and their academic performance. She uses quantitative and qualitative research
My mom is Panamanian and a very bright woman and loves school, while my dad is African American and didn’t care for school at all and isn't very educated. My mom first came to America to study at Vanderbilt University and my dad never went to college. When I was four my parents got a divorce and my mother maintained custody of me. In this day in time people would say that my odds are against me when it comes to becoming literate. Why? Well, I didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood. The area I was raised in was nicknamed "Little Mexico" because many illegal immigrants lived there. I quickly learned that most of the people around me didn’t know how to read or write and they only spoke Spanish. Imagine them living in an English speaking country. If they couldn’t read or write in their own language living in America must be pretty complicated. It would clearly seem like I wouldn't have much access to literacy sponsors at all. Literacy sponsors can be people, places, or even events that shape how a person reads and writes. Those same people, places, and events can play a big factor in a person's opinion about reading and writing as well. However, it was almost impossible for me not to have any literacy sponsors with my mom being in my
... education proved challenging for Home children during adulthood. The many difficulties the young immigrants endured not only isolated them form Canadians around them but it also discouraged most Home children from staying in rural communities.
Most people want to feel like they fit in, but for refugees and immigrants, that feeling was even more important. “Young refugees and immigrants... were caught between the world of their parents and the new world of their friends and schoolmates” (105) and had to choose whether they would vie for the approval of their peers or their family. One young boy on the Fugees soccer team refused to cut his hair because his peers thought it was cool, and ended up being kicked off the team (111). Other young refugees in Clarkston gave in to the allure of gangs, and ended up in a cycle of violence and crime, just for a sense of belonging and safety. “Gangs… promised both belonging and status”(105) and provided a way to become American, despite all the trouble and anguish they put their members in. As adolescents between worlds, young immigrants experience a heightened sense of liminality, when a person “becomes neither here nor there” (221), and struggle with finding out who they are and where they
Nevertheless, the study has given voice to an often unaddressed immigrant youth cohort. Further research to provide a point of comparison with other age groups would assist in more effective provision of pathways and support.
By the late nineteenth century the economic lines in America between the upper and lower class were quickly widening because of the boom of urban industrial expansion. Moreover, during the 1800s, America witnessed an influx of immigrants coming from many parts of the world, they made tenement houses in New York’s lower East Side a common destination. One person witnessing the living conditions of these tenements was journalist Jacob A. Riis. For several years, Riis, with camera in hand, tooked a multitude of photographs that depicted the atrocious working and living conditions in the New York slums. Riss reported that the tenements were severely overcrowded, unsanitary, and a breeding ground for crime and disease. Riss also claimed that the “slum” landlords of these tenements exploited immigrants by charging them more rent than they could afford. As a result, every member of the family had to work—even young children. Subsequently, in 1890, Riis wrote a book entitled: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, which included his horrifying photographs and sketches, as means to expose to the middle class the chaotic environment of tenement living. Although Riss’s book exposes a myriad of social and economic problems regarding tenement housing, one of the more prominent ills his photographs and prose reveal is the harsh and distressing reality that immigrant families from the lower class must treat their children as a form of labor in order to survive. With this in mind, by describing and analyzing three of Riis’s photographs, I will demonstrate the validity of my argument which portrays the exploitation of child labor.
My grandmother has a certain look in her eyes when something is troubling her: she stares off in a random direction with a wistful, slightly bemused expression on her face, as if she sees something the rest of us can’t see, knows something that we don’t know. It is in these moments, and these moments alone, that she seems distant from us, like a quiet observer watching from afar, her body present but her mind and heart in a place only she can visit. She never says it, but I know, and deep inside, I think they do as well. She wants to be a part of our world. She wants us to be a part of hers. But we don’t belong. Not anymore. Not my brothers—I don’t think they ever did. Maybe I did—once, a long time ago, but I can’t remember anymore. I love my grandmother. She knows that. I know she does, even if I’m never able to convey it adequately to her in words.
Educators, parents, policy makers, and institutional leaders all play a vital role in the advocacy of Latino/a students on their journey towards higher education. Access to information on how to attain higher education and practices needed to plan for the next steps, are necessary in preparing for the future. As the Latina/o population continues to grow in the United States, it is important to understand what their educational outlook is in regards to higher learning. This literature review will examine the roadblocks facing Latina/o students, including, parent involvement and understanding, family influence, preparation programs, and school support, and explore ways in which educators can work towards making college access a more frequent reality for Latina/o students. Parent Involvement and Understanding To begin to understand why Latina/o students find themselves significantly behind their Caucasian peers in college access, we must first look to the home and examine the relationship the parents of this population of students have with higher education.
Family dynamics present interesting revelations, especially regarding the relationship between parents and children. While most families undoubtedly encounter dysfunction at some point throughout life, immigrant families seemingly experience such stress continually. A handful of short stories, including “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, “Who’s irish” by Gish Jen, and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, demonstrate how strained relations erupt in immigrant families. Familial tension noticeably arises because of the immigrant parents’ inability to fully adjust to the American way of life. Further, immigrant parents adhere to strict expectations in an attempt to uphold the family’s conservative heritage. Finally, immigrant parents typically
I have to introduce you to three individuals, not random individuals, but siblings - two brothers and a sister. They may seem just like any other people, but they have a secret that isn’t easily realized unless you know them. They belong here in the sense that they were born here, but their hearts belong to another land. They are the children of immigrants; the first generation to be born in America. It is a unique experience that to others may seem odd or exotic, but for these three is just as normal as learning to ride a bike.
James, D. C. (1997). Coping With A New Society: The Unique Psychosocial Problems Of Immigrant Youth. Journal of School Health, 67(3), 98-102.
---. "Immigrant Students and Public Schools: A Fluent Fit - Public School Review." Public School Review - Profiles of USA Public Schools. 15 Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
The theme of education and undocumented students has been a key issue for many decades. Undocumented students are often deprived from higher education because of their migratory status. They not only have to face discrimination and fear of deportation, but also after high school, they have to face the crude reality that their dreams of success and educational achievement are far from becoming a reality due to their lack of opportunities. Many personal stories shared in William Perez and Douglas Richard’s book “Undocumented Latino College Students: Their Socioemotional and Academic Experiences.” Relate to their fears, difficult conditions, emotional challenges, limitations, and other circumstances that multiple undocumented students live daily
In my elementary school alone, there were a number of student’s parents that did not speak English very fluently. Our school took measures such as publishing the newsletter in different languages. If such a high number of non-English speaking parents exist, then why do schools give massive amounts of homework, while knowing full well that there may be no one in the home to help if a question arises? As for regular parents, one cannot expect every parent to be familiar with the curriculums of grade 12 math, or grade 11 chemistry. Thus, one can see why the limited guidance available to students at home creates a negative effect on a student’s homework.