Immigrant Students’ Perceptions of School Racial-Ethnic Climate: Variations by Years of Experience in U.S. Schools

• In Event: 2-019 - The Salience of Racial-Ethnic Climate in School for Minority Youth: Contributions to Adolescent Psychosocial Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Empirical studies have documented the importance of school context to the success of students of color across domains such as belonging (Roche & Kuperminc, 2012), teacher support (Rolón-Dow, 2005), and racial-ethnic climate (Benner & Graham, 2013). In particular, positive perceptions of a school’s racial-ethnic climate that include a culture of fairness and positive cross-ethnic interactions are associated with better psychosocial outcomes during the middle school years (Juvonen, Kogachi, & Graham, 2017). Few studies have examined the impact of the racial-ethnic climate exclusively among immigrant students, who may experience degrees of acculturative stress associated with the assimilation of new cultural norms during a formative period of identity development (Clossen, Darwich, Hymel, & Waterhouse, 2013).

This investigation addresses two research questions: (1) what are early adolescent, immigrant students’ perceptions of their school’s racial-ethnic climate? (2) does the salience of the racial-ethnic climate vary according to students’ years of schooling in the continental U.S.? Data are drawn from a qualitative study of the impact of school context on student experiences in two urban middle schools. For the present study analyses, interview transcripts of 10 immigrant students (aged 12-14) were examined. Five students (two Dominican, one Puerto Rican, one Honduran, one African) were recent immigrants, and had lived and received schooling in the U.S. for less than five years (M= 3.3). Five students (three Puerto Rican, two Dominican) were more acculturated to U.S. schools, having lived in the U.S. between eight and 13 years (M= 10.8). All students participated in face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Interviews were inductively coded using qualitative content analysis (Sandelowski, 2000), using open coding to generate initial, lower-level concepts, followed by axial coding, merging concepts through constant comparative analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2007). Preliminary analyses revealed that students’ attributions of the salience of race-ethnicity were contradictory, as illustrated by two higher-level categories, meritocratic equality and racialized difference, yet the boundaries of each category were different for each immigrant group. For all students, meritocratic notions of “everybody’s equal” and teacher colorblindness evidenced students’ beliefs about the insignificance of race-ethnicity, and provided the context for their positive school experiences. However, recent immigrant students made frequent reference to how school quality and opportunity, such as when teachers “explain stuff until you learn,” far exceeded their experiences in their native countries. More school-acculturated students did not reference their native countries, but highlighted the opportunity for diverse friendships, whereby “nobody really cares who’s Puerto Rican and who’s other,” were features of meritocratic equality. Despite this, awareness of racially-based stereotypes and behavioral slights were prominent in all students’ narratives. Language, or “when you try to speak English and you don’t speak it correctly, people bully you,” emerged as the most salient example of how recently immigrated students were racialized in the school environment. Segregated peer groups, where students “hang out with their color,” was a source of racialized tension among more acculturated students. Findings have implications for offering carefully targeted support for immigrant students with varying years of experience in U.S. schools.

Author

• Tina M Durand, Boston University
  Presenting Author