Myths about Immigration and Education - Literature review Example

Myths about immigration and education Introduction Multi-cultural education is a key concept in the understanding of thesocio-political context of a country, an area of socio-political literary writing that has been adopted by Nieto & Bode (2012) in their assessment of effect of migration on education levels. To express the concept out rightly, the two authors develop and argument that throughout history has been believed to be a myth. In a recent study conducted by Richard Rothstein on the effect of the 1880 to 1915 migration of people from Europe to America, it is noted that of all the immigrants, only few Americans succeeded in school, and the least of all immigrants, despite the poor backgrounds form which all immigrants came. It is the children and grandchildren of European immigrants who performed well in schools; thus, leading to the establishment of a myth regarding the first-generation immigrants. According to the myth, strongly rooted in the public psyche, all first-generation immigrants are believed to have excelled in academics (Howe, 2014). The statement that the immigrants used education for purposes of assimilation further propagates this myth. Discussions into the existence of the myth The existence of the myth to this moment can be argued based on the sociopolitical context to which schooling in the US is understood. There is still a slight recognition of segregation in terms of schooling given that the decisions made in relation to education, although appearing politically neutral, are entirely the converse. Instead, schooling, as was in the older times, is pegged on social, economic, and political structures. Furthermore, while it is understandable that the multicultural education needs to be understood in their sociopolitical contexts, the approach that is currently being given to it seems divorced ideologically from the practices and policies of schools and society. However, as noted by Nieto & Bode (2012), the persistence of the myth can be associated to the misguided practices that have always singularly focused on the cultural artifacts or ethnic celebrations, which have exaggerated exotic characteristics of groups. The understanding of whether the children of the European immigrants are still the ones performing best academically can be assessed from the understanding of the socio-political context of the US and how this shapes schools, and the experiences of children who attend the schools. The children of the European immigrants must have performed well due to their orientation to a different multicultural education defined by ethnicity, race, social class, and religion. Subsequently, the children performed well due to the inclusivity of multicultural education that accepts many differences without necessarily prejudicing based on race. As such, the affirmation of the language was the vital underwriting element to the accomplishment of the students; thus making them be well-adjusted learners. From the perspective of multicultural education, these children were able to confront the issues of societal power and privileges; thus, challenging racism and other educational biases, and inequitable structures. Furthermore, the children succeeded well in school due to the explicit connections that they made with regard to aspects of identity, power, differences, and educational privileges (Nieto & Bode, 2012). This belief strongly anchors on the view of multicultural education as being for everyone regardless of his or her language, race, religion, social class, sexual orientation, or gender. Additionally, the success was achieved through the support from the educators who demanded the use of native language in providing instructions to their children, to protect their native ethnic identity within their children. These children from European immigrants did not allow multicultural differences stand between them and their educational success. Importance of multicultural education to all children Multicultural education is significant to all children from the perspective that aspects of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or even the language discriminations do not influence it. Multicultural education is also not directed at one group of students given that its development was a direct outgrowth of civil rights movements in response to ethnocentrism, racism, and linguicism in education. According to Nieto & Bode (2012), the inequities in multicultural education still exist specifically for the African American, American Indian, and Asian students. However, multicultural education seeks to incorporate everyone in the educational sector by seeking to overcome the barriers of racism and race. Subsequently, the conceptualization of multicultural education helps in the setting of various goals such as tackling of inequality and promotion of educational access, provision of apprenticeship to students to become critical and productive societal members, and raising the achievement of all students through the provision of high quality and equitable education. Multicultural education also enhances the establishment of social justice in public schools. During the immigration period, the discrimination that the immigrants faced were partly due to the presence of social injustices. However, with multicultural education, the society through policy makers has been able to invoke the aspect of social justice. Based on this aspect, education for immigrant children has been challenged, confronted, and misconceptions or untruths that led to structural inequality disrupted. The social justice has disrupted social injustice issues related to social class, race, and gender; thus, presenting children and teachers with the perspective to work for fairness and equality in schools. Multicultural education has also led to the provision of education resources to students through social justice, in order for them to learn to their fullest capacity. Additionally, it has led to the creation of a safe school atmosphere that is barren of discrimination of whatever form; hence, the reformation of the school policies to allow for provision of equal chance to education (Grigorenko, 2013)). Subsequently, multicultural education has enabled the drawing of various talents among students; hence, the embracing of the critical pedagogy and rejection of deficit perspectives characteristic of the marginalization of education to immigrant students. Finally, multicultural education allows for the creation of a learning environment aimed at the promotion of critical thinking and social change in the society. For the case of the European immigrant children, this would result to the establishment of apprenticeship environments that would have enhanced democracy in the country. Current educational structures that might limit performance of an immigrant child In the US today, immigrant children may be hindered in their search for quality education through structural programs such as early care and education (ECE) program, pre-school program and center-based care program that, despite having substantial short-term benefits to the education sector, have hindered the enhancement rate of education among the immigrants (Banks & Banks, 2010). Multicultural education for the immigrant children is also hindered by the aspect of lack of economic and social resources and the ill equipment of the schools to compensate for initial disparities. Other structural barriers for the immigrant families relates to the affordability, availability and access to the ECE program, in addition to language barriers, distrust of government programs among undocumented immigrants, and bureaucratic complexity of the programs. Subsequently, as the immigrant students continue to through the US schooling system, they are hindered by weak relationships between them and the teachers; thus, undermining their academic success. As a consequence, there is a high accumulation rate of these barriers on the students to the extent that the immigrants still have the lowest high school and degree attainment rates; hence, a hindrance to their obtainment of stable employment opportunities in the US (Nieto & Bode, 2012). Conclusion Statistics at the US Immigration Department indicates that approximately one out of five children is an immigrant or born of immigrant parents. However, the attainment of quality education for the immigrants has often been a contentious issue with most people perceiving the older time academic achievement of the European immigrants as a myth. However, from a multicultural education perspective, it is possible to note that there is no myth in this academic success of the immigrants, except for the fact that the success was derived from the upholding of native language, which was demanded to be the one used in teaching the immigrant children (Johnson, 2008). This led to the use of English in teaching European immigrants, making them excel than other races. Subsequently, multicultural education is perceived as having numerous benefits to the immigrants, particularly in enhancing their attainment of education in the US. However, the limitations in economic resources, social and educational resources have always hindered the participation of most immigrant children in literacy activities. References Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. G. (2010). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Grigorenko, E. L. (2013). U.S. immigration and education: Cultural and policy issues across the lifespan. Howe, W. A. (2014). Becoming a multicultural educator: Developing awareness, gaining skills, and taking action. Johnson, D. (2008). How myths about language affect education: What every teacher should know. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Nieto, Sonia, & Bode, Patty. (2012). Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, Student Value Edition. Allyn & Bacon. Read More