Ethnic Belonging and Racialized Concerns: Karen (Ka-REN) Immigrant and Refugee Families and School Choice

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Early Childhood, Home Language, and Refugee Family Supports in AANHPI communities

Abstract

This paper examines how Karen (pronounced Ka-REN) immigrant and refugee families navigate school choice in a Midwestern metropolitan area. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted during the 2023-2024 academic year, this paper focuses on how their ideas of race and ethnicity inform their choices. My analysis demonstrates that Karen families chose the charter school for its identity-affirming environment that fosters ethnic belonging. Simultaneously, their racialized safety concerns over public schools, where they often associate school violence with black youth, pushed them to choose a charter school as an alternative. This reveals a segmented assimilation pathway shaped by anti-Black social imagery, contributing to the field of Asian American education by examining racialized school decision-making process among Asian American families.

Author

• Insil Jeon, University of Minnesota