Accuracy, balance, completeness, and fairness are major values emphasized in news coverage; still, the field of journalism struggles with the ideas and ideals of diversity.
Continue reading "What I'm Reading: What Does an Illegal Alien Look Like? " »
By Molly Rojas Collins, Senior Teaching Specialist, Post-Secondary Teaching & Learning
Immigrant and refugee students face a challenging path at the University – a place that often treats their multilingual and multiculturalism as a deficit.
Continue reading "Immigrant & Refugee Students Face Challenges, Bring Strengths" »
By Jeff Manuel, PhD candidate in History at the University of Minnesota. IHRC Affiliated Faculty
As Donna Gabaccia recently pointed out on this site, much of the concern over immigrant education in the U.S. is aimed at teenage high school and college students (e.g. the Dream Act) and ignores the many thousands of younger immigrant children attending mandatory k-12 education. How and what should these younger students be taught? Teachers of younger children—including young immigrants and the children of immigrants—face daunting challenges as they navigate both the educational and social needs of these children and mandatory public education’s historical imperative to Americanize immigrants. Yet in spite of these challenges the elementary classroom is also fertile terrain, where instructors are crafting innovative approaches to teaching young people about their world, no matter where they or their parents were born. In honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to share one such story about, well, my mom.
Continue reading "Immigrants and Education: A View from the Garden on Mother’s Day" »
By Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History and Director, Immigration History Research Center
These days, the “Dream Act� dominates news coverage of immigrant education issues. But while legislators debate the pros and cons of offering in-state college tuition to young immigrants without papers (as ten states already do), educators around the nation face the more mundane, everyday tasks of educating the millions of children--in primary and secondary schools—whose education firmly remains a right. What are their concerns?