Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / One in five children in schools today are from immigrant families and speak a language other than English. Research reveals many teachers in urban schools feel inadequately prepared to meet the unique needs of these students. Teachers lack research- based knowledge about culturally relevant teaching and differentiated instructional strategies that benefit all learners. They do not understand issues such as ethnicity, poverty, racism, cultural and linguistic identities, and immigration. Few studies have described the nature of the learning experiences of English Language Learners (ELLs) and immigrants in urban high schools. Using identity, sociocultural, and self-efficacy conceptual frameworks (relevant immigrant pedagogy), this qualitative case study focused on classroom interactions and instructional efforts of two teachers in an English 10 class in an urban high school. The researcher observed class activities, took field notes, interviewed teachers and students, collected instructional planning documents, and photographed student artifacts and interactions. One teacher in the classroom had an English as a Second Language (ESL) certification and extensive professional development to increase her competency as a teacher of immigrants. The other teacher had English Language Arts certification. Findings indicated that relevant immigrant pedagogy was an expansive instructional framework which transformed ELLs and immigrants to grow in their construction of self and identity, self-efficacy, sociocultural consciousness, and academic rigor within a period of five months despite the prescriptive curriculum from vii the district in a restricted environment. The urban teachers displayed skills, zeal, and commitment to building a community of learners of all ability levels in class and bridged the gaps between immigrants and non-immigrants. All students grew together in their learning and socio emotional experiences and became advocates and helpers for one another, not competitors. The conclusions suggest that it is possible to improve the educational programs for immigrant students and English Language Learners through well-developed research-based instruction, and proposes a model for effective urban teacher education.

For decades, the United States has been known as the nation of immigrants due to the increasing number of immigrant students in the public school system. Although the population of immigrant students steadily increases annually, American society still pressures immigrants into acculturation to fulfill the United States ideals of academic achievement despite the United States claim of multiculturalism (Malcolm & Lowery, 2011). This research focuses on 1st - and 2nd generation immigrant students’ strife of acceptance in U.S. culture, while sill preserving their own native culture, and the influence it has on academic achievement. The researcher interviewed eight (8) adult participants who are either 1st - or 2nd generation immigrant college students. This qualitative case study research aims to determine if forced acculturation or assimilation using stereotypes and perceptions of similarity effects how immigrant students develop their cultural identity, and the influence it has on academic achievement. Four major themes emerged from the participants’ responses: parental approval, peer pressure, environmental influence, and feelings about their ethnic group. Basic findings supported that immigrant students’ cultural identity is threatened by stereotypes and perceptions of similarity.

Using integrated threat theory as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study analyzed the effects of threat and the perception of threat from immigrants on the attitudes of teachers toward their elementary school students. The study was conducted with teachers at five northern California schools. All of the teachers were experienced and well-trained, teaching in low-income neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. In support of integrated threat theory’s premise, results indicated that where threat was present or perceived, teachers’ words and reported teaching behavior indicated prejudicial attitudes toward students. The lack of threat corresponded to a lack of bias. It was found that teaching behavior that reflected prejudicial attitudes affected a number of areas of instruction. Specifically, teachers spent less time in informal interaction with students, limiting their familiarity with the children. Curricular decisions were affected in subtle ways, and there were examples of implicit bias in interaction. The report concludes with recommendations for practice and further research. Recommendations for policy are particularly important, as teacher education programs and school districts are both able to provide anti-bias training.

