Parental Expectations for Public Schools: Working Together to Make Dreams Come True

• In Event: Which Public Do Public Schools Serve? Critical Ethnographic Perspectives on Home-School Connections in Schooling

Abstract

This paper draws from a twenty-three month ethnographic study of four mixed-status Mexican families living in the New Latino Diaspora. In 2008, 6.8% of students enrolled in U.S. public schools lived in mixed-status families (Passel & Cohn, 2009). The U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Plyler v. Doe, states that undocumented students cannot be denied a public education. While this important ruling protects the right of undocumented students to a public education, its “don't ask, don't tell” policy has rendered this population largely invisible in educational research. We know little about how growing up in a mixed-status family shapes children's participation in educational activities and parents’ perspectives on schooling practices. Recently, however, undocumented students have taken center stage in debates over educational reform as undocumented students have participated in grassroots efforts to lobby support for the Dream Act in the U.S. Congress.

This paper considers: 1. How has popular discourse about the Dream Act portrayed undocumented students and mixed-status families? 2. What role have educational scholars played in supporting this legislation, along with the student activists involved in the reform efforts? How and when do undocumented parents in mixed-status Mexican families demonstrate their understanding of educational policies such as the Dream Act, and what do they say about their hopes for their children’s educational future in relation to such policies? I draw on publicly available data including newspapers, blogs, and petitions regarding the Dream Act, as well as ethnographic recordings of undocumented mothers' and adolescents’ talk about the Dream Act.

The findings illustrate that current debates over educational reform for undocumented students foreground a student population that has lived in the shadows for many years—a positive trend that draws attention to the way that migratory status limits undocumented students’ opportunities for post-secondary study. Educational literature and public discourse on undocumented Latino youth has shown how some students, confronted with legal barriers that make it prohibitively expensive to access a higher education, become politically active (Bloemraad and Trost 2008; Gonzales 2008). However, by focusing on youth activism in exceptional circumstances like marches and protests, this important work overlooks the role of citizenship in routine activities and in the lives of younger children. The findings also reveal that undocumented mothers keep informed about the Dream Act legislation, and eagerly await its passage—not only for their undocumented adolescents future prospects, but those of their younger undocumented and U.S.-born children. This paper suggests that we can bring our academic work to bear on educational reform, employ ethnographic research to PreK-16 policy discussions, and actively engage with the families who would be most effected.

References

Bloemraad, I. & Trost, C. (2008). It’s a family affair: Inter-generational mobilization in the spring 2006 protests. American Behavioral Scientist 52(4): 507-532.

Gonzales, R.G. (2008). Left out but not shut down: Political activism and the undocumented student movement. Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy, 3, 219-239.

Pew Hispanic Center. (2009, April). A portrait of unauthorized immigrants in the United States.
Washington DC: Passel, J.S. & Cohn, D.

Author

• Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Rutgers University