Migrant Youth, Schooling and Identity


Book Description

This volume provides a broad outlook on migrant youth and schooling in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the United Kingdom. It explores empirically how these young people—who range from the first to the third generation—position themselves in relation to school, friendships, language-use, aspirations, and the expectations placed upon them. The book also examines the role of a variety of professionals, street-level bureaucrats, and other key actors in framing, representing, problematizing and ultimately contributing to shaping the experiences of these young people. Contemporary contextual challenges for educational advancement are particularly highlighted, as are key issues of cultural representation and recognition. Several contributions also focus on sub-groups within the immigrant-origin population that have so far only received a limited attention in the literature, such as youth in rural areas, LGBT youth, first-in-family college students, and youth who transition out of anti-school subcultures. The contributors stem from a variety of disciplines, ranging from Education and Youth Studies to Social Work and Sociology, and tackle many innovative themes, such as peer violence, special needs education, and artistic interventions, among many others. Through this original perspective and comparative outlook, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on youth, migration, identity, and education. It will interest undergraduate students in several areas of the social sciences, teachers and other professionals who work with children and young people.







Global Migration and Education


Book Description

Global Migration and Education makes a notable contribution to understanding the issues faced by immigrant children, their parents, and educators as they interact in school settings, and to identifying the common challenges to, and successes in, educational institutions worldwide as they cope with these issues. Global in scope, there are chapters from 14 countries. It will help educators and others involved in these complex processes to see beyond the notion of problems created and experienced by recently arrived young children. Rather, this volume provides many concrete suggestions deriving from the success stories and voices of teachers, parents, and students. It also offers evidence that diversity can be a condition for learning that, when understood, embraced, and supported, leads to rich learning opportunities for all involved that would not exist without diversity. All of the authors offer recommendations about educational policy and practices to address and ultimately improve the education of all children, including immigrant children. The book is organized around five themes: *Multiple Global Issues for Immigrant Children and the Schools They Attend; *They Are Here: Newcomers in the Schools; *Views and Voices of Immigrant Children; *Far from Home With Fluctuating Hopes; and *Searching for New Ways to Belong. Intended for researchers, students, school professionals, and educational policymakers and analysts around the world in the fields of multicultural education, child psychology, comparative and international education, educational foundations, educational policy, and cross-cultural studies, this book is highly relevant as a text for courses in these areas.




Language Practices of Migrant Youth


Book Description

This ground breaking research explores language maintenance and shift focusing on a school community. Following students' language practice inside and outside of school, the author offers a full picture of students' multilingual practices and their role in shaping identity. Using case studies of eight girls from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds, the book draws on data from questionnaires, interviews and ethnographic observation to bring these language practices to life. It explores the place of heritage languages, English and other languages in the girls' repertoires and investigates the role they see for these languages in their lives. A key focus of the book is the role of the school environment in shaping students' repertoires and unfolding sense of ethnic identity; both directly through formal instruction and indirectly through its ethos and social composition. It provides practical suggestions on the basis of extensive research for how schools can negotiate some of the challenges of catering to a multiethnic population. Essential reading for anyone researching migrant language practice, sociolinguistics or multicultural education.




The Education of Migrant Children and China's Future


Book Description

There are more than 225 million rural-to-urban migrant workers, and some 20 million migrant children in Chinese cities. Because of policies related to the household registration (hukou) system, migrant students are not allowed a public high school education in the cities, so their urban education stops abruptly at the end of middle school. This book investigates the post-middle school education and labor market decisions of migrant students in Beijing and Shanghai, and provides a glimpse into the future of a crucial link in China’s development. The stories of how these migrant students seek upward mobility and urban citizenship also reveal one of the most intricate structural inequalities in China today. Based on quantitative data collected from middle schools in Beijing and Shanghai, and ethnographic data drawing on in-depth interviews with migrant children, their parents, and teachers, this book offers a portrait of the migration and educational experiences and prospects of second generation migrant youth in China today. It explores the urban experience of migrant students, contrasting it with that of local city youngsters, examining the migrant students’ family backgrounds, family dynamics, neighborhood and school experience, and interaction with locals. It goes on to look at the migrant students’ education and career aspirations, the structural obstacles preventing their fulfilment, and how migrant families respond to institutional constraints on educational opportunity. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of policy implications and offers proposals for resolving the dilemmas of migrant youth. This book will of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, Asian education, migration and social development.




