MOVING STORIES: Educational Pathways of Immigrant Youth

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MOVING STORIES Educational Pathways of
Immigrant Youth

• CAROLA SUÁREZ-OROZCO, Ph.D.
• MARCELO SUÁREZ-OROZCO, Ph.D.
• Co-Directors Immigration Studies _at_ NYU
• NYU Steinhardt School of Education
• www.nyu.education/immigration/

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Immigrant Youth

• Fastest growing child population
• Currently 1 in 5
• Projected 1 in 3 by 2040
• Highly diverse
• National origins
• Race color
• Religion
• Languages
• Ethnicity
• Socio-economic

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ADAPTATION PATTERNS

• Three Pathways
• Some Outperform Native Born
• Some Overlap with Native Born
• Some Achieve Below Native Born
• Epidemiological Paradox
• Physical Health
• Mental Health
• Engaging in risk behaviors
• Academic performance

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Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study

• Longitudinal interdisciplinary, comparative
• Documenting continuities and discontinuities in
  immigrant youths educational attitudes and
  adaptations over time
• Youth originated in Central America, China, the
  Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico
• Ages 9 14 at beginning of study
• Recruited from 51 schools in 7 school districts
  in the Boston San Francisco areas
  Ethnographic observations occur in 20 schools
• Thirty graduate level bicultural and
  multi-lingual research assistants
• Funded to date by the National Science
  Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation and The
  Spencer Foundation.

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Research Questions

• How does academic performance change over time
  for newcomer immigrant youth?
• What are the pathways of immigrant student
  performance?
• What are the factors that best account for
  performance?
• What is the role of cognitive, relational, and
  behavioral engagement in academic performance?

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Facilitating Immigrant Student Achievement

• Recognize protracted nature of academic English
  language acquisition
• Build on strengths while recognizing transient
  English language limitations
• Scaffold on all available linguistic and cultural
  resources
• Mediate learning in a variety of ways
• Maintain high but realistic expectations
• Foster supportive relationships in school in
  after-school contexts
• Provide emotional tangible supports
• Between all partners
• teachers and students
• teachers and parents
• inter-student
• Recognize diversity not just as a challenge but
  also as a resource for learning
• Embrace immigrant childrens hopes and harness
  their energies