Status and Schooling in New Latino Communities: Ethnographic Perspectives on Immigration Status in K-12 Contexts

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

National debates about immigration tend to focus on adults, and overlook the estimated 5.5 million children who live in undocumented families (Chaundry et al., 2010). Much of the work on immigration and schooling has focused on DREAMers in traditional receiving contexts (e.g., González, 2010). Yet little is known about how documentation status shapes children’s educational lives in communities of the New Latino Diaspora (NLD), where educators are working with Latino immigrants for the first time. This symposium ethnographically explores how documentation status permeates daily life and schooling for K-12 students and their non-immigrant teachers in the NLD in order to envision educational policies and practices that recognize and build upon students’ immigration experiences across levels of schooling and immigration contexts.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Section 5: Social Context of Research on Schools and Communities

Chair

• Sofia A. Villenas, Cornell University

Papers

• Citizenship Status and Language Education Policy in an Emerging Latino Community in the United States - Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Rutgers University

• Experiences of Undocumented Status and Schooling Among Newcomer Teens - Elaine Cristina Allard, Swarthmore College

• The Effects of Gendered Immigration Policy Enforcement on Elementary Children’s Schooling - Sarah Gallo, The Ohio State University

• Exploring the Borderlands: Elementary School Teachers’ Navigation of Immigration Practices - Holly Link, University of Pennsylvania; Sarah Gallo, The Ohio State University

Discussant

• Carola Suarez-Orozco, University of California – Los Angeles