Teaching the learners with a migrant background – teachers’ perspectives

As a result of the growing number of migrants in Poland, schools accept increasing numbers of learners with a migrant background (immigrants and reimmigrants), and they are not always able to successfully help the newcomers in their integration. Therefore, it is necessary to undertake specific support activities. Related shortcomings result in many school failures among many migrants, their dropping out of schools and as a result gaining little if any qualifications. At the same time, the researchers indicated the role of teachers in the education of children with a migrant background. The level of their training and the quality of the support they can offer determines the success or lack thereof of their pupils. In the article the researchers discussed a study (Stage 2 in particular) the purpose of which was to diagnose and analyse the needs of the education community in terms of migrant education and integration. The following question was the starting point: What do schools need to be able to better teach and integrate learners with a migrant background? The study of needs organised as a focus group gathered teachers teaching pupils with a migrant background with various levels of training, and a headmaster of a school attended by migrants. The analysis of the collected material indicated three areas where teachers need particular support: systemic organisation of accepting and educating learners with a migrant background, access to materials, and the ability to participate in additional training courses and acquire new competences.

Investigating Equity-Minded Migrant Education Policies in Shanghai From Migrant Parents’ Perspectives

Purpose: This article aims to explore how suburban public schools in Shanghai of China have implemented the top-down equity-minded migrant policies of free compulsory education and equal access to public education. Design/Approach/Methods: This qualitative study focuses on public schools in the suburb of Shanghai, one of the top migrant-receiving metropolitan cities in China. Using personal network, referral, snowballing, and “guerrilla interviewing,” the researcher recruited 13 migrant parents that represent 11 cities of 9 provinces and collected interview data between early January and late June of 2015. Data sources include 10 face-to-face interviews, 3 telephone interviews, 6 follow-up interviews, and supplementary policy documents. Findings: It finds that local public schools have fully implemented free compulsory education, but have not supported equal access, revealing an inconsistent and arbitrary policy enactment pattern. Although all the interviewees have worked and lived in Shanghai for an average of 10 years, only those that afford a real property, receive exceptions, or have personal connections can have children enrolled in public schools. Further, parents’ perceptions of the policy implementation vary across cases with most of them not demonstrating an awareness of education equality. Originality/Value: This study synthesizes stories shared by migrant parents and reports an interesting policy implementation pattern. It contributes to the field of migrant education study and confirms that top-down equity-minded reform is likely to encounter challenges.

Parent-Adolescent Communication as a Protective Factor Against Adolescent Alcohol and Tobacco Use: Reported Narratives From Youth From Latinx Farmworker Families

Due to high stressors and inequities, youth from Latinx migrant farmworker (LMFW) families may experience an elevated risk of early drinking and smoking. Parent-adolescent communication can protect against early initiation, but few researchers have explored this parenting practice in LMFW families. This qualitative study used youth-reported narratives to examine messages LMFW parents convey when discussing drinking and smoking, if these messages varied by age, youths’ feelings toward these discussions, and if these discussions promoted resilience against drinking and smoking among youth. Twenty-four LMFW youth (67% boys, Mage = 13.88, 79% born in the United States) were recruited from a summer Migrant Education Program in Indiana. Using thematic analysis, five themes were identified from youth interviews: (1) mostly older youth used substances, but nearly all youth stated that parent’s expressed disapproval toward underage drinking and smoking; (2) parent-adolescent discussions left youth feeling positive and confident; (3) parents used consejos to communicate about alcohol and tobacco; (4) parents were lenient toward drinking and smoking in older male teens; and (5) some parents did not offer reasons for why youth should avoid drinking and smoking or rules pertaining to these substances. Our findings have implications for research and interventions aimed at fostering parent-adolescent communication in LMFW families about alcohol and tobacco use.

Education and Migration in History

Although the historiography of migrant education is, in many ways, problematic—especially the lack of historical literature for many regions of the world—general patterns do arise. As nation-states and their educational systems began to emerge and develop in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the schooling of migrant children often focused on assimilating them into the national culture. In the decades following the Second World War, the heavy-handed acculturation began to give way to more multicultural notions of schooling, although, in practice, multicultural education often simplified cultural differences and continued, albeit in different ways, to demand a sort of conformity to the new national, multicultural norms, thus undermining a true acceptance of all migrant populations.