The Global Village.

Migration and Education

Our planet has become one global village. This is due not only to technological advancements such as E-mail, faxes, and cellular phones, but also, and equally important, because of global migration. While new computer technologies and satellite communication have made it possible to exchange ideas without face-to-face communication, global migration across and within national borders has made it possible to exchange ideas in person, as well. These interactions among people who do not speak each other's languages and who do not have similar historical or cultural roots are challenging. The challenges multiply if the individuals are not provided with the necessary knowledge and tools.

For example, educators all over our global village are facing challenges associated with effectively providing culturally and linguistically appropriate education to recent immigrants. Some educators may know a lot about the culture and language of the immigrant children and families they are serving, while Others may not. Some educators may, regrettably, hold negative preconceptions about children from specific ethnic, cultural, and / or linguistic groups, and consequently have low expectations for these children. The result is further marginalization. While other educators may truly believe that every immigrant child is fully competent, they may lack the knowledge and strategies needed to help these children reach their full potential. Most educators believe in cultural pluralism, participatory democracy in a civic society, inclusiveness, and variations in child-rearing practices. However, they do not always know how to translate their idealistic philosophy into day-to-day actions, especially when confronted with culturally and linguistically different children and families. Thus, all of us in this global village need some support to work with immigrant children and families. This special issue of Childhood Education is meant to provide a measure of that needed support.

In this issue, a community of learners swap stories about working with immigrant children and families. This dialogue will be continued in forthcoming issues of Childhood Education, as I received far too many articles to print in a single issue. This theme, I am happy to say, generated interest across international borders. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anarella Cellitti, Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education, at the College of Education, Texas A&M University at Kingsville, for helping me reach out to many international scholars, and for reading and providing input on some of the earlier manuscripts.

My contribution as an editor of this special issue was enriched, I believe, by my own experience as an immigrant. Furthermore, in an interesting conjunction of life events, my sister and her family immigrated to the United States just at the time when I was editing the manuscripts for this issue. They lived with me for four and a half months while they looked for jobs and a place to live. As I helped them get settled, I found myself facing many of the challenges discussed in the manuscripts I was then editing.

My sister's family and I were continuously strategizing, collaborating, and exploring various community resources in order to optimize our limited resources of time, energy, money, and tangible goods. We depended on our extended family, friends, and colleagues for support. Our goals were to: 1) design income-generating activities until we found suitable professional jobs, 2) find quality higher education on a limited budget, 3) obtain good health insurance that adequately covered all family members, 4) learn driving skills, and 5) learn the multiple other skills (far too many to enumerate here) necessary to adjust effectively in a new country. All these goals and challenges are faced by immigrants around the world, and are addressed by the authors in this theme issue.

As I worked on this issue, I found myself making specific suggestions to the authors that were drawn from the daily life challenges I encountered with my new immigrant family. As a result, I was able to guide the authors toward a common organizational framework, and identify common themes across the articles.

Common Organizational Framework

The articles on immigrants and schooling reported in this theme issue, as well as in the forthcoming issues, have the following underlying organizational framework in common:

1. All the articles have a historical, cultural, social, philosophical, conceptual, and/or theoretical framework.

The authors attempt to provide readers with the background and appropriate context from which to examine immigrants and their education. For example, programs and services for immigrant groups are discussed within the context of a people's history, culture, social lifestyle, and philosophical belief systems, such as those of the Roma, Masaii, Hmong, and Chaldean populations. Other articles, from Australia, South Africa, and Hong Kong, focus on: 1) the history of immigration in the country; 2) national policies on immigration, refugees, and cultural diversity; 3) national identities intertwined with culture, ethnicity, and social structure, and how they are influenced by immigrants and refugees; and 4) the influence on migration of nations' rebuilding and/or reunification. This framework helps readers understand the rationale behind the authors' recommendations.

