Access to Newcomer Schools: How Student Characteristics, Neighborhood Context, and Policy Shape Enrollment

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 11. Immigrants and education

Abstract

There is ongoing debate about how institutions incorporate recently arrived immigrant youth, particularly adolescents with limited or interrupted formal education. Whole-school newcomer programs represent one institutional response, yet little research examines which students access these programs. This study analyzes enrollment patterns in two newcomer schools within a large urban district using administrative data spanning 2007–08 to 2018–19. Employing linear probability and difference-in-differences models, we examine how student characteristics, neighborhood context, and institutional policies shape participation. Results indicate that enrollees were disproportionately lower in English proficiency, more socioeconomically disadvantaged, more likely to reside in immigrant-dense neighborhoods, and lived closer to campus than other eligible newcomers. Students from Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to enroll than peers from other regions. Analyses of recruitment strategies and transportation policies further suggest that outreach and proximity structure access, with distance operating as a barrier to participation. These findings highlight how institutional access within immigrant-serving programs is mediated by spatial location, neighborhood composition, and community-level information networks, even in nonzoned choice systems.

Authors

• Brian Holzman, Texas A&M University

• Aimee Chin, University of Houston

• Camila Cigarroa Kennedy, Education Northwest

• Tori LaShan Thomas, Houston Education Research Consortium at Rice

• Stephanie Potochnick, UNC Chapel Hill

• Kalena Cortes, Texas A&M University

• Weiqi Guo, Texas A&M University