The Threat of Downward Assimilation Among Young African Immigrants in U.S. Schools

2019 ◽  
pp. 330-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Immaculee Harushimana ◽  
Janet Awokoya
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
African Immigrants ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Segmented Assimilation ◽  
School Communities ◽  
School Settings ◽  
Intervention Measures

This chapter presents research implications geared toward preventing the downward assimilation trend prevailing among young African immigrants in US public schools. Secondary data from three qualitative studies of integration and adaptation processes of African-born immigrant youth in urban school settings helped identify signs of downward assimilation, especially among males. Salient signs of this trend include low academic achievement, gang inclination, and defiance towards authority. Four major theories—segmented assimilation, socio-ecological theory, intersectionality, and critical race theory—served as framework for the analysis of the risk factors that may lead young African immigrants to follow the downward assimilation path. The analysis reveals the need for intervention measures at the federal, state, and school levels to reduce the vulnerability of non-predominant minority youth in US school settings and the moral responsibility of school authorities to ensure their welfare. Recommended preventive measures include (1) educating immigrant families and school communities; (2) encouraging collaboration and dialogue between African community organizations, school administration, and policymakers purported at creating a favorable school climate for the marginalized African immigrant youth; (3) increasing intervention measures, such as school-community mediation and political representation.

scholarly journals Depressive Symptoms in Older African Immigrants: A Descriptive Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 335-335
Author(s):  
Manka Nkimbeng ◽  
Zachary Baker ◽  
Janiece Taylor ◽  
Sarah Szanton ◽  
Tetyana Shippee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Severe Depression ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
African Immigrants ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Study ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Significant Difference

Abstract In FY 2018-2019, the National Institutes of Health devoted $2,387,505,711 to projects studying depression. Before and following their arrival into the United States stressful life circumstances may render African immigrants particularly at risk for depression. The objective of this study is to provide an estimate and identify correlates of depressive symptoms in older (≥50 years) African immigrants. We performed secondary data analyses of the Older African Immigrant Health study (n = 148). Bivariate analyses evaluated associations between depressive symptoms and sociodemographic and immigration-related factors. Depressive symptoms were measured with the PHQ-8 scale and scores of ≥ 5 were considered indicative of depressive symptoms. The mean age of participants was 62 years (SD:8.2), 61% were female, 30% had less than high school education, and 58% reported having health insurance coverage. Thirty percent of the sample had depressive symptoms (PHQ-8 score of ≥ 5) but only one individual would be classified as having moderately severe or severe depression (PHQ-8 ≥15). Depressive symptoms did not differ by age, marital status, education, or income. There was a statistically significant difference in depressive symptoms by reason for migration, recruitment location, and employment status. Although only one participant would be classified as severely depressive, a large proportion of this sample had depressive symptoms. Mental health concerns were reported as a significant health problem for African immigrants visiting a community service organization in New York. More research is needed to examine the prevalence, immigration-related correlates, predictors, and health ramifications of depression in older African immigrants.

Whose money matters in public education: A “public” good that parents purchase

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110343
Author(s):  
Eunju Kang
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public Education ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
New York State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Education Funding ◽  
Funding Policy ◽  
State And Local

Instead of asking whether money matters, this paper questions whose money matters in public education. Previous literature on education funding uses an aggregate expenditure per pupil to measure the relationship between education funding and academic performance. Federalism creates mainly three levels of funding sources: federal, state, and local governments. Examining New York State school districts, most equitably funded across school districts among the 50 states, this paper shows that neither federal nor state funds are positively correlated with graduation rates. Only local revenues for school districts indicate a strong positive impact. Parents’ money matters. This finding contributes to a contentious discourse on education funding policy in the governments, courts, and academia with respect to education funding and inequality in American public schools.

The Intersectionality of Educating Black Students in Michigan: Public School Finance, Racial Segregation, and Housing Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Caldwell II ◽  
Jed T. Richardson ◽  
Rajah E. Smart ◽  
Meaghan Polega
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Housing Policy ◽  
School Finance ◽  
Local Property ◽  
White Student ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Percentage Point Increase ◽  
Property Wealth

