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Immigrants

• "Back Home, Nobody'd Do That": Immigrant Students and Cultural Models of Schooling
  Asks what teachers must know about ethnic backgrounds to facilitate instruction for immigrant students, how cultural values in the United States and values of specific ethnic groups diverge, and how teachers can improve their understanding of other cultures. Answers through firsthand accounts from research interviews with students who are recent immigrants.
• "The Place I Will Always Remember": Drawing on Experiences through the Quilt Project
  Discusses a quilt project in which ninth-grade English-as-a-Second-Language students wrote, drew, and talked about what they knew, remembered, and felt on the topic "Where I Came From," creating an anthology and a quilt. Describes how students' speaking practice, written language abilities, and self-confidence improved.
• A Call for Change in Multicultural Training at Graduate Schools of Education: Educating To End Oppression and for Social Justice
  Graduate-level multicultural training is important for preparing future teachers to work effectively with diverse students. Professionals experienced in multiculturalism must revise and refine multicultural training to better address immigrants' diversity issues and issues around sexuality, disability, and spirituality.
• Albanian Refugee Children
  Uses the experience of a project working with unaccompanied refugee minors from Albania to England to describe the circumstances of these immigrants. Experience suggests that those in mainstream schools have the best chance of building a life in England.
• Christianity in Public Schools: Perspective of a Non-Christian Immigrant Parent
  Presents the dilemma of infusion of Christian ideology in public education faced by ethnic-immigrant families. Explores three factors challenging the validity of non-Christian beliefs and disfavoring bicultural and bilingual socialization of ethnic children: family structure and religiosity, community orthodoxy, and Christian education in public schools.
• Citizenship Education in Multicultural Society--What Can We Learn from Israel?
  Studied the attitudes of 37 Israeli secondary-school counselors towards immigrant students and citizenship education. Most believed that implementation of citizenship education is a school wide enterprise, and most supported an assimilationist perspective for immigrant students.
• Citizenship Education in Multicultural Society--What Can We Learn from Israel?
  Studied the attitudes of 37 Israeli secondary-school counselors towards immigrant students and citizenship education. Most believed that implementation of citizenship education is a schoolwide enterprise, and most supported an assimilationist perspective for immigrant students.
• Communicating Appropriately with Asian and Pacific Islander Audiences. Technical Assistance Bulletin
  Developing culturally appropriate prevention messages and materials for Asian and Pacific Islander audiences is challenging. It is important to recognize and respect their geographic, ethnic, racial, cultural, economic, social, and linguistic diversity.
• Confronting the Challenge of Diversity
  Framing diversity as a problem sets the stage for how communities will react to the change. Unfortunately, American schools have historically seen cultural assimilation of immigrants and nonwhites as central to their mission.
• Crisis in Mong Education: Urgent Needs for Professional Development
  Information on the Hmong (Mong) people living in Wisconsin, their educational background, the reasons they came to the United States, and the problems they are facing is provided. The Hmong are a closely knit ethnic group from Laos who migrated there from China in the 18th century.
• Diversity and the New Immigrants
  Schools are inadequately prepared to serve the needs of increasing numbers of culturally diverse students. Problems relate to desegregation, multicultural education, higher quality education, and bilingual education.
• Editorial. Immigration and Urban Education in the New Millennium: The Diversity and the Challenges
  Introduces a special issue that explores new immigration trends and major issues related to K-12 schooling in urban areas. The seven articles fall into three categories: a national and historical overview; examples of two types of educational change; and the acculturation and schooling experiences of various racial/ethnic immigrant groups.
• Educating Somali Children in Britain
  This book, which results from a broad study and research begun in the early 1990s, focuses on the needs and concerns and highlights constraints regarding Somali refugee children in the British education system. The book is intended for use by language specialists and classroom teachers, and others responsible for the education and welfare of Somali children.
• Educational Experiences of Chinese Pupils in Manchester
  Studies educational experiences and attitudes of 200 Chinese secondary school students in Manchester (England). Findings support the claim that most were confident in their school work and most liked school.
