Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2001. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Also available in print.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca J. Lowenhaupt / As the population of students with at least one foreign-born parent increases in US schools, educators play key roles in supporting them. The anti-immigrant context during the Trump era has heightened the urgency for all US educators to understand the experiences of their immigrant-origin students and respond accordingly. Discourses about immigrant-origin students have profound implications on how their educators understand and support them. In this study, I explored the nature of the discourses educators privilege and perpetuate when working with immigrant-origin students. I studied two distinct contexts with varying community reflections of the national conversation during the Trump era. I proposed the following questions: How do educators in two different immigrant-serving districts make sense of their immigrant-origin students’ experiences in an anti-immigrant sociopolitical context? What larger discourses about immigrants and immigrant-origin students do educators reflect as they make sense of their immigrant-origin students’ experiences? Through a thematic analysis of 10 educator interviews from each district, I found that three key factors influenced educators’ sensemaking about their immigrant-origin students’ experiences: 1) comparison of immigrant-origin students to non-immigrant-origin peers, 2) responsibility towards deeply understanding immigrant-origin students’ experiences, and 3) personal and professional identity and experiences with immigrants and immigration. A critical discourse analysis of policy documents and language related to supporting immigrant-origin students surfaced different defining discourses about immigrant-origin students on federal, state, and district levels. The findings led to three key insights: 1) Educators made sense of their immigrant-origin students’ experiences through existing individual and collective mental models of immigrants and immigration, or lack thereof, 2) The location, student demographics, and sociopolitical backdrop of each district context heavily influenced individual educators’ discourse about immigrant-origin students’ experiences, and 3) Power can be shared between federal, state, and district-level entities in order to create more humanizing and culturally sustaining environments for immigrant-origin students. The conclusion includes implications related to these key insights. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Ce mémoire, en s'appuyant sur une recherche exploratoire, vise à répondre aux questions suivantes: 1) Comment les stratégies d'adaptation mises en oeuvre par les immigrants influencent-elles l'issue de leur processus d'intégration dans la société d'accueil? 2) Pourquoi, alors que tous les immigrants guinéens, maliens et sénégalais sont confrontés aux mêmes difficultés d'adaptation au Québec, certains parmi eux parviennent plus facilement et plus rapidement à tirer leurs épingles du jeu en accédant à un stade avancé qu'on peut qualifier d'intégration sociale, tandis que d'autres parmi eux éprouvent continuellement des difficultés à vivre en harmonie avec la société québécoise? Deux démarches théorique et empirique nous permettent de répondre à ces questions. Il s'agira, dans un premier temps, de l'interactionnisme symbolique, une approche qui nous servira de cadre d'analyse théorique pour voir comment les immigrants interagissent de manière symbolique avec les composantes de leur environnement d'accueil et de quelles manières ils co-construisent ou reconstruisent socialement leur identité culturelle. Dans un second temps, par une méthodologie qualitative plus adaptée à notre objet d'étude, 15 entrevues semi-dirigées ont été réalisées auprès de nos répondants guinéens, maliens et sénégalais établis au Québec depuis au moins 5 ans sur des thèmes portant sur leurs motivations et expériences personnelles ainsi que les stratégies d'adaptation qu'ils ont employées pour s'intégrer au Québec. L'analyse des données issues des entrevues a montré essentiellement que l'issue du processus d'intégration dépend des stratégies d'adaptation que les immigrants mettent en oeuvre individuellement. Cette analyse a aussi fait ressortir quatre stratégies. Ce sont: le recours aux études universitaires dont l'issue consiste à l'insertion professionnelle plus ou moins réussie de l'immigrant, le repli sur la communauté culturelle d'origine qui s'accompagne d'une intégration de type communautaire; la conservation délibérée de l'identité culturelle d'origine qui a pour conséquence de séparer l'immigrant d'avec la population d'accueil. Le mariage mixte est la quatrième stratégie d'adaptation qui, contrairement aux trois autres, mène à l'intégration proprement dite puisqu'elle accroît les compétences culturelles et sociales du conjoint immigré en favorisant chez lui à la fois une participation et une identification plus accrues à la société d'accueil. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Stratégies d'intégration, Immigrants (guinéens, maliens et sénégalais), Interactionnisme symbolique, Québec.

