Education Brokering: School Personnel’s Efforts to Support and Educate Newcomer Immigrant Students under Conditions of Constraint

• In Event: Advocacy, Community, and Transformative Practice in Education

Abstract

In this multiple case study of educators working with recently arrived immigrant students in two junior high schools in a “low-incidence” district in California whose population of newcomer students dramatically increased over the course of the past three years, I explore the ways that teachers, school administrators, and other school personnel respond to policies, practices, and conditions of constraint that limit their capacity to meet these students’ social emotional and learning needs. Combining data from policy documents, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation in classrooms, the study provides an in-depth look into the educators’ perceptions and experiences working with newcomer immigrant students in an inadequate funding and policy environment and how they attempt to provide supportive learning environments for students nonetheless.

Authors

• Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Marie R Fernandez, University of California - Santa Barbara