Immigrant students are targets of ethnic harassment in school context in their host country. Prior studies demonstrated that being victim of ethnic harassment has consequences for the psychological, behavioral, and school adjustment of youths with immigrant background. The purpose of this study was to examine if a positive teacher relationship moderated the school adjustment of ethnically harassed immigrant students. Data was gathered from ethnically harassed students in 7th and 8th grade in seven schools of a midsized town in Sweden. In addition to univariate and bivariate correlation analyses, a series of moderated regression analyses were conducted. Significant moderation effects of relationship with teachers were found for two of the school adjustment measures. The results suggested a positive relationship with teachers could play a buffering role for school liking and truancy of students who experience ethnic harassment from their peers. Implications of the findings were discussed in relation to both research and practice. / Invandrarelever utsätts för etniska trakasserier i skolan i sina nya värdland. Tidigare studier har demonstrerat att ungdomar med invandrarbakgrund som faller offer för etniska trakasserier får en negativ påverkan på sitt psykologiska välmående, sina beteenden, och skolanpassning. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka om en positiv relation med en lärare modererade skolanpassningen hos etniskt trakasserade invandrarelever. Data inhämtades från etniskt trakasserade invandrarelever i 7:e och 8:e klass från sju skolor i en mellanstor stad i Sverige. Utöver univariata och bivariata korrelationsanalyser, utfärdades en serie modererande regressionsanalyser. I två av studiens variabler fanns det statistiskt signifikanta modererande effekter av att ha en positiv relation med en lärare. Resultatet föreslår att en positiv relation med lärare kan ha spelat en skyddande roll for elevens positiva attityd till skolan och för skolkning hos elever som upplever en låg mängd etniska trakasserier från sina klasskamrater. Studiens resultat diskuterades både i relation till forskning och tillämpning i samhället.

This study examines the ways in which the education of children of undocumented immigrants is impacted by their parents’ undocumented status as well as their personal documentation status. In this thesis, I shed light on the experiences of fifteen college students and alumni who are variously-documented, including: undocumented students, DACA students, and documented students with undocumented family members. Drawing on these experiences, I argue that students’ education is impacted by legal and social exclusion, family stress and psychosocial impacts, personal legal status, and a lack of services for undocumented students and children of undocumented immigrants in educational institutions. I also argue that mothers and other family members lessen these challenges by providing students with the support and encouragement to complete a higher education. I conclude this study by making specific recommendations for what K- higher education institutions can do to better serve undocumented and documented students within mixed-status families.

The United States is currently experiencing an unprecedented wave of immigration. When studying foreign-born students, anthropologists and sociologists have focused primarily on two areas: how schools integrate children into the American ‘mainstream’ and the complexities of foreign-born students learning English. Much of the debate centers on the best models for building academic English, comparing academic achievement of students by their home country, and comparing educational outcomes among different generations (e.g., newcomers versus second-generation students). In an effort to study successful models, some anthropologists of education have studied newcomer programs, such as the Internationals Network for Public Schools (INPS), that have been successful at graduating in higher numbers students recently arriving in the United States from non-English speaking countries. This ethnography builds on that line of work by looking at two areas that the literature has failed address: (1) how multiple actors in the political, philanthropic, and educational realms of the United States come together to design a school for foreign-born adolescents, and (2) how students, who find themselves in a school designed for recently-arrived foreign-born adolescents, navigate the school policies and structures, as implemented by the staff, and their fellow peers. To investigate these questions, this ethnography used participant observation, small group discussions, and interviews of students and staff at Voyager, a high school in the INPS, over the 2013-2014 school year. This dissertation reports several significant findings. First, students from smaller national and linguistic groups are forced to integrate, while those of the majority home language group are allowed to dominate linguistically and socially. Whereas in most schools White (or sometimes Black) American students are centered as the norm, in this INPS school that nucleus forms around the numerical majority, in this case Spanish speakers. To accommodate this social fact, students from smaller linguistic groups learn and use elements of the locally dominant language, Spanish. Second, while the existing literature largely praises the INPS model, some INPS students resist school structures and pedagogical techniques that are key to the INPS model, such as heterogeneous grouping and collaborative projects. This dissertation sheds light on the complex social negotiations underway in an Internationals schools providing a more nuanced picture. This ethnography argues that student pedagogical and language ideologies should be considered especially where they disagree with specific INPS policies, such as schooling ELLs together in the same school without native English speakers. It also argues that there may be certain unintended consequences for the dominant language group in a multilingual environment i.e. students in the dominant language group may have limited English language acquisition and academic success. The Internationals model might currently be the best model for educating newcomer students, but a critical look into an INPS school and its impact on the lives of students provides a strong contribution and a healthy critique that may help improve the model further.

