Learning Together
Immigrant Students: Assets to the Social Studies Curriculum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rina R. Bousalis
Immigrants come from all over the world to live in the United States for a number of reasons. Of the many who enter the U.S. each year, a greater portion are youth who have little or no ability to speak English and who are placed in K-12 mainstream classrooms. Although the task of teaching social studies to immigrant youth can be daunting for educators, rather than considering newcomers as a hindrance, immigrant students should be viewed as assets to the social studies classroom. Immigrant youth, particularly refugees, who have witnessed conflict and violence in their homeland, possess first-hand knowledge of the geographic, historical, political, and economic causes of events. As social studies is based on perspectives, immigrant students are primary resources from which other students can learn. Since social studies highlights aspects of culture, immigrants can offer insight about their language, religion, and traditions, much of which others generally lack understanding. Immigrant students are pools of knowledge that social studies textbooks cannot replicate. Immigrants should be viewed as enriching resources for the social studies curriculum, as well as individuals who have the potential to inspire others with their knowledge and commended for bringing authenticity to historical and contemporary events and issues. The purpose of this study is to consider ways in which immigrants can benefit the social studies classroom and how students, as well as teachers, can learn from immigrants who come from different backgrounds.
Building Social Cohesion through Schools in Contested Societies: A Case Study from Northern Ireland
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joanne Hughes
Parallel education systems for divided ethnic and religious groups are a feature of contested societies throughout the world. Where such societies seek to promote inter-group reconciliation through schools there is often a tension between promoting social cohesion and respecting the rights of different groups to education their children separately. In Northern Ireland where around 95% of students attend either predominantly Catholic or predominantly Protestant schools, a unique experiment in shared education has been ongoing since the mid-2000s. Shared education promotes curriculum based collaboration between Catholic and Protestant schools and uniquely affords students and teachers from the different school types opportunity for sustained engagement whilst at the same time enhancing educational opportunities. Drawing on an extensive programme of qualitative and quantitative research, this presentation reflects on the impact of shared education. It will argue that the shared education approach has positively influenced the attitudes and behaviours of students and has had benefits at wider community level. Focusing on the latter and contextualised in generative processes theories of social cohesion, a case will be made that distinctive features of shared education, including the legitimisation of inter-group differences, opportunity for sustained inter-group contact and the emphasis on educational outcomes, as well as a conducive legislative and policy framework have enhanced the potential of the model to contribute to peace-building in a society that in many respects remains deeply divided.
Tabunka Kyousei - Ideologies of Multiculturalism and Integration in Japanese Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tomoko Tokunaga, Isabel Saenz Hernandez
Despite the common idea of Japan as a monoethnic territory, the country has a long history of foreign immigration: ‘oldcomers’, that arrived from former Japanese colonies, and a more recent phase of ‘newcomers’. Both have struggled to integrate into Japanese society, that has mainly endorsed policies of invisibilization of minorities and assimilation. This paper analyzes the possibilities and limitations of the rising notion of multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyousei), particularly in education. The term intends to highlight the diversity in Japan, not by othering multiculturalism, but by challenging the concept of ‘Japaneseness’ as homogeneity. We argue that Japanese schools promote equal treatment, disregarding the inequality in resources, needs, and background of students. Contrary to the notion of multicultural coexistence, schools rarely problematize inequality between “Japanese” and “foreigners,” often promoting superficial exchanges between the two. In addition, we argue that schools expect immigrant students to internalize Japanese culture and traditions, rather than developing their heritage language, and perpetuate the dichotomy between who is recognized as Japanese and who is not. The literature shows that those with integration profiles, where both the ethnic and host culture are included, present numerous benefits such as higher self-esteem and wellbeing, and maintaining and developing the heritage language can also foster the acquisition of the host language. Assimilation policies, however, may hinder students from developing these strategies. Finally, we highlight the possibilities of recent change of education policies that now place a bigger focus on the integration of immigrant students, specifically emphasizing the importance of cultural affirmation.
New Students' Influx and Interests in a Four-year Higher Education Institution
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gheorghita Faitar
In light of recent urban developments characterized by a diminished immigrant influx in most American cities, a new students’ case study is accounted for in a four-year higher education institution of upper New York State. In the 2019-2020 academic year, a new immigrant student cohort started in the liberal education department, under the global studies area of specialization. After two years of core courses of general education, students are able to choose their areas of expertise. In this year, a total of eight students followed their interests in global studies. Out of these, two are Americans and the rest of them, six immigrant students coming from Africa, Thailand, and Bhutan. The present study follows these global studies cohort in their efforts of becoming proficient in one of the most demanding subjects for them, i.e. the "Introductory Algebra and Trigonometry". Both American and immigrant students are confronted with difficult tasks; nonetheless, additional educational effort is undertaken by both the instructor and the immigrant students when it comes to be prepared in the core Mathematics education. Steps accounted for in the additional Mathematical preparation are explained in the study.
Diversifying a Student’s Knowledge Base through the Use of Undergraduate Research in the Social Sciences
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carol Strong
Students in higher education seek skills that will allow them to pursue their chosen career path with confidence. However, there are questions about how to best do this. Are universities meant to teach students practical skills to be employed directly in the workforce? Or are they meant to teach students to think? Equally importantly, the question remains about how to train workers for the workforce in an increasingly diverse and globalized world. This paper explores the ways that engaging pre-baccalaureate students in undergraduate research projects (whether using quantitative, qualitative, or hybrid methodologies) has the potential to bring together all of the objectives outlined above. By engaging students in research projects where they are asked to combine their intellectual prowess and innovative tendencies with practical (real-world) issues, students can gain ownership over their own learning process. They moreover come to understand why they learn what they learn, rather than seeing the learning process as disposable and applying to one semester and set of exams. The paper is divided into three parts. Firstly, it highlights the benefits and challenges of mentoring undergraduate research and targets best practices and lessons learned from a career of mentoring undergraduate (qualitative) research projects in the social sciences. Secondly, it articulates the ways in which undergraduate research benefit student researchers and helping them diversify their knowledge base as they approach working within an increasingly globalized world. Finally, it identifies available resources (i.e. the Council on Undergraduate Research) open to faculty mentors ranging from novices to veteran professors.