Thesis advisor: James E. Lubben / The fact that destination countries in contemporary migration are predominantly welfare states marks a distinct departure from historical patterns. While the impact of international migration on the welfare state is highly contested in the literature, the other side of the relationship--the ways in which advanced welfare states influence the incorporation of immigrants--has barely been examined. This study tests the applicability of an extension of the Welfare Regime Theory in the incorporation of foreign-born as compared to natives across 24 European nations clustered in 5 different welfare regimes. Specifically, it explores how much of the variability in self-reported economic and social capital indicators of incorporation is attributable to the nature of the welfare state and to specific theoretical traits associated with different welfare regimes. Results indicate that immigrants fare economically better in countries with comprehensive welfare systems of social protection and that country's amount of social spending has a positive influence in the economic incorporation of foreign-labor. The impact of the welfare state on individuals' economic well-being is higher for the native-born population than for their immigrant counterparts. Generous welfare systems are also beneficial for the social capital formation of immigrant communities. Immigrants residing in countries representative of the Scandinavian regime report higher levels of generalized trust, trust in institutions and frequency of informal social contacts than immigrants residing in countries representative of other welfare regimes. The same pattern is observed for the native-born population. Country's spending in social benefits increases the social trust and frequency of socialization of both groups, although the impact is larger for the native-born population. Country's spending in means-tested social benefits decreases social trust while country's spending in non-means-tested benefits increases it. Native-born individuals report higher levels of generalized trust and socialize more often than equivalent immigrants. However, the level of trust in country's institutions is higher for immigrant than for their native peers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

The claim of some policymakers that education is the great equalizer of socioeconomic disparities in health (Low et al. 2005) has come under question in recent years. Higher education is related to better health for both immigrants and the Canadian-born. However, immigrants experience weaker health returns to their education than the native-born (Kennedy et al. 2006). Despite the importance of this issue, the reasons for this gap are not fully understood. This dissertation integrates the immigrant health, social stress, and immigrant integration literatures to better understand this issue, using Cycles 17 and 22 of the Statistics Canada collected General Social Survey (GSS). The analyses reveal that education has a diminished effect on the self-rated health (although not stress) of immigrants, the functional limitations of established immigrants, and the happiness of recent immigrants. The reasons for this gap vary depending on the health measure. The weaker relationship between education and the functional ability of established immigrants and the happiness of recent immigrants is explained by immigrants’ lower work-related returns (employment type, occupational skill, personal income) to education. For self-rated health, the nativity status differential in the effect of education on self-rated health is rooted in immigrants’ lower work-related and psychosocial returns (mastery and trust, although not social support) to education. Since work-related and psychosocial resources are integrally linked to health, immigrants experience lower health returns to their education than the native-born. These findings make three major contributions. First, they extend the traditional understanding of the relationship between education and health (Low et al. 2005), underscoring that immigrants do not experience the same level of health benefits to their education as the native-born. Second, they augment knowledge about why immigrants experience weaker health returns to their education than the native-born: because they receive diminished employment types, occupational levels, income, mastery, and trust relative to their levels of education. Third, the results highlight that foreign education is not linked to as high mastery and trust as that of the native-born – a new finding that underscores that foreign education is not just linked to diminished work-related resources and health, but psychosocial resources as well.