在臺灣，每年都有許多還在就學階段的孩子基於種種原因出國留學或是隨家人移民到其它國家，其中更是以加拿大這類以開發歐美國家為主。這些年輕的海外學子們在異鄉有著什麼樣的求學經驗，又對臺灣的教育有什麼樣的印象，是目前甚少被研究的議題。本研究以深度訪談的方式，對在加拿大接受過教育的受訪者進行訪談，了解他們在海外的求學與成長經歷及對臺灣教育的印象。結果顯示，年幼的受訪者由於較沒有自己的想法，跟著父母出國純粹是順從家人的決定。到了加拿大後，他們主要會遇到的困難是以語言為主，在學校方面，加拿大中等教育的師生互動比較親密，不過同學間容易以文化的不同形成小圈圈，造成受訪者出了國卻繼續留在臺灣人的文化圈裡。雖然本研究的受訪者都已經回到臺灣，不過他們還是認為自己同時是加拿大人也是臺灣人，在加拿大生活的經歷顯然已經改變了他們對自我的民族身分認同。對本研究的受訪者來說，臺灣與加拿大教育最大的不同在於社會對教育的重視性及看法，因此受訪者就算選擇在臺灣定居，不過還是會希望自己的下一代在加拿大受教育。 / In Taiwan, many school-age children are sent away by their parents to study overseas every year, or immigrate to Western countries like Canada with their families during their education process. The learning experience of these international students and their impression on Taiwanese education are issues that are seldom explored. The current research employs an in-depth interview method to investigate these international students’ learning experience through a series of interviews with subjects who have studied in both Taiwan and Canada. Result shows that the most drastic difficulty young immigrants face is having to learn a new language. Teacher-student interaction is more casual in Canadian middle education, but in terms of student interaction, students are more likely to form social groups based on different cultures, which caused the subjects to identify with both their Canadian and Taiwanese identities. In the eyes of the current study’s subjects, the most important difference between Taiwanese and Canadian education is the society’s view on education, and how important they see academic achievement. Based on these factors, the research subjects would choose to let their children receive Canadian education, even if they themselves had decided to live in Taiwan rather than Canada.

During the 1990s, standards-based reform became the predominant education reform inthe country. However, neither federal legislation nor state standards-based reform programshave focused much on addressing the needs of special groups. While, the explicit goal ofstandards-based reform was to raise academic achievement of all students, the implicit goal wasto change beliefs about specific groups of students, particularly students who traditionally havebeen perceived as "disadvantaged." This dissertation examines the implementation of standards-based reform policies withpopulations of limited English proficient (LEP) high school students to determine the strength of the Kentucky's policies to include LEP students and the capacity for those policies to influenceeducator beliefs about the abilities of LEP students. The study includes an analysis ofKentucky's reform policies and a case study of one high school English as a Second Languageprogram seen as a leader in implementing standards-based reforms. The case study approachprovided an opportunity to learn about the issues associated with educating LEP high schoolstudents in the context of standards-based reform from the point of view of those who arecharged with implementing these policies. The findings from this study suggest that it is notsufficient to include LEP students in state assessment and accountability systems. In order foraccountability systems to ensure strong student performance, they must also address inequities instudents' opportunities to learn to high standards. The success of Kentucky's policies, as well asother standards-based policies, depends on their ability to drive changes in educator beliefs aboutstudents' capabilities and to drive the creation of local conditions supportive of practicesconsistent with achieving the goals of the Kentucky Education Reform Act.

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This dissertation aims to study students at a multicultural school and their attitudes towards English, both as a school subject and as a language. Furthermore, the study investigates the relation between the students’ achievements in the subject and their attitudes. An interview study was performed with year nine students at a multicultural school. Thirteen interviews were conducted; twelve with students and one with the English teacher, which all concentrated on the relation between the students’ background and their attitudes towards the English language and English as a school subject, as well as their achievements in the subject.The results show that immigrant students do not manage to reach the aims and criterion posed in the syllabus for English to the same extent as native students. Even so, their attitude towards the language and the school subject is not affected. The study shows that immigrant students are as positive towards English as native students.