Other contributors examine the issue of migration and schooling using a conceptual framework, such as a home-school-community collaboration model (e.g., Comer's model and university-elementary school collaboration), a model of bi-directionality in learning through relationship building, a cross-cultural communication model, and a model on accommodation for assimilation of immigrants. All these models have in common the strands of compassion, sensitivity, effective communication, trust, acceptance, assimilation, respect for differences, and true collaboration of all stakeholders.

Still other authors examine the issue within a theoretical framework. For example, a number of authors take a post-modern perspective, giving voice to the marginalized immigrant children and their families. One author takes a phenomenological approach to assist us in empathizing with the immigrant.

2. Every article focuses on educational practices at the classroom, school, or governmental level that are effective, desirable, and appropriate for immigrant children and families.

All articles are grounded in educational practices that are based on empirical research and / or best practices and in which the authors themselves have directly participated. The authors' expertise brings authenticity and credibility to their message. Furthermore, all of them have elaborated upon their main message with suitable descriptions, examples, specific strategies, or additional resources, wherever it was necessary and appropriate. This common framework will help readers develop elaborate schema in order to implement recommended practices.

3. All of the authors have tried to communicate the implications and/or recommendations from their specific contexts for similar settings.

All of the articles, collectively, communicate two overarching principles. The first principle is that when trying to meet the needs of immigrant children and families, there is no one "cookie cutter" approach that fits all groups. Their approaches are instead tailor-made to the specific ethnic groups that they serve, and are uniquely designed to fit their educational settings. The second principle is that the authors have identified deeper level concepts that can be extrapolated and transported from their contexts to similar contexts in other settings.

Common Content Themes

All of the articles in this issue, as well as those scheduled for forthcoming issues, will communicate the following common strands regarding global immigration and schooling:

1. Individuals and groups migrate for multiple reasons; these all affect individuals' adjustment and education process differently.

The data gathered in these articles report varied reasons for leaving a home country. For example, some voluntarily migrate hoping for a better education, quality of life, and future for their children. Others are forced to migrate due to war or political unrest and instability, and so carry with them economic and psychological stress. Some migrate because of the birth of a new nation, reunification of territories, or dismantling of apartheid. Still others continuously migrate, as has been their lifestyle for centuries. For example, the Roma continuously migrate, often because others shun them; the Masaii migrate because they are continuously seeking new pastures for their herds.

Given these multiple reasons for migration, immigrants necessarily differ in how they adjust to their new country or territory. This variation is also true of their initial receptivity to the new educational system and their eventual success within that system.

2. Immigrants all over the world are marginalized groups, at least initially.

Immigrants may be marginalized because they have a limited knowledge of the mainstream society, or because of limited access to the new society's resources, power, and status. These articles report that those who migrate are further marginalized if they have: 1) limited proficiency in the language of their host country, 2) very little or no economic resources, 3) limited proficiency in the vocational and technical skills necessary to find well-paying jobs, and 4) an education that is limited or not exactly suitable for the host country.

The articles that discuss the non-Western children and families (e.g., the Hmong, Chaldeans, Arabs, Somalians, Iranians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians) report that these peoples often face additional setbacks if they immigrate to the Western nations. They are culturally and ethnically very different from the majority society of the West. Furthermore, they may look very different from the majority, thus arousing dormant racial prejudices. European immigrants do not face these additional setbacks when they immigrate to Western societies.

Some articles also refer to internal migration of disenfranchised groups within a country. Such groups include the aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders in Australia, Roma in different European countries, mainland Chinese in Hong Kong, more than a dozen linguistically different groups in South Africa, Masaii in Kenya, and the urban street children who have migrated to rural India.

3. Immigrant groups gain resilience when they receive support from those who have immigrated before them, especially if the support system is composed of members of their families, their specific sub-ethnic community, friends, or people from their original hometown.

