The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand the beliefs and experiences of Korean immigrant parents who chose to send their children to a Korean dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in the United States. Utilizing cultural historical activity theory and bilingualism as theoretical and conceptual frameworks, the author explored (a) how these parents’ prior experiences, transnational/transcultural knowledge, ethnic and cultural identities, and language ideologies have contributed to their educational decision and (b) how the parents are mobilizing their children’s heritage language education through a DLBE program. To honor and value the participants’ emic view, this study employed in-depth individual interviews, activity-based focused group interviews, home visits, and participant observations. Furthermore, for participants to experience and explore dynamic ways to share their stories and lived experiences, the author facilitated opportunities for multiple multimodal research activities such as a shared community walk, a word association activity, and a map drawing activity. The findings revealed that the most important motivation for choosing a Korean DLBE program over English-only programs came from their strong Korean ethnic pride and identity, which they all felt obliged to pass on to their children. Additionally, the participants became social, cultural, and educational resources for each other to compensate and overcome various challenges in supporting their children’s bilingual education due to the short bilingual teacher retention, isolated program configuration, and discontinuity of the program after elementary school. All the participants embodied the importance of maintaining heritage language and culture, actively supporting their children’s in and out of school experience and advocating for their children’s bilingual education. This study offers implications and suggestions for teaching and research as well as for ethnically, culturally, and linguistically marginalized immigrant bilingual communities. The author hopes to contribute to research and pedagogical practices in bilingual/bicultural education, heritage language learning, and community-based research, focusing on finding ways to better serve minoritized immigrant communities in the United States.

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published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The desire for academic success is shared by Haitian parents and their American-born children. Yet, despite this will to succeed, second generation Haitian students have been shown to fare poorly in school when compared to other ethnic groups. This qualitative study revealed that students' poor results in high school were not due to adversarial attitudes toward education; rather, they reflected inadequate foundations in basic academic skills. In particular, limited vocabularies hamper the academic achievement of many Haitian American students. Some students who expected that passing grades would lead to college are unable to pass the FCAT exam required to earn a high school diploma. Surprisingly, the highest levels of academic achievement were attained by the students with the poorest and least educated parents. They displayed extraordinary motivation attributed to a strong sense of familial obligation. / by Tekla Nicholas. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

This dissertation explores the perspectives of culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners on school conditions that enable them to share their heritage languages and cultures, as well as the ways that these learners propose that their heritage languages and cultures could be more recognized in an English-only middle school setting. This study focused specifically on the role that culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners perceived that they played in the process of their own social empowerment, a role that could be achieved through the development of their voices by becoming critically involved in creating spaces for their heritage languages and cultures in English-only settings. In this study, student voice is the means for the culturally and linguistically diverse and English learners' voices to emerge: the voices that are frequently oppressed because of the lack of power. This framework provides guidance to integrate the excluded learners' voices in a school milieu that habitually muffles these voices. Listening to the bicultural and bilingual voices is important but not sufficient to challenge the power structure of U.S. schools. In this study, culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners conceptualized ways that their heritage languages and cultures could be (more) recognized in their school settings. The voices of the students are important; they should be respected and valued. Hearing the students in this study reminds us and validates the assertion that students from diverse languages and cultures are not monolith. They have different and unique experiences and this study gave voice to some of those. Leaders from state level, district level, and school level could open the doors for students to share their experiences in the schools; in the case of this study, to learn from these students what a school milieu that authentically recognizes their cultures and languages is. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The feminization of Mexican migration to the United States is increasing, and more mothers who migrate leave their children behind for long periods to be cared for by grandparents or relatives in Mexico. Women also form new families when they arrive in the United States, but continue to "care" for the children who stayed in Mexico. We know little about how transnational familial ties across the U.S. -Mexico border influence the educational trajectories of children who stay behind, are born here and are brought over from Mexico. This study asks how Mexican maternal migration has influenced care arrangements and education trajectories of the children in Mexico, comparing these to their siblings who were brought over to America or who were born in the United States. In this dissertation I address how U.S. bound Mexican maternal migration shapes and influences children and youth in both sides of the border. These families, or what refer to "transnational care constellations" include the following types of members: New York based undocumented mothers; the children they brought to the U.S. (also undocumented); their U.S. born offspring (U.S. citizens); children they have left behind in Mexico; and children's caregivers in Mexico. Drawing on ethnographic method I examine transnational caregiving practices among women with children in New York and Mexico. After recruiting twenty families to participate in my study I established three levels of engagement with participants. Eight transnational care constellations constituted the center of my qualitative research. I spent time with them in Mexico and in New York and tracked half of them for over three years. The second level of engagement happened with the other twelve families who I interviewed and observed in New York City, but visited less times in Mexico. Finally, participants who belonged to the third level of engagement were forty mothers in New York City, fathers, caregivers and over sixty children and youth in Mexico who were not matched. In addition I surveyed over 200 children between the ages of seven and sixteen in three schools in Puebla to assess the impacts of maternal remittance on school achievement. Specifically, I compare the educational experiences and social trajectories of three groups of children: the ones left in Mexico, the undocumented children and youth brought to the U.S., and those born in the U.S. The ethnographic core of my dissertation work tracked twenty transnational families who are split between Mexico and the U.S over a period of 18 months. I have traveled back and forth between different states in Mexico and New York in order to capture the dynamism of communities who are "here and there." The children and youth in what I refer to as "care constellation" share the same biological mother who has migrated to New York City, but their lives differ dramatically in terms of academic achievement and familial support.