• Enhancing the Communication Skills of Newly-Arrived Asian American Students. ERIC/CUE Digest No. 136
  This digest focuses on meeting the educational needs of recent Asian Pacific American (APA) immigrants. Newcomers usually have various levels of English proficiency, and many find school rules incomprehensible because they differ so widely from their previous experiences.
• Essentializing Dilemma and Multiculturalist Pedagogy: An Ethnographic Study of Japanese Children in a U.S. School
  Examined Japanese children's experiences at a U.S. elementary school, noting their teachers' pedagogical responses.
• Having Arrived: Dimensions of Educational Success in a Transitional Newcomer School
  Examines a program for newly arrived, non-English-speaking immigrant children in a California city. Findings from a fourth-grade class demonstrate how a nurturing setting, culturally flexible teaching approach, linguistic and cultural validation, and a valued spatial environment contribute to newcomer students' success.
• Hmong Paj Ntaub: Using Textile Arts to Teach Young Children about Cultures
  Argues that textile arts offer opportunities for students to explore other cultures and to illustrate themes contained in the National Council for the Social Studies Standards. Describes the use of Hmong "paj ntaub" textiles to teach elementary students about the Hmong people of Laos and Hmong immigrants in the United States.
• Hosts and Newcomers: A Narrative Account of a Course Designed To Sensitize Public Educators to the Needs and Experiences of Refugee and Immigrant Families
  A research project, originally focused on collecting stories from educators about their experiences of standing up against racism, produced so few examples that a course was designed to sensitize educators to the needs of refugee and immigrant families and to examine their own positions.
• Identity Education in Multicultural Germany
  Addresses conditions of identity education in Germany within the framework of multicultural education. Particular focus is on the interaction theory of Krappmann (1971), which provides a framework for dealing with the necessities of identity education for migrant and German students.
• Immigrant Children in Our Classrooms: Beyond ESL
  Strategies for supporting immigrant students include providing opportunities for self-expression, ensuring that all students see themselves reflected in the curriculum, providing translation for key events and documents, having teachers and staff that reflect student cultures, maintaining first-language skills, making special efforts to communicate with parents, and training students to support new peers. (TD).
• Immigrant Mothers Redefine Access to ESL Classes: Contradiction and Ambivalence
  Argues that access to English-as-a-Second-Language classes is a complex issue, perhaps more personal and less amenable to solution than previously assumed. Examples are drawn from five individual life-history interviews with 19 non-English-speaking immigrant mothers of school children.
• Immigrant Students in New York City Schools
  The immigrant population residing in New York City has expanded enormously in recent years and profoundly affected the public school system. As significant as the expansion of immigrant students enrolled in New York City public schools has been, even more remarkable is the diversity in the countries of origin of new students.
• Immigrant Students in New York City Schools
  The immigrant population residing in New York City has expanded enormously in recent years and profoundly affected the public school system. As significant as the expansion of immigrant students enrolled in New York City public schools has been, even more remarkable is the diversity in the countries of origin of new students.
• Immigration and Pluralism in Urban Catholic Schools
  Investigates how Catholic schools are making the transformation from national to multicultural schools as they meet the needs of new immigrants in the inner city. Focuses on the concept of mediating institutions, investigating urban Catholic school principals' willingness to experience diversity.
• Immigration, Ethnic Cultures, and Achievement: Working with Communities, Parents, and Teachers
  Addresses immigrant advocates who work both inside and outside of schools, calling on them to use comprehensive language; foster U.S. loyalty and citizenship; be proud of individual ethnicity; seek leaders among immigrants themselves; promote parents' roles; and guide the children of immigrants to consider teaching as a career in order to become mediators among cultures and leaders and role models for future generations.
• Immigration, Ethnic Cultures, and Achievement: Working with Communities, Parents, and Teachers
  Addresses immigrant advocates who work both inside and outside of schools, calling on them to use comprehensive language; foster U.S. loyalty and citizenship; be proud of individual ethnicity; seek leaders among immigrants themselves; promote parents' roles; and guide the children of immigrants to consider teaching as a career in order to become mediators among cultures and leaders and role models for future generations.
