Democracy in Immigrant America - Research Paper Example

Democracy in Immigrant America It is difficult to make the mother in this case understand the precise meaning of the academic test scores of her daughter as she is not familiar with the mathematical calculations involved. But she can be given a more or less clear picture about the state of affairs using the numbers of students in her daughter’s class who have scored above her and those who have scored below her or nearer to her. In the case of reading test, the mother can be told that if it is supposed that there are 100 students in her daughter’s class, only two other students had as low a score as her daughter got. Also this can be further explained by telling the mother that 97 out of 100 students in her daughter’s class had a higher score than her daughter had. Also the mother can be made to understand that the mean in a score is some what an average depicted in the form of a curve and a score, which is two standard deviations below the mean indicates that the score is far below the average. The Bell curve can be drawn by the school counselor right in front of her and the mean and standard deviation marked on it, in a simple and legible way without going into the complex fractions and percentages involved. Further, the score of the daughter in Mathematics can also be explained in a similar way. Here, it is easier to explain, as the mean is 100. A standard deviation of 15 points above mean will not be difficult for the mother to understand because in the previous case she has seen that even a standard deviation of 2 points below the mean meant a great reduction in the score. Hence, she can easily understand that the score in mathematics is considerably good, as a standard deviation of 15 points above the mean is associated with that. It can also be explained that if there were 100 students in her daughter’s class, only 12 or 13 students could get higher scores than her. Here also, the Bell curve can be drawn by the counselor to make the explanation more credible and legible. Bell curves drawn based on the test scores of other students can also be shown to her so that she is able to make a visual comparison. how these results might be used in developing as a successful academic curriculum for her daughter. These results are an indication of in which way the future studies of the child could be canalized. It has become clear that the child has better aptitude in science and mathematics and less inclination towards humanities. This is only a primary inference from the present test results. But this can be used as a roadmap to shape her future studies. This does not mean that reading skill need not be developed. Communication being a key element in working with any area of academics, the child has to be given special attention in enhancing her reading skills. She can be given story books which could evoke interest towards reading. Also, she has to be encouraged to mingle more with the English-speaking kids in her school by way of making her a participant in the extra curricular activities going on in the school. All these interventions have great importance, as “education has also been shown to be a powerful predictor of participation among the general citizenry” for an immigrant (Ramakrishnan, 43). For this African American girl to get assimilated into the American society, education thus becomes an inevitable tool. Hence, to excel in her studies is essential for her survival and success. This is why no negligence be there in helping her overcome her learning problems. Need to discuss how would I work in rapport with this mother. First, I have to tell the mother in plain language that her daughter’s scores in Reading has been alarmingly low. I will have to discuss with her the probable reasons for this which she could find. From this discussion and from my own inferences, I will have to decide whether the child has a lower IQ or whether she was facing only some learning problems caused by some external factors. As far as the test results are concerned, there is no doubt that the child is intelligent and also above average in her intellect. The results of Mathematics test shows this very clearly. Hence, the mother has to be told not to loose hope on the future education of her child. To convince her, in this regard, the socio-cultural aspects of learning a new language and also learning inside another culture have to be explained to her in simple language. Portes and Rumbaut has cited several examples of how an immigrant feels while standing amidst the US educational system and one such example quotes a ninth grade Filipino girl (206). The girl says: Our parents don’t come to [school functions] because they don’t know any English. I don’t even tell them when they are supposed to come. They dress so different and I don’t want our parents to come because the others will laugh at them and tease us. We are ashamed. (Portes and Rumbaut, 206). This is a typical example which can be equated to our case as well. Here, the language problem and the socio-cultural problems become clearly evident. To overcome this kind of complex barriers is a very challenging task to a young girl. This has to be kept in mind by the counselor while handling this issue and care should be taken not to put the blame on the child for being a slow learner. The mother should be encouraged to give suggestions on how to improve her performance in reading. Also the counselor can give advice that the mother give personal attention in her reading home works at home. The counselor can also suggest some books which could be useful in enhancing the daughter’s reading skills, and which could be bought from a shop or collected from a library by the mother. It has to be kept in mind that “immigrant student…will be heavily reliant on school personnel-teachers, counselors, coaches and others-to guide them in the steps necessary to successfully complete their schooling” (Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova, 3). I need to discuss also about specific evaluation of her reading problems child might have. The reading problems shown by the child are quite natural, as she was learning a foreign language as far as her mother tongue and culture was concerned. One thing might be her inability to internalize the grammatical structure of English and also to acquire enough vocabulary. It