This research investigates Michigan’s system for funding public schools, particularly for Black students, via critical race theory, focusing on structural racism and discrimination embedded in education finance laws, housing policies, and residential and educational segregation. Our research questions are (i) How does district per-pupil funding in Michigan vary by race and income? (ii) Does variation by race and income depend on whether funding is from state or local sources? (iii) How does district property wealth in Michigan vary by race and income? and (iv) How does the proportion of property wealth Michigan districts commit to local education funding vary by race and income? We find that the average Black student receiving free or reduced-price lunch (FRL) receives $411 less per pupil than the average White student receiving FRL and $783 less per pupil than the average White student who does not receive FRL. These disparities stem entirely from differences in locally sourced district revenues that are the result of vast differences in property wealth. On average, a one-percentage-point increase in a district’s proportion of Black students receiving FRL is associated with a $2,354 decrease in taxable value of property per pupil, implying that a district with all Black students receiving FRL would have $235,400 less taxable value per pupil than a district with no Black students receiving FRL. Through its continued reliance on local property taxation, the school finance system in Michigan is just another example of how laws and policies reinforce structural racism and discrimination against Black students. This study can discern a self-reinforcing system that relegates Blacks to a subordinate socioeconomic status regarding school finance, segregation and housing policy, and discrimination.

scholarly journals Contention Between English as a Second Language and Special Education Services for Emergent Bilinguals with Disabilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Solange A. Lopes-Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Emergent Bilinguals ◽  
Special Education Services ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Related Services ◽  
Education Services ◽  
School Settings ◽  
Steady Growth

The debate surrounding the prioritization of services for emergent bilinguals with disabilities is an area in need of attention. The generalized belief that disability-related services must take priority over English as a Second Language services suggests that there is a critical need to develop school professionals’ understanding that these learners, in addition to receiving special education services, need substantial support in developing their second language abilities. The steady growth of emergent bilinguals and multilinguals in public schools, that is, students acquiring English as a new language, calls for well-trained practitioners able to meet these students’ diverse linguistic, academic, cultural, emotional, and intellectual needs. The typical challenges this population faces acquiring a new language have, well too often, been misrepresented, neglected, or led them to programs for students with true disabilities. However, when emergent bilinguals are legitimately referred to special education, it is not uncommon for their disability-related needs to be prioritized over their English as a Second Language-related needs, and they end up not receiving the support they need to develop social and academic skills in the new language. This review article is intended to stimulate reflection on the types of services being delivered to emergent bilinguals and multilinguals with disabilities in U.S. public school settings.

Mass School Closures and the Politics of Race, Value, and Disposability in Philadelphia

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Julia A. McWilliams ◽  
Erika M. Kitzmiller
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Closure ◽  
Urban District ◽  
School Closures ◽  
School Communities ◽  
State And Local

Background With the expansion of charter school networks, population losses in urban district schools and stretched budgets have encouraged struggling districts to adopt closure-as-reform. School closings have received considerable attention in the media as a controversial reform, reconfiguring the educational landscapes of over 70 post-industrial cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans. However, in the last decade, few scholars have considered the project of examining closures—their process and their effects—empirically. Purpose In this article, we examine the rollout of 30 school closures in Philadelphia in 2012 and 2013 to explain how school closures have become yet another policy technology of Black community and school devaluation in the United States. Moving beyond educational studies that have focused on the outcomes of mass school closures like student achievement and cost savings, we argue that a thorough theorization of how race, violence, and community values relate to school closure as process could help to explain the ways in which contemporary educational policy reforms are creating new modes of communal disposability in cities’ poorest zip codes. Setting/Participants Data collection occurred in two comprehensive high schools in Philadelphia slated for closure in 2012 and 2013: Johnson High and Franklin High. Participants at both schools included students, teachers, parents, community members, and district officials. Research Design The authors spent several years in their respective schools recording observations of instructional practice, community meetings, and district events and interviewing key informants such as students, teachers, administrators, and district officials. The first author spent three years at Johnson High School, from September 2011 to June 2013. The second author spent five years at Franklin High School, from September 2008 to June 2013. She also spent hundreds of hours at the high school examining archival materials and interviewing students, teachers, and alumni about their experiences in the school and community. In addition to their individual case studies, the authors jointly transcribed and coded over two dozen community and district meetings’ video recordings during the 2012 and 2013 closures. In the aftermath of the school closures process, we used a comparative ethnographic method to compare and contrast the events that occurred at these two schools. Findings Suturing anthropologies of violence and education to frame the analysis, we explore moments of collision between policy discourses deployed by state and local officials that crafted closures as inevitable and threatened school communities’ articulations of the racialized implications of the closures. We further localize our analysis to demonstrate how two school communities—one majority Asian and another majority Black—with similar performances and characteristics met dramatically different fates. Given the lack of transparency in how decisions were made around which schools to close, the ways in which these communities read and responded to the closure threat offer a window into the ways in which race informed the valuation process across schools. Conclusions/Recommendations We conclude with a plea to state and federal policymakers to consider the long-term ramifications of school choice expansion and state disinvestment for the health and stability of traditional public schools. We encourage policymakers to move in a more reparative direction, prioritizing the needs of those “unchosen” by choice and imagining a system that might serve all students more equitably.

