Seeing Segregation in a New Light: The Political Possibilities of Immigrant-Only Schools

• In Event: A New Language for Segregation: Responding to and (Re)Producing the Isolation of English Learners

Abstract

Objective
In many schools, students who are immigrants and English Learners (ELs) are segregated into classes where they lack access to rigorous curriculum, college preparatory courses and social capital. In contrast to experiences of within-school segregation, this paper explores the political opportunities and possibilities extended to students in immigrant only public high schools. The high schools in the Internationals Network for Public Schools are focused on the provisioning of rigorous curriculum and social capital resources to low income, recently arrived immigrant youth. In this article, the authors provide case evidence exploring the possibilities for collective political action in two schools in two very different political contexts before and after the 2016 presidential election.   

Theoretical Framework
This paper is framed by Fraser’s (1997) conceptualization of counterpublics, considering how within the Internationals, immigrant-only schools educators and students are able to formulate oppositional interpretations of marginalized groups identities, interests, and needs.

Methods & Data
This paper draws on two ethnographic studies within two different schools that are part of the Internationals Network for Public Schools, a network of schools serving low income recently arrived immigrant teenagers. Their students come from approximately 119 countries, speak 90 different languages and many students are undocumented. The case research included ethnographic observations, interviews, focus groups, and document analysis.

Results
The Case of Riverview International High, 2013: This case draws on school data from an International High School following the passage of DACA, a movement of social activism focused on providing rights to undocumented students including access to in-state tuition and work permits. The authors explore how teachers and students position themselves through activism by exploring a class field trip to the Office of the Governor in New York City to protest in support of the NY State Dream Act and specifically to call for the right of undocumented students to obtain in-state tuition.  
The Case of Maverick High, 2017: Prior to the 2016 presidential election, teachers at IHS attempted to teach about the election in an evenhanded way. In the weeks after the election, teachers’ first impulses were to pacify students’ fears by assuring them that the checks and balances of a US democracy would keep them safe. After it became clear that executive actions on immigration would directly impact the students and their families, teachers and school leaders shifted away from a neutral approach to politics and began teaching the history of protest movements, engaging in solidarity activities in and out of school, modeling activism, and working with outside organizations to help provide resources and refuge to students and families facing imminent deportation.  

Implications:
This paper considers possibilities for collective activism that are afforded to students who attend immigrant only schools. In doing so, the authors highlight the ways that school-based political action supports immigrant students’ outcomes and identities as well as raise questions about the portable lessons that might be offered for integrated settings.

Author

• Reva Jaffe-Walter, Montclair State University