Social Science Research Council
The Working Group on Education and Migration held its first meeting in New York, April 23 - 24, 2004. Working group members discussed preparation, access, finances, and school retention of immigrant and second generation immigrant youth and how these factors affect their transition to higher education and work.
The group addressed four main questions:
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How are the challenges faced by immigrant youth at each of these stages or aspects of the transition similar or different from those of native born children of non-immigrant parents, and how does immigrant status interact with class, race, ethnicity, and gender to affect their transitions from high school to college or into the workplace? What are the most urgent challenges and topics requiring further research?
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How have educational institutions responded to the changing demographics of the student population and how well do programs designed originally to promote college access or vocational training for native born minority or underserved youth address the particular needs of immigrant students? The group compared the experiences of several urban public secondary and university systems — New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami — and considered what further research would be necessary to assess which policies and approaches have been more successful and why.
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What is the political context in which these policies have developed, and how have different constellations of stakeholders affected policy outcomes in different cities? Who are the major advocates for immigrants in the sphere of education at the national and local levels? How do debates over the education of immigrants relate to broader debates over education policy, and what are the barriers to developing policy that responds appropriately to the needs of immigrant students?
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Finally, the group carried out a preliminary comparison with educational policy regarding immigrants in Europe and Canada, considering the impact of national policies regarding education and the articulation between education systems and labor markets.
This working group's focus on immigrants has been designed to complement a project on Transitions to College that is focusing largely on native-born minority and majority students and is being organized by the Higher Education Program at the Council with funding from the Lumina Foundation (http://edtransitions.ssrc.org).
Participants included Paul Anisef (York University), Maurice Crul (University of Amsterdam), Thomas Espenshade (Office of Population Research, Princeton University), Margaret Gibson (anthropology, University of California, San Diego), Charles Hirschman (sociology, University of Washington), Philip Kasinitz (sociology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York), Vivian Louie (education, Harvard School of Education), Francisco Rivera-Batiz (economics and education, Teachers College, Columbia University), Catrin Roberts (Nuffield Foundation), Alex Stepick (anthropology, Florida International University), and Carola Suarez-Orozco (psychology, Harvard School of Education).
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