Dream-Chasers and Paper-Chasers: How the Social Constructions of Adolescent Immigrants Structure Educational Opportunity

• In Event: Integration of Newcomer and Refugee Students in U.S. Schools

Abstract

Since 2014, more than 285,000 unaccompanied minors from Mexico and Central America have resettled throughout the United States. In this paper, I draw on Schneider and Ingram's social constructions of target populations to explore how educators’ perceptions of unaccompanied immigrant youth shaped educational policy and opportunity at one new destination high school. Drawing on archival, interview (N = 66), and ethnographic data, I demonstrate how institutionally embedded practices and the social constructions of adolescent immigrants contributed to a two-tiered system of education. Results show that, at the age of 16, first-generation immigrants began to age into exclusion within the school context. Ultimately, school policy and educational practices among educators established school as a dream deferred for 1.5- and second-generation youth.

Author

• Daphne M. Penn, University of Pennsylvania