scholarly journals Identity Negotiation in Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry into Experiences of an African Immigrant High School Student

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Lydiah Kiramba ◽  
James Oloo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
High School Student ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Systems ◽  
African Immigrant

Background/Context Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically known about their histories, cultures, expectations, and achievements. Purpose Using the narrative inquiry approach and the Natural, Institutional, Discursive, Affinity, Learner, and Solidarity (NIDALS) theoretical lens, we explore the lived experiences of one African immigrant high school student in the midwestern United States. Research Design Using narrative inquiry, we qualitatively explored the lived cultural, racial, and ethnic identities and self-images experienced by a Ghanaian-born female high school student, Akosua (pseudonym), as she navigated and resisted identities ascribed to her in the midwestern U.S. Findings The student's narratives speak to issues of culture, identity, and self-image, as well as her literate life in multiple languages and literacy contexts in and out of school. The findings reveal narratives of ascribed identities, racialization, and perceived language hierarchies in the participant's daily life and indicate a need to challenge such narratives about African immigrant students and disrupt the reproduction of linguistic and racial inequality in the school system. Recommendations While school systems do follow state-sanctioned linguistic norms and ideologies, when educators draw on students’ experiences and funds of knowledge as resources already in the room in order to find ways of negotiating and disrupting language hierarchies and the ascribed identities they support, it allows all students, including multilinguals, to have their identity affirmed, even in school systems that have historically marginalized them. This, in turn, supports educational achievement, broadly realized, not only psychologically for all students but also economically and nationally for the country—a critical accomplishment in an era when educational quality in the U.S. is losing ground to foreign achievements.

Experiences of Secondary Hispanic Immigrant Students: Their Stories of Challenge and Triumph

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Mccartney ◽  
Sandra Harris ◽  
Vicky Farrow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Hispanic Students ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Narrative Techniques

Secondary Hispanic immigrant students have many struggles and barriers to overcome. This qualitative study investigated the experiences of 10 secondary immigrant Hispanic students, all non-English speakers, as they lived and attended high school in the United States. Narrative techniques were used to explore the challenges they faced in culture, immigration, and education. As students told their stories of struggle and success, the following four themes emerged: (1) respect for homeland, family, friends, and others; (2) responsibility to family; (3) resiliency; and (4) hope.

Parental Aspirations and Investments in the Educational Achievements of African Immigrant Students

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Kumi-Yeboah ◽  
Linda Tsevi ◽  
Richardson Addai-Mununkum
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Parental Support ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Parents ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
African Immigrant ◽  
Income Status

AbstractSituated in social capital theory, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the relationship between African-born immigrant parents’ educational level, income status, family structures, and academic performance of their children in the United States (U.S.). To that end, 205 African-born immigrant parents from a metropolitan city in the U.S. were surveyed using the modified Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Questionnaire. The participants’ (N= 205) responses to the questionnaires were analyzed using Chi-square tests and the participants’ (n= 45) interview responses were analyzed using ATLAS.ti qualitative analysis software. Findings from the quantitative data showed relationships between parents’ income, educational level, family structures and academic performance of their children. Interview findings revealed that hard work and resilience to succeed, parental expectations and academic goals, parental support and investment in education, parental involvement, parent-teacher interactions, and parental educational experiences influenced parents to support their children’s education. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for teachers who are tasked to render better educational settings for African immigrant students to succeed in United States schools.

The Sojourner Experience of Yemeni American High School Students: An Ethnographic Portrait

2001 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loukia Sarroub
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
High School Girls ◽  
School Girls

In this article, Loukia Sarroub explores the relationships between Yemeni American high school girls and their land of origin. She also illustrates the tensions that often arise between immigrant students' lives and the goals of U.S. public schooling. Sarroub begins by providing historical background on Yemeni and Arab culture and international migration. Then, drawing upon a larger ethnographic study set in the Detroit, Michigan, area, she presents a case study of one girl's experiences in the contexts of home, school, and community in both the United States and Yemen. Throughout the study, Sarroub makes thematic comparisons to the experiences of five other Yemeni American high school girls. She uses the notion of the "sojourner" to highlight the fact that many Yemenis "remain isolated from various aspects of American life while maintaining ties to their homeland." Sarroub describes the relationships between Yemen and the United States as social and physical "spaces" from which high school girls' networks and identities emerge. She suggests that in this particular Yemeni community, which was fraught with ritual and sanctioned norms, public schooling was both liberating and a sociocultural threat. This duality sometimes led girls to disengage with home and school worlds and to create "imagined" spaces that could bridge their Yemeni and American lives. Sarroub's study provide a larger lens through which to understand the multiple spaces students must negotiate and the sojourner experience of this Yemeni community in the United States. (pp. 390–415)

The Degree of Disadvantage

2013 ◽  
Vol 651 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Ewert ◽  
Bryan L. Sykes ◽  
Becky Pettit
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
African American Men ◽  
High School Graduation ◽  
Dropout Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
High School Graduation Rates ◽  
School Graduation

This article examines how the rise in incarceration and its disproportionate concentration among low-skill, young African American men influences estimates of educational attainment in the United States. We focus on high school graduation rates and the persistent gap in attainment that exists between young black and white Americans. Although official statistics show a declining racial gap in high school dropout in recent years, conventional data sources exclude the incarcerated population from sample data. We show how those exclusions underestimate the extent of racial inequality in high school graduation and underestimate the dropout rate among young black men by as much as 40 percent. America’s prisons and jails have become repositories for high school dropouts, thereby obscuring the degree of disadvantage faced by black men in the contemporary United States and the relative competitiveness of the U.S. workforce.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy for African Immigrant Children in U.S. P-12 Schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Takafor Ndemanu ◽  
Sheri Jordan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Children ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Responsive Teaching ◽  
African Immigrant ◽  
The Public

This article sheds light on the challenges African immigrant children face in navigating through a relatively different and unfamiliar system of education in the United States. It also provides pre-emigration background information to the systems of education prevalent in Africa as well as the culturally responsive teaching strategies that support and enhance learning for the African immigrant students. Teachers of African immigrant children around the world will find this article particularly resourceful because there is limited scholarship about this segment of the public school population in the United States and in other developed countries.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
American Society ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

The persistence of racial inequality in the United States raises deep and complex questions of racial justice. Some observers argue that public policy must be “color-blind,” while others argue that policies that take race into account should be defended on grounds of diversity or integration. This chapter begins to sketch an alternative to both of these, one that supports strong efforts to address racial inequality but that focuses on the conditions necessary for the liberty and equality of all. It argues that while race is a social construction, it remains deeply embedded in American society. A conception of racial justice is needed, one that is grounded on the premises provided by liberal political theory.

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