ESL Programs in Rural High Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

Rural and small-town communities in the United States have been rapidly diversifying over the last few decades and rural schools have faced challenges in supporting changing populations. This article builds on a limited body of education research that has focused on diversity in rural areas, driven largely in the U.S. by Latinx immigrant populations. This research draws on several data sources from multi-week visits in a mixture of new and established immigrant destinations to profile the challenges educational leaders faced developing ESL programs in five rural high schools and explores challenges such as how schools struggle to recruit and retain administrators and teachers, how they often have limited knowledge and resources to support curriculum development, and how program size limits schools’ ability to place students appropriately. The article concludes with suggestions for education programs, rural administrators, and state policy makers to better support English learners in rural schools.

Latinx immigrants raising children in the land of the free: Parenting in the context of persecution and fear

Anti-immigrant rhetoric generated by the sociopolitical climate under the current U.S. presidential administration has exacerbated the fear of deportation and family separation within the unauthorized Latinx community. Consequently, millions of families, including U.S. citizen children living in mixed-status households, are experiencing stressful environments as they adapt and respond to their social context. This study explored how harsh immigration discourse impacts mixed-status families living in a new-immigrant destination. Twenty-two unauthorized mothers participated in semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences as immigrants raising children in the U.S. Two main themes arose from this analysis: (1) ever-present fear and stress and (2) obeying the law and avoiding others. Parents explained how they had been living in fear since the elections took place, and the different scenarios they had to prepare for in case of deportation. Moreover, some parents choose to minimize conversations around incidents happening in their community to avoid additional stress for children, whereas others addressed children’s concerns to reassure them and placate their apprehension. Participants also reported avoiding unnecessary trips outside of the home to prevent interactions with others, especially law enforcement. These results provide important insights regarding the experiences of unauthorized Latinx immigrant parents in the context of sociopolitical adversity. Due to the limited resources often available in new immigrant destinations, social workers must leverage their networks to support families undergoing difficult transitions with special attention to altered family structures and parenting practices. As unauthorized parents attempt to withstand the double burden of basic survival and effective parenting, it is imperative that practitioners provide tools for parents to effectively engage with their children to sustain healthy environments.

The promise of migration : a companion to the International Metropolis Conference 2019, Ottawa, Canada

[Para. 1 of Introduction]: Migration is shaping societies around the world. It has long defined settler countries, such as Canada; it is affecting communities of departure and return, ranging from the Azores to Zimbabwe; and it is increasingly impacting countries that have traditionally not considered themselves as major immigrant destinations, like many European countries. Meanwhile, individual migrants and their families experience departure, migration, and arrival differently than the communities shaped by them. From both societal and individual perspectives, we can ask whether migration accomplishes what it promises to achieve. Does migration contribute to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of societies? Do migrants and their families find a pathway to security, achieve social and economic upward mobility, and gain opportunities to participate in the political and cultural life of their arrival communities? The Promise of Migration addresses these questions through a critical lens.

The promise of migration : a companion to the International Metropolis Conference 2019, Ottawa, Canada

[Para. 1 of Introduction]: Migration is shaping societies around the world. It has long defined settler countries, such as Canada; it is affecting communities of departure and return, ranging from the Azores to Zimbabwe; and it is increasingly impacting countries that have traditionally not considered themselves as major immigrant destinations, like many European countries. Meanwhile, individual migrants and their families experience departure, migration, and arrival differently than the communities shaped by them. From both societal and individual perspectives, we can ask whether migration accomplishes what it promises to achieve. Does migration contribute to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of societies? Do migrants and their families find a pathway to security, achieve social and economic upward mobility, and gain opportunities to participate in the political and cultural life of their arrival communities? The Promise of Migration addresses these questions through a critical lens.

Beyond Receptivity: Exploring the Role of Identity in Educators’ Orientation Toward Newcomers in a New Immigrant Destination

Research on education in new immigrant destinations has highlighted the importance of educators’ professional missions and expertise in shaping their receptivity toward newcomers. Less attention has been given to how educators’ social identities, especially in relation to newcomers, influence how they perceive their role in serving the population. Drawing on the theory of representative bureaucracy, this qualitative study explores how educators’ social identities shaped their identification with and orientation toward addressing the needs of immigrant-origin English learners in one new-destination high school. Results indicate that educators framed their orientation toward serving the population as a moral imperative, a professional responsibility, or a legal obligation. These orientations influenced how educators perceived their role in addressing newcomers’ needs. This study offers implications for educational practice and provides avenues for future research on education in new immigrant destinations.