Educating African Immigrant Youth


Book Description

"Black African immigrant youth and young adults from countries south of the Sahara, among the most rapidly growing immigrant groups in the US given immigration, resettlement, and asylum programs, have long demonstrated varied racial, ethnic, gendered, cultural, linguistic, religious, and transnational identities in their diverse schooling and education practices. Moreover, African immigrant youth enacting complex, embodied practices within and across varied schooling and educational contexts, and at the interplay of language, literacy, and civic learning and action taking, complicate urgent questions of which students may engage civically in schools and communities, and how they may do so. Thus, transformative education research to support diverse schooling, education, and civic engagement experiences for African immigrant and refugee students will increasingly depend on enacting generative research frameworks, teaching approaches, and innovative methodologies. Such research and teaching hold possibilities for assisting and preparing researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and community-based educators to identify key schooling, education and civic engagement practices associated with student's varied identities, and / or taking up research approaches and learning contexts that affirm and extend the identified practices"--




Children in Immigrant Families Becoming Literate


Book Description

This original book offers a meaningful window into the lived experiences of children from immigrant families, providing a holistic, profound portrait of their literacy practices as situated within social, cultural, and political frames. Drawing on reports from five years of an ongoing longitudinal research project involving students from immigrant families across their elementary school years, each chapter explores a unique set of questions about the students’ experiences and offers a rich data set of observations, interviews, and student-created artifacts. Authors apply different sociocultural, sociomaterial, and sociopolitical frameworks to better understand the dimensions of the children’s experiences. The multitude of approaches applied demonstrates how viewing the same data through distinct lenses is a powerful way to uncover the differences and comparative uses of these theories. Through such varied lenses, it becomes apparent how the complexities of lived experiences inform and improve our understanding of teaching and learning, and how our understanding of multifaceted literacy practices affects students’ social worlds and identities. Children in Immigrant Families Becoming Literate is a much-needed resource for scholars, professors, researchers, and graduate students in language and literacy education, English education, and teacher education.




Language Practices of Migrant Youth


Book Description

This ground breaking research explores language maintenance and shift focusing on a school community. Following students’ language practice inside and outside of school, the author offers a full picture of students’ multilingual practices and their role in shaping identity. Using case studies of eight girls from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds, the book draws on data from questionnaires, interviews and ethnographic observation to bring these language practices to life. It explores the place of heritage languages, English and other languages in the girls’ repertoires and investigates the role they see for these languages in their lives. A key focus of the book is the role of the school environment in shaping students’ repertoires and unfolding sense of ethnic identity; both directly through formal instruction and indirectly through its ethos and social composition. It provides practical suggestions on the basis of extensive research for how schools can negotiate some of the challenges of catering to a multiethnic population. Essential reading for anyone researching migrant language practice, sociolinguistics or multicultural education.




Children of Immigrants


Book Description

Immigrant children and youth are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, and so their prospects bear heavily on the well-being of the country. Children of Immigrants represents some of the very best and most extensive research efforts to date on the circumstances, health, and development of children in immigrant families and the delivery of health and social services to these children and their families. This book presents new, detailed analyses of more than a dozen existing datasets that constitute a large share of the national system for monitoring the health and well-being of the U.S. population. Prior to these new analyses, few of these datasets had been used to assess the circumstances of children in immigrant families. The analyses enormously expand the available knowledge about the physical and mental health status and risk behaviors, educational experiences and outcomes, and socioeconomic and demographic circumstances of first- and second-generation immigrant children, compared with children with U.S.-born parents.