• Improving Education for Immigrant Students: A Guide for K-12 Educators in the Northwest and Alaska
  This guide provides educators with information and resources for gaining a better understanding of immigration and the immigrant experience and suggests strategies and techniques to meet the educational needs of immigrant students within regular classrooms. The first section provides a brief overview of the history and current status of immigration in the United States, including current immigration law.
• Interpreting and Translating in Australia: Current Issues and International Comparisons
  This report describes the role and status of interpreting and translation (I/T) training and services in Australia and examines a number of issues that relate to policy formation and service provision. It first describes the context for I/T service needs in Australia, then outlines the history and structure of the field in that country, including the relationship between I/T and Australian language policy, federal, state, and private provision of I/T services, and establishment of national standards and a national certification system.
• Joining the Canadian Tribe: Building a Pluralistic Community in a B.C. School
  Immigrants often comprise most of the student body in urban Canadian schools. An elementary school in suburban Vancouver (British Columbia) provides sheltered classes and bilingual student partners for beginning English language learners.
• Language Policy: Vancouver's Multicultural Mosaic
  Focuses on how recent immigration factors in the urban environment of Vancouver, British Columbia affect language education and policies at the local and provincial levels. Statistical analyses and surveys among teachers and administrators were used to get an overview of these factors to gain insight on language programs and impressions of teacher training programs.
• Many Voices: A Journal of New Settlers and Multicultural Education Issues. Volumes 6-12.
  The seven issues of this New Zealand journal contain brief articles on a variety of immigrant and multicultural education issues.
• Many Voices: A Journal of New Settlers and Multicultural Education Issues. Volumes 6-12.
  The seven issues of this New Zealand journal contain brief articles on a variety of immigrant and multicultural education issues. Topics include: the role of English language instruction in creating opportunities; Pacific Islander university students; lecture listening and note-taking techniques; the language of geography examinations; audiotape libraries; supporting native language use in child care centers; implications of world English for English language teaching.
• Mexican Immigrants in Middle Schools: Diversity, Organizational Structure and Effectiveness
  The Spanish speaking Mexican immigrant population accounts for the fastest growing population in California, where one in six students is an immigrant. This study utilized organizational theory to relate school characteristics such as interdependence, coordination, and information processing to working with immigrant students.
• Moving Marginalized Students Inside the Lines: Cultural Differences in Classrooms
  Discusses what the author has learned in her job at an elementary school in Northeast Mississippi as liaison between English-speaking school personnel and Spanish-speaking students and parents, most of whom are recent immigrants from Mexico. Discusses what the author learned, through extensive talking and questioning of students and parents, about how cultural differences affect classroom activities and interaction.
• Multicultural Illiteracy
  Schools' treatment of diversity categorizes students and applies ineffectual learning methods to resulting stereotypes. The author's study of basal readers showed that today's multiculturalism suppresses most white immigrant groups' stories, omits references to first discoveries and inventions, and substitutes foreign expressions for literate English vocabulary.
• Opening Borders
  The guide is designed to familiarize adult basic education (ABE) English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers with the obstacles faced by adult students from other culture in the adult education classroom. An overview of these challenges and an outline of suggested teaching strategies and cultural activities are presented as a basis for developing a multicultural ABE/ESL curriculum.
• Pedagogy, Politics, and Schools: Films about Social Justice in Education
  Reviews six films about issues related to multicultural and social justice education in the United States: "It's Elementary: Talking about Gay Issues in School"; "Starting Small: Teaching Children Tolerance"; "In Whole Honor?"; "Children Talk about AIDS"; "Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary"; and "'Good Morning Miss Toliver.'" (SM).
• Promoting Additive Acculturation in Schools
  A study focusing on 113 ninth graders of Mexican descent indicates that most students and their parents adhere to a strategy of additive acculturation (incorporating skills of the new culture and language), but that the school curriculum and general school climate devalue Mexican culture. (SLD).
• Quinta da Princesa: A School "Reaching Out."
  Describes how positive interventionist strategies improved the experiences and educational opportunities of the African-Portuguese and Romany children in Portuguese schools. The background of linguistic diversity in Portugal and the ethnic diversity in Portuguese schools are discussed.
