Education Policy and Social Integration:

EDUCATION POLICY AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION:Globalization, Migration, and the Debate on the insignificance of Race/Ethnicity

Globalization• Zygmunt Bauman (1998): globalization is “annulment of

temporal/spatial distances.” • Marshall McLuhan: “global village” – a world compressed

in time and space by new technologies of communications.

• Ulrich Beck (2000): "Globalization…denotes the process through which sovereign national states are criss-cross and undermined by transnational actors with varying prospects of power, orientations, identities and networks.“

International Migration• At least 160 million people were living outside their country of birth or citizenship in 2000 (Martin & Widgren, 2002).

• Why move? World System Theory• Structure of global markets: core vs. peripheral• Economic penetration by multinational companies• Cultural penetration of capitalist institutions (cultural link, life style)• In the peripheral, raw materials and labor under global market

control mechanization, cash crop farming• Surplus labors are socially and economically uprooted people who

are prone to migration (push factor)

Immigrant Groups

• http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html

Contemporary Immigration

• Legal immigrants: about 2,200 daily (Martin & Medgley 1999).

• Since the Immigration Act of 1965, over 20 million legal immigrants have arrived (Alba & Nee 2003).

• Unauthorized entries: about 5,000 each day • Illegal immigrants: about 1,000 escaped apprehension.• K-12 schooling: 20% are immigrants’ children.

U.S. Population by Race/Ethnicity

1970 2000

2050

White83%

White70%

White52%

Black11% Black

13%

Black13%

Hispanic 5%

Hispanic 25%

Hispanic 13%

Asian/other 1%

Asian/other11%

Asian/other 5%

(projected)

Immigrant Student’s Country/Region

Europeanimmigrants

Mexican Farm workers

Asian restaurant worker

Immigrant Assimilation in the U.S.

• Acquired (not hereditary) nationality• Common and equal participation in economic activities• Citizenship and equal participation and political affairs• Common and equal participation in social and cultural

activities

• Do immigrants assimilate?

What is Assimilation?• Robert Park & Ernest Burgess (Chicago school): Assimilation is “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them a common cultural life.”

Social Assimilation• the process by which peoples of diverse racial origins and different cultural heritages, occupying a common territory, achieve a cultural solidarity sufficient at least to sustain a national existence.

• Acculturation refers to the process of minority group’s adoption of the cultural patterns of the host society.

• Entrance of the minority into the social cliques, clubs, and institutions of the core society at the primary group level (cross-cultural friendship and intermarriage).

Structural Assimilation• the process by which immigrant groups achieve parity with natives in socioeconomic and other structural measures.

• Common types:• Economic assimilation• Educational assimilation• Spatial assimilation

Classical Theory of Assimilation• Sociologists in the 1940s-60s:

• Lloyd Warner, Leo Srole, Milton Gordon• “Straight-line” assimilation

• Assimilatory change is largely one directional: the individuals who are assimilating refashion themselves to fit into the mainstream, discarding most aspects of their ethnic culture and replacing them with their mainstream equivalents.

• An “unlearning” process by immigrants (Warner & Srole, 1945).• The mainstream culture is the behavioral repertoire of the WASP

(white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) upper-middle class (Gordon, 1964).

• Ethnic minorities “were mixing into the tomato soup, enriching the taste, but not significantly altering the substance” (Hungtington, 2004)

Segmented Assimilation Theory• Portes and Zhou (1993):“Into what sector of American society a particular immigrant group assimilate?”

Segmented Assimilation Theory• Straight-line assimilation no longer valid because of

• The skin color of contemporary immigrants• The new hour-glass economy

• Three paths to assimilation• growing acculturation and parallel integration into white

middle-class• Opposite direction to permanent poverty and assimilation

into underclass• Rapid economic advancement with deliberate

preservation of the immigrant community’s values and tight solidarity

Social Cleavage and Ethnic Cohesion

April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted four white Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots• It is also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest and

Rodney King Uprising.• Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over

the six days following the verdict.• Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred.• Property damages topped roughly US$1 billion. • In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more

were injured.

Koreans in the riot• During the riots, a call was put out on Korean-language

radio stations for volunteer security guards. Many Koreans then rushed to Koreatown.

• Television images showed two Korean merchants firing pistols repeatedly from a military stance, and Korean guards firing AR-15s from store rooftops.

• There was a lot of activity to protect the Korean businesses, especially in Koreatown.

Modes of Incorporation

Receptive Indifferent HostileGovernment

Policy

Societal Response

Prejudiced(PR)

CoethnicCommunity

Immigrant Group:

Receptive Indifferent Hostile

Nonprejudiced(N-PR) PR N-PR PR N-PR

W S W S W S W S W S W S

Major challenge to the Segmented Assimilation Theory:

Which groups have followed downward mobility?