How to Create Sustainable Nonviolence Curriculum in Public Schools in Sweden

2021 ◽  
pp. 743-762
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Wright
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School System ◽  
Public School Systems ◽  
School Settings ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Swedish School ◽  
And Training

Author argues the urgent need for nonviolence training and the contemporary challenges of implementing such plans. Furthermore, chapter briefly discusses the eruptions of violence and experienced in Europe, along with innovative ways to educate all stakeholders. In addition, the chapter includes a case study of a Swedish school, with research of contemporary nonviolence training and curriculum. The chapter will benefit a variety of entities and organizations, such as educators in public school systems and governmental organizations. Findings suggest a growing concern amongst educators, students and parents due to escalating threats and acts of violence in school settings. Moreover, findings indicate partial integration of sustainable nonviolence curriculum into some Swedish schools. Author proposes to integrate and implement nonviolence training into the Swedish public school system as nationally mandated integrated subjects. Further research suggests additional research conducted to measure qualitative and quantitative results nonviolence curriculum and training.

Educational Expectations among Immigrant Youth: Links to Segmented Assimilation and School Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-278
Author(s):  
Christina J. Diaz
Keyword(s):  
School Environment ◽  
School Context ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
Educational Expectations ◽  
Segmented Assimilation ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
National Education ◽  
Household Resources ◽  
National Education Longitudinal Study ◽  
First And Second Generation

Although schools are important socialization venues for all children, they also serve as sites of acculturation for immigrant youth. According to segmented assimilation theory, first- and second-generation students experience divergent trajectories of incorporation, in part, because they are exposed to school contexts that support or stifle their attainment. I argue that such a process must have social-psychological underpinnings, which I examine by relating children’s educational expectations to their school environment during adolescence. Specifically, I use the National Education Longitudinal Study to assess differences in expectations by school context among immigrant and U.S.-origin youth between eighth and 12th grades. Results indicate that students in comparably disadvantaged school environments report lower expectations, though this relationship is driven by household resources and student characteristics. I also find that most students exhibit increases in their educational expectations, and that such changes are not systemically patterned by school context. This article sheds light on the goals of immigrant youth and the extent to which these plans transform from childhood to adolescence.

SOCIAL CHANGE, CRIMINALITY AND COVID-19: THE NIGERIAN CASE STUDY

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Aristotle Jacob ◽  
◽  
Wakama Ateduobie ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Government

This study examine how covid-19 has induced social changes and criminality in Nigeria as a result of economic lockdown, restriction on inter-state movement, closure of international borders, restriction of religious worship, restrictions on all forms of marital rites, ban on all burial and funeral activities, suspension of all educational activities, and social interactions replaced by social distancing. Due to this alteration of the normal human life, and since survival is key, hence the issue of criminality. This paper examined cases of criminality in the country during lockdown, government interventions to mitigate the increase in criminality as a result of the pandemic, implication of covid-19 on fashion, determinant, forms and resistance to social change. The paper is qualitative in nature and relied principally on secondary data to achieved the scope of the study, these includes publications sourced from text books, bulletins, journals, government documents, newspapers and internet. The conflict and conspiracy theory of social change was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study. The findings in this study showed that the government with the aim to mitigate the spread of the pandemic in the country restricted the movement of its citizens with compulsory sit-at-home, thus affecting the normal life of its citizens, government intervention at the federal, state and local level is grossly inadequate to cushion the effect of the epidemic on the vulnerable citizens of the country, several structural factors helped triggered Nigeria’s current economic crises such as poor public health infrastructure, institutional corruption, weak and underdeveloped digital economy, lack of social welfare programme, leadership problem, over-dependent on oil sector of the economy, lack of saving culture and, high debt profile of Nigeria. The paper recommends that government should create an enabling environment to increase the standard of living of its citizens as poverty fuels criminality, the government should not politicalize the distribution of relief materials to victims in the face of emergencies, since the protection of the welfare and well-being of the people is the reason for governance, need for good governance and the rule of law, and government should improve capacity-building strategies for adequate security of life and property in Nigeria.

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