is a proven fact that “although a person may be a fluent speaker and writer in her native language, in the second language, she may only be able to carry on a simple conversation and may be unable to write or read anything but the simplest text” (Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova, 151). In a study conducted by Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova, it was revealed that only seven percent of the sample of immigrant students “scored at or above the normalized mean for English speakers of the same age on the English language proficiency sub-test” (152). This finding shows that our student’s case is not an isolated one. This is part of a social phenomenon which demands a social approach and solution. The second aspect, most probably, will be her inferiority complex, which might have developed while living amidst a fluently English-speaking White society. This will further hamper her confidence to speak even whatever she knew properly. The socio-economic conditions in which her family lives might also be a factor in her reading problem. She might not be getting enough social interaction with those who speak English fluently, and she rather might be mingling only with her kith and kin who are also immigrants from a different culture and language. Last but not least, it has to be examined whether she had any physical or mental disability which is hampering her reading skills and whether she has a disturbed family atmosphere which might create learning disabilities in general. And a very important issue to discuss on this paper should be the discussion of a social-cultural factors related to this case. In this case, the mother might have felt an inferiority regarding her inability to comprehend the mathematical concept involved in the test scores of her daughter. There is also a great extent of possibility that she might associate the lower score of her child as well as her comprehension problem with the same factor, namely her race. By doing this, there is a serious possibility of her blaming her race in front of her daughter which eventually would destroy the urge to excel, in the mind of the daughter. Also, making such a connection with educational skills and race may fill the mind of the daughter with the same inferiority complex. But the good score that the daughter has scored in Mathematics, comes as a fresh breather in this complex scenario. This positive result might help the mother to regain her pride in her daughter, also because mathematics is commonly associated with the intellectual abilities of its handler. But yet another problem is that the subject that had put the daughter in trouble, is nothing but English language itself. Living in the American society, as an immigrant, has its own socio-political implications and the language problem can turn into a severe identity problem for the immigrants. But, based on the outlook and perspective of the mother, this problem can be tackled by the daughter. She can be taught to think that it was not a shame that she could not excel in English as much as the American children do, because English was not her mother tongue as it was for the American kids. But the utility value of the language while living in America is the reality that every immigrant member of the society has to face. I also need more information on Rushton and Jensen.  Rushton and Jensen have further suggested that “the discrimination model…. must be tempered by a distribution model” based on their results (235). The study had concluded that “the average IQ for African Americans was lower than that for Latino, White, Asian and Jewish Americans” and had gone exploring into the reasons behind this phenomena (Rushton and Jensen, 236). Rushton and Jenson have given the exact figures of the measurement of IQ for different racial groups (240). The study has revealed that “around the world, the average IQ for East Asians centres around 106; that for Whites, about 100; and that for Blacks, about 85 in the United States and 70 in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Rushton and Jenson, 240). It has also been concluded that this difference in IQ appears at an early stage of a child’s development (Rushton and Jenson, 240). IQ tests conducted based on reaction time, (which is considered as a culturally neutral variable) on samples of children taken from various races also showed that the IQ level of the Black children were the lowest (Rushton and Jenson, 245). Gene-environment correlation that happens in a shared environment has been suggested as the reason behind better performance of Black people who live in US (Rushton and Jenson, 253). Those who have bigger brain volumes were found to have better IQ as well (Rushton and Jenson, 253). From further data analysis, it has been concluded that the Asian American children had larger brains that the White children and also they were in better position compared to the Black children (Rushton and Jenson, 254). Yet another aspect that was claimed by the researchers to be true was that “racial admixture” had the same effect of hybridization and resulted in the children from such unions having better IQ levels (Rushton and Jenson, 260). But the latest findings regarding the “eve DNA” and the common origination of humanity from Africa, contests these findings (Powledge and Rose). Rushton and Jensen themselves have agreed to this hypothesis and have put forth the gene-environment correlation model to explain this (253). What evolves out of the logical examination of this argument is that IQ and intelligence has a socio-cultural element as well. Works Cited Rushton, J. Philippe and Arthur Jensen. Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005, 11 (2), 235-294. Powledge, Tabitha.M. and Rose, Mark, “The Great DNA Hunt”, Archeological Institute of America, www.archeology.org, vol.49, No.5, September/October 1996. web. 27 October 2010. Ramakrishnan, Subrahmanyam Karthik, “Democracy in immigrant America: changing demographics and political participation”, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Ruben.G., “Immigrant America: A Protrait”, California: University of California Press, 2006. Suarez-Orozco, Carola, Suarez-Orozco, Marcelo.M., and Todorova, Irina, “Learning a new land: immigrant students in American society”, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2008. Read More