Black Immigrants• Immigrant- and native-Black relations

• Many from the Caribbean, not from Africa• Similar neighborhoods• Similar schools• Black immigrants saw themselves as superior to African

Americans• Self-identification & self-presentation

• Use language and accent to differentiate from black Americans

• Create distinctive styles of dress; wear certain ornaments• Identification involves fighting discrimination and unfair

treatment

Mary Waters, Black Identities• Shelly was a 25-year-old woman from Barbados who

worked as a cashier in a 7-Eleven store• A black American woman attempting to steal food said to

her, “Come on, you are my sister, you are from down South, from Georgia too.”

• Shelly: “No, I am Caribbean.”• The manager who was Jamaican: “No, you are a West

Indian, not a Caribbean.” “Caribbean included Spanish people.”

• Black immigrant achievement (Douglas Massey, et al. 2007)

• Since 1960s, emphasis on diversity in college admissions.• In 1999, 13% of African Americans were 1st or 2nd

generation immigrants, but they made up 27% among black freshmen entering selective colleges (e.g., Harvard).

• Education: African immigrants are the most educated group.

• Henry Louis Gates pointed out at a reunion of black Harvard alumni that the majority present were of West Indian and African origin, not decedents of African American slaves: “I just want people honest enough to talk about it.”

Black immigrants, cont’d

Mexican Immigrants• Cross-sectional analysis found Mexican students to

have the lowest educational performance of all groups.• However, cohort analysis found educational progress

of Mexican immigrants (Smith, 2003).

Ethnic Boundaries (Alba, 2005)

• Fredrik Barth (1969): social boundary• Ethnicity is conceived as a boundary with both symbolic

and social aspects. It is a distinction that individuals make in their everyday lives and that shapes their actions and mental orientations towards others

• Bright and blurred boundaries• Depends on whether there is no ambiguity about membership.

• Minority-majority boundary• The nature of the boundary affects fundamentally the processes by

which minorities gain access to the opportunity afforded by the majority

Ethnic Boundaries, cont’d• Boundary crossing

• By individuals, no effect in the boundary• Boundary blurring

• Clarity of social distinction becomes clouded• Boundary shifting

• Social relocation of boundary• Former outsiders are transformed into insiders

• Sites for boundary construction• Birthright citizenship – e.g., Turks in Germany; Mexican in U.S.• Religion• language

Boundary Shifting and Blurring in U.S. History

• 1920s efforts by WASPs to exclude Jews from spheres of privilege. For example, Harvard imposed a quota on Jews, followed by other elite institutions.

• Italian children used to have the worse academic outcomes, with high dropout rates

• The Irish were once portrayed with “a pug nose, an underslung jaw,” and are always drunk.

• Washington Post: “Will Americans vote for a black man?”

Evidence of Receding Ethnic and Religious Distinctions

• Name change• Old generation:

• Margarita Cansino Rita Hayworth• Emanuel Goldenberg Edward G. Robinson

• New generation:• Robert De Niro, Al Pacino• Barbara Streisand

Evidence of Contemporary Assimilation

• Language assimilation• Socioeconomic position• Residential change• intermarriage

Speak a Language Other than English at Home

1995

01020304050607080

Foreign-born

US-born w immparentsNative

75%

60%

3%

Educational Assimilation• Educational Achievement

• 1.5 generation and 2nd generation often have superior education attainment to natives

• Strict parenting / belief in education• More years in America, more similar work habits to native

whites• Oppositional identity may be a threat among some groups• Human capital immigrants’ children

• surpass white children• Labor immigrants’ children

• surpass their parents

Who is marrying whom?• New York Times Reporthttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/29/us/20110130mixedrace.html?ref=us

Social Identities“ An identity is a conception of the self, a selection of

physical, psychological, emotional or social attributes of particular individuals.”

- Virgina Dominguez

“identity is a relational concept; it implies a relationship between one group and an Other or Other, whether real or imagined, whether clearly specified or not… In some instances, the Other is clearly specified and the relation is that of ‘us’ vs. ‘them.’”

- Kian Woon Kwok

Multiple Identities

1. Foreign National Origin - they recognize themselves as part of their ethnic culture

Examples: Jamaican, Nicaraguan, Cambodian.

2. Hyphenated American Identity - they recognize a single-foreign national origin (an acceptance of both cultures.

Examples: Cuban-American, German-American.

3. Plain American National Identity - without a hyphen.Examples: American

4. Pan-ethnic Minority Group Identity - denationalized identificationExamples: Hispanic, Latino, black, and Asian.

Ethnic Identity • Race/Ethnicity Project by the University of Washington

(youtube)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDz3BJDPXHA• Rejecting the Color Lines (NYT slides)http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/01/30/us/20110130_MIXED-9.html• How a multiracial individual is countedhttp://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/02/10/us/10count-graphic-sub2.html?ref=us

How did assimilation occur?• Structural change after WW II (Alba & Nee, 2003):

• Civil Rights legislation to outlaw discrimination and confer on nonwhites equal rights of citizenship.

