Newcomer English Learners and Academic Help-Seeking Networks

• In Event: 75.025 - Examining the Education of Immigrant, Undocumented, and Newcomer Students: Considering Contextual and Structural Inequalities

Abstract

This paper examines help-seeking networks that English Learners utilize within school. We view help-seeking networks within schools as a form of individualized and collective social capital of students, teachers and schools. In turn, this social capital enables students to master challenging material. Through surveys of 9th and 10th graders at one school we aim to understand the development of academic help-seeking networks of students over time and examine a) the scope of both teacher and student networks and b) the extent to which these networks transcend subject matter expertise of teachers and, arguably, illustrate the degree of relationship bonds between students and teachers. Utilizing social network analysis, we also seek to understand the relationship between academic help-seeking and student outcomes.

Authors

• Douglas S. Reed, Georgetown University

• Edom Tesfa, Harvard University