Is Supporting Immigrant-Origin Students Part of My Role? Factors That Influence Educators Sense of Responsibility

• In Event: From Remedy to Reality: The Intersections of Immigration and Education Over 40 Years After Plyler

Abstract

Objectives and Framework: Research has examined how local contexts can impact immigrant experiences (Bloemraad, 2006; Golash-Boza & Valdez, 2018). Contexts of reception (COR) (Portes and Rumbaut, 2001) are “the structural and cultural features of the specific contexts that immigrants enter” (Marrow, 2011, p. 9), which is shaped in part by how school districts and individual educators interpret federal and state immigration and education policies. For example, interpretations of Plyler range from “don’t ask, don’t tell” to creating purposeful systems of support with undocumented students and families in mind (Wong et. al., 2018). However, research is still needed on the specific contextual factors that lead educators to interpret policies at the intersection of education and immigration in the different ways just mentioned. In this study, we sought to answer the research question: What factors influence educators to see supporting immigrant-origin students and caregivers/families as part of their role?

Methods: Our data is drawn from a longitudinal, mixed-methods study of educators in six U.S. school districts. While three districts served almost exclusively Spanish-speaking, Latinx immigrant communities, the other three districts served heterogeneous immigrant communities from around the world. We included regions with a long history of working with immigrant communities and high incidence of multilingual learners, alongside others with relatively recent experiences of immigration and lower numbers of multilingual learners. In Spring 2018, we administered an online survey to educators in different positions, which is the source of data for this specific study.
In this study, we explore four codes: personal identity, it’s needed, it’s my job, and it’s not my job and cross references the codes using chi-square tests with demographic data of respondents. The codes of it’s my job and it’s not my job relate to educators’ conceptions of professional identity. The personal identity code explores various personal identities (race, being an immigrant, political perspective, etc.) that made respondents feel responsible for supporting immigrant-origin students. It’s needed gets into the contextual factors related to immigration (especially national political context) that educators used to justify explicitly supporting or not supporting immigrant-origin students.

Results and Significance: Our research demonstrates that educators who have more direct relationships with immigrant-origin students and are more aware of their specific needs, either through their professional or personal identity, were more likely to name supporting those students as part of their roles. Nationally, immigration and xenophobia abound in political rhetoric and many educators mentioned the political nature of immigration when discussing whether they should support immigrant-origin students. In schools and districts where there was a collective sense of responsibility, educators named this as having an impact on why they defined supporting immigrant-origin students as part of their role. In most cases, this collective sense of responsibility was established either through school culture or district leader statements in support of immigrant-origin students and families. We suggest that districts can and should focus on developing a sense of collective responsibility for supporting immigrant-origin students through clear statements from district leaders, professional development opportunities, and leveraging the leadership of sub-groups of teachers close to immigrant-origin students.

Authors

• Jennifer Queenan, Graduate Center - CUNY

• Paulette Andrade Gonzalez, Boston College

• Rebecca J. Lowenhaupt, Boston College

• Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Graduate Center - CUNY