Many articles show that those immigrants who have close family ties display strong family loyalties. These closely meshed family networks in their new country then act as immigrants' safety nets and their psychological capital during all the stresses they face when adjusting to a new location. Families who receive this social support from their kin, friends, and ethnic community members are then able to sustain the elements of traditional child rearing practices and beliefs they value, thus contributing to their resiliency.

4. We need to hear from multiple voices in order to understand the links between global migration and schooling.

The articles in this theme issue and in the forthcoming issues provide a kaleidoscope of views. Both insiders' and outsiders' voices on global migration and schooling are offered. Many of the authors who are themselves immigrants provide authentic and credible insights. The articles by outsiders, those who are not immigrants, are the products of detailed research and firsthand experience working with immigrants.

These articles represent voices from many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Kenya, South Africa, and Hong Kong. They also present the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including the voices of children, adolescents, parents, teachers, school administrators, school consultants, social workers, counselors, community leaders, community agency personnel, teacher educators, other faculty from higher education, immigrant students in higher education, and researchers.

5. Educational settings that are effective in reaching immigrant children and their families are those that are comprehensive and directly address their needs.

It becomes very clear, as one reads through all the articles on global migration and schooling, that if an educational setting provides only academic instruction and nothing more, then it does very little for immigrant children and their families. These articles amply indicate that educational institutions with a holistic philosophy and practices are able to address all of their students' developmental needs. For example, schools need to offer institutional avenues through which children and adolescents cart socially interact, overcome their loneliness, and develop close friendships across racial, ethnic, and linguistic barriers. Schools also need to figure out creative adaptations in their homework requirements, ones that address the extraordinary work schedules of many immigrant adolescents, without compromising high academic expectations.

At times, educational institutions are rigid, expecting that all will fit into their existing system. They should instead strive for reasonable modifications that accommodate the immigrant learner. Schools that succeed are those that provide intensive programs in English as a foreign language, have many translators for children and their families, and provide oral and written communication in multiple languages.

Many authors go on to discuss the need for schools to offer family support programs. Such programs should not merely offer newsletters or group meetings focused exclusively on the child's academic progress, but also offer the necessary services and skills training to help immigrant families succeed in a new country. Immigrant families need to learn: the languages of the host country, skills to find better-paying jobs, how to drive a car, banking procedures, how to apply for loans, and where to find affordable health care and housing.

Effective family outreach programs are likely to involve multiple collaborations with the political, economic, religious, cultural, and social organizations to which these immigrant groups belong. It is a challenge for any single educational institution to serve the multiple needs of these families. Schools can be successful through interagency collaboration, and by closely working with individuals who are valued and respected leaders in the immigrant community (e.g., religious leaders, well-established businessmen, elders, and respected teachers).

To help immigrant children reach their full potential, we need to have whole schools that serve the whole child, whole families, and whole communities. Each component must work together to design programs that best serve the immigrants.

Conclusion: Benefits for You

The information in these articles can be very useful if you are a faculty member teaching courses on international education, multicultural education, the education of marginalized populations, family life education, home-school-community partnerships, English as a second language, or English as a foreign language. Teacher education programs, despite their good-faith effort to include diversity curriculum, often do not directly address the unique challenges of new immigrant populations, and they do so for refugees even less often. Therefore, I hope that this theme issue, when used as classroom recommended reading, will provide valuable information and address the aforementioned curricular limitations. Internships that allow educators to work directly with immigrant populations are an excellent way to further heighten the sensitivity of student teachers.

The information offered here also could be very helpful for practitioners in a variety of educational settings. For example, classroom teachers, social workers, counselors, parent coordinators, and administrators can identify specific strategies that they can implement in their respective settings.

Information can empower people to mobilize their inner resources to initiate programmatic changes. For it is true--it does take a village to raise an immigrant child--especially with the extensive worldwide immigration that makes our planet a global village.

Navaz Peshotan Bhavnagri, Guest Editor Navaz Peshotan Bhavnagri is Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.