Perspectives of Mexican Teachers on Their Own Preparation to Meet the Needs of Returnee Students

• In Event: Preparing the Teachers We Need for the “Students We Share” Between the United States and Mexico

Abstract

Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of children and youth have transitioned from the U.S. education system to Mexico’s public schools (Jacobo, 2016). These students are part of the Mexican diaspora that increased during the Obama administration. A growing body of literature shows that, once in Mexico, returnee children often struggle shifting from English to Spanish as a language of instruction (Panait & Zúñiga, 2016), are confronted with distinct pedagogy and cultural codes (Zúñiga, Hamann, & Sánchez, 2008) and are also required to catch up with curricula unknown to them (e.g., Mexican history and geography). For them, developing academic skills in Spanish is crucial to facilitate their adaptation process and indispensable to guarantee ongoing learning. However, there are currently no programs aimed at developing Spanish skills among returnee students or to design and test effective practices for teachers.

In this study, I analyze teacher perspectives of returnee students to inform policy recommendations and teacher preparation initiatives to better serve returnee students. I focus on teachers who graduated from Escuela Normal, the largest school system for teachers in Mexico. I ask them two broad questions: What do teachers need to effectively teach students with transnational school trajectories? What are the educational needs of returnee migrant students? Different from the U.S. where English as a Second Language (ESL) exists, Mexico has not yet developed Spanish transitioning programs. There are some school efforts to formally teach Spanish in municipalities with a high concentration of indigenous population. Yet, there is no explicit policy or program at the state or federal level to meet migrant students’ language needs.

In conducting the analysis, I draw on a public policy framework, specifically a bottom-up perspective, to uncover teachers’ perceptions on returnee students and contrast those with top-down efforts designed by Mexico’s federal education ministry (SEP). Recently, SEP organized various seminars and working groups with U.S. and Mexican experts to learn about migrant students’ needs. Yet, teachers are frequently excluded from these meetings. For decades, Mexico’s Binational Program of Migrant Education (PROBEM) has been the main strategy to support students with previous U.S. schooling. Yet, implementation of and fiscal support for PROBEM programs vary substantially by state (Gándara, 2008). In fact, the emphasis is often placed on Mexican-origin students in US schools, not on serving those who return to Mexico. Needless to say, development of Spanish literacy skills is usually absent from this program.

Data on teachers’ perceptions come from a series of focus groups and semi-structured interviews in elementary and middle schools in Central Mexico. Access to teachers was negotiated through PROBEM’s State Coordinator, with who the researcher had a former collaborating relationship. The analytic method is based on pre-determined and emergent codes developed from transcribed data. Such codes are used to identify trends among teacher responses and discuss the results in the context of Mexico’s government efforts to advance inclusion of returnee students.

Author

• Monica Jacobo-Suarez, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Economicas A.C.