Migration in intermediary cities in the interior of the brazilian northeast: the attraction of migration as a distinctive element

In Brazil, the debate on intermediary cities gained prominence when the urban population supplanted the rural during the 1970s, and when, in the metropolises, there began a deconcentration of the population which, as from the 1980s, was redistributed across the metropolitan surroundings and the interior of the states. Thus, the aim of the present study is to discover how many intermediary cities there are, where they are located in the interior of the Northeastern region and their relevance in attracting migrants. Microdata was used from the 2010 demographic census, specifically the fixed data topic that questions migrants on their place of residence five years before the reference date of the survey. The results have demonstrated that, although most cities presented a population decline, with a move towards very distant locations (interregional), a large number play a relevant role in intraregional attraction (medium distance) and, notably, intrastate (short distance), which exercise the role of deconcentrating the population of the metropolises. The main immigrant destinations were Caruaru (PE), Petrolina (PE) and Mossoró (RN). On the other hand, the cities presenting the highest negative migration balance were Imperatriz (MA), Itabuna (BA) and Ilhéus (BA). Furthermore, through a literature review and data collected by the study, it was discovered that the definition of an intermediary city based on the criterion of population size is no longer recommended for a country of continental dimensions and distinct stages of development such as Brazil.

Contesting Inequality: The Impact of Immigrant Legal Status and Education on Legal Knowledge and Claims-Making in Low-Wage Labor Markets

Low-wage Latina/o workers are subject to an array of workplace abuses. This study focuses on whether educational attainment may moderate inequality in knowledge or claims-making across individuals with different legal statuses. This question is motivated by research which, while highlighting the role of education in promoting civic and political engagement, has not examined the interaction between education and legal status for worker claims-making. We draw from the 2008 Unregulated Work Survey, which is representative of the 1.64 million low-wage workers in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, three of the largest immigrant destinations in the United States. Using the Latina/o subsample, we test whether education impacts workers’ procedural knowledge of the claims process, as well as their actual claims-making behavior, across four categories of workers: U.S.-born citizens, naturalized citizens, documented noncitizens, and undocumented noncitizens. Our findings reveal that all noncitizens have lower levels of procedural knowledge about how to file a complaint with the government, compared to citizens, across educational levels. However, when it comes to claims-making, we find that education has significant positive impacts for noncitizen workers, especially the undocumented. Our results suggest that education may improve the workplace agency of even the most marginalized workers.

Peripheral Estates as Arrival Spaces? Conceptualising Research on Arrival Functions of New Immigrant Destinations

In recent years, the question of how urban spaces support the arrival of immigrants has found increased attention among scholars. The emerging discussion uses terms like arrival cities, arrival neighbourhoods, arrival spaces, arrival contexts, or arrival infrastructures to refer to local conditions which support immigrant inclusion. This discussion, however, tends to focus empirically and conceptually on neighbourhoods or cities with long-standing migration histories. Connected to this, arrival spaces are often conceptualised as spaces with strong migrant support networks and economies, as well as with high levels of functional diversity and a high fluctuation of residents. Less focus is placed on the question of if and how destinations that lack these characteristics support the arrival of new immigrants. This contribution focuses on this by discussing existent conceptualisations of arrival spaces and contrasting them with empirical illustrations of peripheral estate neighbourhoods in east German cities that have experienced a substantial population loss since the 1990s, resulting in the partial demolition of housing and infrastructure. Since the refugee migration to Germany starting in 2015, the population dynamic in these neighbourhoods has changed substantially. We contrast these developments with the literature on arrival contexts in order to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the concept, specifically regarding the conditions in new destinations where migrant networks and economies are still emerging, functional diversity is low, and the role of residential fluctuation is unclear. While this article draws on empirical material, its major objective is to point out the blind spots in the current discussion around arrival spaces. It develops questions and offers a research agenda that introduces a wider and more varied set of neighbourhoods into the evolving research agenda on arrival spaces.