Humanizing Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth

• In Event: Pedagogies of Migration: Teaching and Learning across Global Contexts

Proposal

Globally, some 281 million individuals have migrated from their country of birth; many more are internally displaced within national borders, fleeing famine, violence, natural disasters, and harsh socioeconomic conditions. In the United States, one out of every four students is from an immigrant family (either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants) (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2015). Schools increasingly must consider the realities of immigrant-origin students as well as the distinct needs of newly arrived learners whose education may have been severely interrupted before and through the migration process.

In the United States, immigrants make up 14.4 percent of the population (Migration Policy Institute, 2020), and in some states such as New York and California, nearly 30 percent of the population is foreign-born. A quarter of the nation, some 78 million people, are immigrants or U.S.-born children of immigrants (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2015). While the teaching force (some four million educators strong) is predominantly white (80%), the U.S. public school population is roughly 49% white (down from 61% white in the year 2000), 15% Black, 26% Latinx, and 5% Asian American/Pacific Islander (the remaining 5% being Native American or multi-racial) (Loewus, 2017; NCES, 2021). These demographic shifts impact who is in our schools and the widening mismatch between the backgrounds of educators and the students they serve.


In this paper, drawing from several years of rich qualitative data across several locations in the United States, the presenters will offer insights into the realities of newcomer students and school models and educational approaches that best serve their needs. We highlight the practices that schools such as Lincoln High School in Nebraska, Wellstone International High School in Minnesota, and Rudsdale Newcomer High School in California are engaged in to meet the distinct demands of the youth and families in their school communities. The concept of ‘pedagogies of migration’ must include analyses of the ways schools can serve as sites of belonging and integration. We offer findings and analyses from multi-sited qualitative research across the United States that can inform policy and practice as well as scholarship on immigration and education across the globe.

References:


Loewus, L. (2017). The nation's teaching force is still mostly White and female. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/08/15/the-nations-teaching-force-is-still-mostly.html

Migration Policy Institute. (2020). Frequently requested statistics on immigrants and immigration in the United States. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

​​ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2015). The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. https://doi.org/10.17226/21746.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2021). Status and trends in the education of racial and ethnic groups: Indicator 6: Elementary and secondary enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/indicator_rbb.asp

Authors

• Monisha Bajaj, University of San Francisco

• Lesley Bartlett, University of Wisconsin-Madison