• Reading "The Star Fisher": Toward Critical and Sociological Interpretations of Immigrant Literature
  Proposes a critical-sociological approach to analyzing immigrant literature, noting that for many students, their only contact with immigrants may be through representations in children's literature. Examines how Chinese immigrants to the United States are represented in Laurence Yep's (1992) "The Star Fisher," discussing how the issues of race, class, and ideology influence Yep's construction and representation of Chinese immigrant subjectivities.
• Refugee Children in the Early Years
  Describes the findings of a research study by the Refugee Council (United Kingdom) on the experiences of refugee children in "early years provision" (early childhood education). The major finding is that refugee children, of whom there are an estimated 65,000 in the United Kingdom, do not have equal access to early-years education.
• Refugee Pupils: A Headteacher's Perspective
  Although challenges faced by refugee children in English schools are those faced by all students, theirs are exacerbated by their refugee status. Particular problems are those of student migration, language, culture, home and school relationships, the pastoral aspect of school care, and the need for time to deal with the child as an individual.
• Roots of the Future: Ethnic Diversity in the Making of Britain
  The aim of this book is to show that Britain has benefited enormously from immigration and ethnic diversity throughout history. The first part of the book, "Immigrants Past and Present," gives an account of the role played by a few of the migrant communities who came to Britain and settled before the end of World War II.
• Social, Political, Educational, Linguistic and Cultural (Dis-)Incentives for Languages Education in Australia
  Examines the extent to which the shifting ideological discourse on multiculturalism in Australia affects the personal attitudes and perspectives of bilingual and bicultural Australian born and educated parents of Hellenic background with regard to the education of their children. (Author/VWL).
• Teachers' Attitudes toward Multiculturalism and Their Perceptions of the School Organizational Culture
  Examined Israeli teachers' attitudes toward multiculturalism and the relationship of attitudes to perceptions of school organizational culture. Overall, pluralistic attitudes were higher with regard to integrating immigrants into the general society, while assimilationist attitudes predominated when referring to integrating immigrants into education.
• Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Schools: An Integrated Approach. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 13
  The book outlines approaches and strategies that schools and teachers can adopt to provide educational experiences meeting the needs of all learners in culturally diverse schools and classrooms, especially those in areas in which new immigrants settle. Chapter one provides an overview of the sources of cultural diversity and describes some public policies that directly affect many classrooms' cultural composition.
• Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Schools: An Integrated Approach. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 13
  The book outlines approaches and strategies that schools and teachers can adopt to provide educational experiences meeting the needs of all learners in culturally diverse schools and classrooms, especially those in areas in which new immigrants settle.
• Teaching Asian American Students
  Uses data from interviews with parents of Asian American students, observations, and literature reviews to identify cultural and language issues that must be considered in teaching this population. The paper discusses the history of Asian immigrants, attitudes toward education among Asians, the relationship between teaching styles and Asian culture, and suggestions for teachers working with Asian American students.
• The "Strangers" among Us. The Social Construction of Identity in Adult Education. Linkoping Studies in Education and Psychology No. 61
  A study examined the labeling practices in the multicultural discourse in two adult education settings in Sweden: a day folk high school and a municipal adult education center. A total of 33 students and 9 staff members from two adult education programs were interviewed.
• The Academic Achievement of Minority Students: Perspectives, Practices, and Prescriptions
  This book presents a collection of papers by educators and researchers who discuss various methods of improving minority student achievement.
• The California Crucible: Towards a New Paradigm of Race and Ethnic Relations
  Racial relations in California, projected to have parity between white and non-white populations by 2050, illustrates the challenges of an increasingly multiracial society in policy areas such as affirmative action, bilingual education, and immigration reform. A new paradigm is needed that goes beyond the current black-white model to encompass increasing cultural and linguistic diversity.
• The Challenge of Educating English Language Learners in Rural Areas
  Rural school districts are experiencing an influx of language minority students. Rural communities generally have little experience with people from other cultures and have fewer resources and bilingual people.
• The Challenge of Educating English Language Learners in Rural Areas
  Rural school districts are experiencing an influx of language minority students. Rural communities generally have little experience with people from other cultures and have fewer resources and bilingual people.