• Change in immigration law ending the national quota system and opened legal immigration to non-Europeans on an equal footing.

• Integration of the armed forces, a mainstream institution.• Integration in elite educational institutions

Education policies that facilitate social integration

• Affirmative action in higher education• Bilingual education• Multicultural curriculum• Inclusion policies towards undocumented children

Bilingual Education• 1968 Bilingual Education Act provided funding for

instruction in students’ native tongue.• 1974 Lau v. Nichols provided funding for bilingual

education for children of Chinese ancestry.• Under the No Child Left Behind Act, parents are given the

choice to enroll their children in a Bilingual Education program, with a three year "time-limit."

• After three consecutive years, English-only instruction must commence, regardless of the student's English speaking ability.

Lau v. Nichols (1974)• In the San Francisco, California, there were 2,856

students of Chinese ancestry in the school system who did not speak English. Only about 1,000 of them were given supplemental courses in the English language.

• Possible solution: • Teaching English to the students of Chinese ancestry who do not

speak the language. • Giving instructions to this group in Chinese.• Other, e.g., bilingual education

• Petitioners ask only that the Board of Education be directed to rectify the situation.

• Supreme Court decision: • “There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with

the same facilities … for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed form any meaningful education.”

• Application of the Civil Rights legislation.

Bilingualism in Higher Education(Chronicle, 6/1/2010)

• The president of Kaplan College's campus in California, 7 miles from the Mexican border was fired over his handling of an incident in which students were told they could face academic sanctions if they spoke Spanish in class.

• After the president was dismissed, the college's language policy was clarified: "Our policy is that instruction is in English but conversations can take place in any language. We don't discipline students for speaking other languages in class."

Proposition 227 in CA• In 1998, California voters approved by an overwhelming

margin Proposition 227, the English for the Children initiative.

• primary proponent, millionaire Ronald Unz • Limit bilingual education to one year.• Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the limit is three

years.

Education policies that facilitate social integration

• Affirmative action in higher education• Bilingual education• Multicultural curriculum• Inclusion policies towards undocumented children

Multiculturalism• “a movement opposed to the monocultural hegemony of

Eurocentric values, which has generally resulted in the marginalization of other ethnic and cultural values.” (J.C. Early, 1995)

• The United States is not a society with a single national culture. It is instead a mosaic, a salad, or even a “tossed salad.”

Multicultural Education (Banks & Banks, 2004)

• Multicultural education grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

• It had a significant influence on educational institutions as ethnic groups demanded the schools reform their curricula to reflect their experiences, histories, cultures, and perspectives.

• Courses and programs in 1960-early 70s• focusing on holidays, ethnic celebrations, and single-group studies.• Feminists pushed for revision of textbooks• mainstreaming of children with disabilities

Characteristics of the CA History-Social Science Framework

History-Social Science Framework, cont’d

Curriculum on National Identity(see handout)

To understand this nation’s identity, students must: • Recognize that American society is and always has been

pluralistic and multicultural, a single nation composed of individuals whose heritages encompass many different national and cultural backgrounds.

• From the first encounter between indigenous peoples and exploring Europeans, the inhabitants of the North American continent have represented a variety of races, religions, languages, and ethnic and cultural groups.

• Teachers have an obligation to instill in students a sense of pride in their individual heritages.

• Students must recognize that whatever our diverse origins may be, we are all Americans.

Education policies that facilitate social integration

• Affirmative action in higher education• Bilingual education• Multicultural curriculum• Inclusion policies towards undocumented children

• Texas denied undocumented children the right to a free public education

• In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court invalidated the Texas law as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

• 14th Amendment: “No State shall deny ... to any person … the equal protection of the laws.”

• Students could not be blamed for the actions of their undocumented parents

• Denying access to education will create a permanent underclass

U.S. Supreme Court: Plyler v. Doe (1982)

Remaking the U. S. mainstream

• Racial and ethnic inclusion as a social value• tolerance of visible cultural difference (e.g., Sikh turbans)

The Role of the State• Question: Both the United States and France guarantee their immigrants equal citizenship rights. How do these rights differ in educational practice? (e.g., girls wearing head scarves)

The Role of the State• Question: Both the United States and France guarantee their immigrants equal citizenship rights. How do these rights differ in practice?

• France• All French citizens have equal rights• The Republic places high value on the French culture.• The state should not make any distinctions based on ethnic origins.• Immigrants who embrace French culture are accepted as French.• The principle of laicite in public education (“foulard” controversy)• Immigrants have lower achievement than natives (PISA).