Historically, Liberian immigrants to the United States tended to be wealthy, educated individuals who wanted their children to acquire a Western education. The thirteen-year Liberian Civil War resulted in a new wave of U.S. migration. Many recent Liberian immigrants hold low socio-economic statuses. Some came to this country illiterate or with gaps in their education. This has created a cultural-educational gap amongst newly arrived Liberian immigrants. Many young Liberian immigrants struggle with educational and socialization issues. Studies have been conducted on the acculturation experiences of youths from Europe, Asia, and South and Central America. Yet to date, very little research has been done on the lives of African youth, especially those who emigrated from Liberia after the civil war. Their voices have been missing from the literature. This qualitative study provides narratives of four Liberian immigrant youths, between the ages of 18 and 22 years old, who formerly attended schools in Liberia, have lived in the U.S. less than ten years, and have attended at least three years of high school in the United States. Each youth was interviewed regarding their school, home, and community acculturation experiences. Excerpts of their interviews allow the reader to hear the participants' stories in their own words. Findings of the research from emergent themes indicate that the Liberian immigrant youths had many commonalities in their acculturation experiences such as: accent ridicule, bullying by peers, fights between African Americans and Liberian immigrants, and lack of appreciation for African cultures. The participants also struggled with ethnic identity issues, limited finances, and unjust educational and social systems in the United States. All four Liberian immigrants experienced some type of external and internal conflicts. A relationship was found between the possession of resiliency traits and the Liberian immigrant youths' abilities to handle conflicts and successfully acculturate to the United States. Two participants possessed strong resiliency characteristics such as autonomy, problem solving abilities, abilities to forgive, a sense of purpose and future, and creativity. They had favorable acculturation experiences, successfully graduating from high school. Two other participants lacked resiliency traits and had less favorable acculturation experiences. They succumbed to external and internal conflicts and dropped out of high school.

The claim of some policymakers that education is the great equalizer of socioeconomic disparities in health (Low et al. 2005) has come under question in recent years. Higher education is related to better health for both immigrants and the Canadian-born. However, immigrants experience weaker health returns to their education than the native-born (Kennedy et al. 2006). Despite the importance of this issue, the reasons for this gap are not fully understood. This dissertation integrates the immigrant health, social stress, and immigrant integration literatures to better understand this issue, using Cycles 17 and 22 of the Statistics Canada collected General Social Survey (GSS). The analyses reveal that education has a diminished effect on the self-rated health (although not stress) of immigrants, the functional limitations of established immigrants, and the happiness of recent immigrants. The reasons for this gap vary depending on the health measure. The weaker relationship between education and the functional ability of established immigrants and the happiness of recent immigrants is explained by immigrants’ lower work-related returns (employment type, occupational skill, personal income) to education. For self-rated health, the nativity status differential in the effect of education on self-rated health is rooted in immigrants’ lower work-related and psychosocial returns (mastery and trust, although not social support) to education. Since work-related and psychosocial resources are integrally linked to health, immigrants experience lower health returns to their education than the native-born. These findings make three major contributions. First, they extend the traditional understanding of the relationship between education and health (Low et al. 2005), underscoring that immigrants do not experience the same level of health benefits to their education as the native-born. Second, they augment knowledge about why immigrants experience weaker health returns to their education than the native-born: because they receive diminished employment types, occupational levels, income, mastery, and trust relative to their levels of education. Third, the results highlight that foreign education is not linked to as high mastery and trust as that of the native-born – a new finding that underscores that foreign education is not just linked to diminished work-related resources and health, but psychosocial resources as well.

No description available.

The education for teachers involves an aspect regarding values in practice, which also contains a dimension of non-discrimination. Meanwhile, research shows problems regarding discrimination on the universities in Sweden, for instance in Bayatis dissertation about exclusion of racified students reveal. The purpose of this study is, through discourse analysis of selected quotes from the course literature at Södertörn’s education of teachers in after-school activities using the key-terms ”immigrant”, ”Swedish” and ”culture”, review the underlining values and norms that are being transferred to the students. The conclusions in this study supports existing research on the matter that problems exist in regards to exclusion of students at the universities in relation to implicit conceptions about race, varying and excluding definitions of the social category, ”Swedish” and that these aspects put together creates a written creation of ”the other” and leads to a slim image of the expected receiver of the literature. More research needs to be conducted to examine how it is on other universities in Sweden and how the students there perceive these events.