• The Culturally Diverse Classroom: A Guide for ESL and Mainstream Teachers
  This handbook is for teachers and administrators involved with international students in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and mainstream settings. It is intended to raise awareness of the new American classroom.
• The Effect of Modified Input on the Acquisition of Vocabulary in Science by a Newly Arrived Bilingual Student in a Secondary School
  Studies the effect of specific teacher input, modified for comprehension, on the acquisition of science vocabulary by a recent immigrant, a 12-year old newly arrived at an English secondary school. Comprehensible input played an important part in the acquisition of this student's science vocabulary.
• The Family Tree: Nurturing Language Growth through "All the Parts of Me."
  Describes a month-long project in an eighth-grade English classroom in which students (from many countries, many of them immigrants) read an array of bicultural literature, and each researched, wrote, and compiled a many-faceted Family Tree notebook. Shows how students can achieve both their own cultural authenticity and English language competence without loss of personal voice.
• The Limits of Educational Policy and Practice? The Case of Ethnic Minorities in The Netherlands
  Describes four types of immigrants to The Netherlands since World War II and three phases of educational policies aimed at compensating for their educational disadvantages. Discusses the disappointing outcomes of compensatory education, bilingual education, intercultural education, and preschool and early school programs, and describes the government's radical new approach involving decentralization, deregulation, and local autonomy.
• The Newest "Outsiders": Educating Mexican Migrant and Immigrant Youth
  This chapter discusses the educational needs of Mexican immigrant children and effective practices that meet those needs. During 1984-92, the number of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in public schools grew 70 percent to 2.3 million; three fourths of LEP students spoke Spanish; and 40 percent of these were born in Mexico.
• The Preliterate Student: A Framework for Developing an Effective Instructional Program. ERIC/AE Digest
  A special subgroup of Limited English Speaking students is often referred to as students with limited formal schooling (LFS) or "preliterates" because they have not yet had the opportunity to learn to read. This digest explores important aspects of the LFS student population, defining LFS students and discussing their impact on schools, individualized language development plans, classroom instruction, and the assessment of the LFS student.
• The Structuring of the Mediterranean Space within the Education System in Australia
  Examines how the Southern European Mediterranean immigrants to Australia attempted to contribute to the making of an educational system that would cater to their real or imagined cultural ecology and educational curriculum. An economic rationale is suggested for the Australian model of multiculturalism and its impact on education.
• The Unz/Tuchman "English for Children" Initiative: A New Attack on Immigrant Children and the Schools
  Criticizes the Unz/Tuchman "English for Children" initiative (R. Unz) a proposal that would place limited-English-speaking children in California together, regardless of age or academic abilities, for one year of intensive English instruction and no instruction in academic subjects before returning them to regular classes.
• Towards Equal Educational Opportunities for Asylum-Seekers
  Interviewed and surveyed staff, asylum-seeking/refugee English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students, and ESOL students who came for other reasons at one British college, examining why the college's ESOL provision featured separate programs for the two groups. Discusses: the consequences of this divide; teacher discourses; alternative pedagogies; labeling of students; integrated provision; and multicultural education.
• Using Stories To Introduce and Teach Multicultural Literature
  Discusses the importance of stories in introducing migrants to the new societies they enter. Stories allow people to reach out to past generations and provide examples of successful coping in new lives.
• Waking the Sleeping Giant: Engaging and Capitalizing on the Sociocultural Strengths of the Latino Community
  A family literacy program for Salvadoran refugees and other Latinos in Arlington (Virginia) is analyzed from a sociocultural perspective as exemplifying an educational project designed and implemented by grassroots organizations in an increasingly diverse, multicultural/multilingual community. The program addresses the educational needs of poor illiterate families while drawing on parents' culture and extensive life experiences.
• Who Are My Sisters and Brothers? A Catholic Educational Guide for Understanding and Welcoming Immigrants and Refugees.
  This educational guide, designed for use in Catholic elementary and secondary schools, religious education programs at all grades, youth retreats, teacher training, or parent and adult sessions, places issues related to immigrants and refugees in a Catholic perspective.