Immigration Policy in Education Practice: Educators' Responses to Trump-Era Policies

• In Event: 21.032 - How Immigration and Education Policy Collide in a "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

Objectives
Recent policies have presented significant challenges to immigrant communities. These policy measures have taken an exclusionary stance, cracking down on attempts to integrate immigrants while ramping up levels of enforcement (Hipsman & Meissner, 2017). This charged political environment appears to be having a direct impact on K-12 schools, both on students and families, as well as the educators who serve them (Costello, 2016; Rogers et al, 2017).

Schools have responded in diverse ways, underscoring the salience of local contexts in shaping immigrant students’ experiences of integration. In the absence of federal immigration reform, local lawmakers develop their own responses, resulting in a mixed-landscape of immigration policies across the US. Through district-level case studies, our study investigates: How are school-based educators in varying contexts of reception responding to recent immigration policies and anti-immigrant discourses?

Frameworks
Drawing on theories of immigrant acculturation, we seek to understand how a shifting national policy climate informs local institutions that serve as the initial, and often only, point of contact for immigrant youth and families (Portes & Rumbaut, 2006). These institutions serve as crucial contexts of reception, yet their capacity to support newcomers varies widely and depends on local, state, and national policy environments. We rely on prior literature about schools as contexts of reception (Dabach, 2011; Gonzales, 2016) to explore how immigrant policies are interpreted and influence education practices.

Methods
We will share results from a descriptive, cross-case analyses of an online all-staff survey administered in six districts. The survey measured school climate, the impact of immigration policies, response to policies, and resources needed. We analyzed both Likert-scale and text responses to create district-level reports. We used descriptive and inferential statistics to identify patterns in the data before performing thematic analyses (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) of qualitative data to illustrate the nuances of our quantitative findings (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Drawing on matrices and memos, we conducted a cross-case analyses to identify cross-cutting themes and consider findings across contexts (Miles et al., 2014).

Results
Districts with infrastructure and existing networks used those mechanisms to adaptively develop and share strategies with educators. Some district leaders actively reached out to advocacy groups and created bridges to legal counsel for educators and families in direct response to recent immigration policies. Other districts were more isolated from these resources, yet still sought to generate new strategies, such as offering know-your-rights workshops and posting ‘You are welcome here’ signs to create a sense of belonging for immigrant youth and their families.

Significance
It is important to document responses from those practitioners poised to support immigrant communities during this time of anti-immigrant policies and discourses. Our study provides insight into the ways educators respond to what many perceive as a crisis for their schools and communities, as well as identifies distinctions between contexts.

Authors

• Rebecca Jane Lowenhaupt, Boston College

• Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Rutgers University

• Dafney Blanca Dabach, University of Washington - Seattle

• Roberto G. Gonzales, Harvard University