My dissertation examines second generation Dominican high school students and their parents in a diverse, middle-class suburb. At a moment when immigrant families are arriving directly to suburban locations, and the number of second generation immigrants in our public schools is growing, it is important to examine how they are making sense of their experiences in this new context. In my study, I consider how one sub-group of Latinx high school students, with at least one parent born in the Dominican Republic, are experiencing a new place. Specifically, I look at their experiences within their community, school and family influence their assimilation processes, their ideas about future success, and the role of education in reaching that success. I also explore how the parents’ experiences in this community inform their definitions of success for their children and the role that education plays in achieving it, and how those beliefs affect their children. I examine the parents’ accounts through in-depth interviews and the students’ accounts through pre and post in-depth interviews two years apart, as well as photo elicitation interviews. I found that the location of this suburb, adjacent to an ethnic enclave, provides a context that supports the process of selective acculturation, whereby the students are learning English and American customs while also developing and maintaining their Dominican cultural practices, including speaking Spanish. I also uncovered nuances to their understanding of the role of education in securing future success, through the use of open-ended questions. I found that the students with college-educated parents were more cautious about believing in the American Dream, and the idea that education guarantees success. Despite this, all of the families in the study approached education in similar ways, a style typically attributed to low-income families. And lastly, I found that the families lacked the social and cultural capital to gain educational advantages, specifically in the college application process. My study challenges the assumption that immigrant families arriving to middle-class suburbs are equipped to take advantage of the resources that their place of residence can afford them. Living in this type of place signals an achievement of the American Dream, but we have to question whether their children will be able to maintain it.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how parental beliefs, practices, and values of Korean immigrant parents regarding mathematics education in the United States are adjusted from the perspective of ecology of human development. This research further explored how participants’ cultural identities are affected by acculturation process. In addition, the researcher examined the transformations of parents’ perspectives on mathematics learning and achievement as they integrate into the dominant culture. The study used mixed methods to obtain information about the research participants’ experience as immigrant parents and interrelationships with their second-generation children regarding mathematics learning and achievement. A sample of Korean American parents (n = 44), whose children were currently enrolled in a mathematics course at the time or had taken at least one mathematics course within the past 3 to 5 years in middle or high school, participated in a quantitative survey; a subsample of immigrant parents (n = 10) participated in semi-structured interviews. The study utilized the Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (SL-ASIA) and the Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI). The results of the study indicated that even though Korean American parents shared the same nonnormative transition, they developed diverse intrinsic values and acculturation styles. Further, the parents’ perspectives on their children’s mathematical learning and achievement were influenced by traditional culture, dominant culture, and the interaction of both. The study also revealed that Korean immigrant parents used other Asian American students’ mathematical performance and learning as a frame of reference for their own children’s mathematical performance and learning; in addition, parents’ participation in children’s mathematics at home differed by acculturation levels. The main reason for the parents’ active support of and engagement in mathematics was that mathematics was the only subject which these immigrant parents adequately understood, and their aspiration for higher mathematics education was due to both immigrant optimism and pessimism. After moving to a different country, Korean parents’ abilities to perceive, conceptualize, and interact develop at different levels in new complex environments, where values, customs, and socioeconomic status contrast with those they had developed previously. These changes in intrafamilial processes and extrafamilial situations affected the development of the Korean immigrant parents’ cultural identity and reciprocal interactions with their second-generation children.