The United States of America has experienced a flood of immigration in the last fifty years. There are several important trends among refugees around the world that are worth recognizing before focusing on the refugee population in the United States. Europe received 81 percent of requests, with the United Kingdom in first place, followed by Norway and Sweden.
Large numbers of Hungarians in 1956 and Indochinese refugees in the 1970s entered the United States because of the settlement of the U.S. The composition of the refugee population in the United States reveals an important implication for education. Children under the age of 18 accounted for nearly 34 percent of all refugees arriving in the United States in 2009 (Martin, 2010).
According to Portes and Rumbaut (2001), human capital refers to the skills that students and parents bring in the form of. English language proficiency in the United States is a primarily important skill for their educational achievement (Alba & Nee, 2003). Not only Nicaraguan but also Haitian refugees experienced similar unwelcome conditions in the United States.
METHODOLOGY
The role of the qualitative researcher is therefore to provide a framework within which participants can respond in a way that represents their views accurately and thoroughly (Patton, 2002). Although the foreign-born population in the United States reached a record high of 38.1 million in 2007, representing 12.6 percent of the total US, Tennessee is one of the states where such a recent demographic change is taking place.
Walters and Cortes (2010) posit that although these states account for a small portion of the total foreign-born population, they illustrate the “broadened geographic distribution” of the foreign-born, particularly among later entrants. In particular, Nashville had 45 percent of its foreign-born population who had lived in the US. Some of the 60,000 Bhutanese refugees who have been admitted to the United States have recently relocated to Nashville (Echegaray, 2009).
The changing demographics of the foreign-born population in Metropolitan Nashville calls for greater attention to the needs of refugees and newly arrived immigrants. The educational assimilation of K-16 school-aged children among these refugees and newly arrived immigrants especially deserves greater attention because it directly and indirectly affects their economic and social outlook as adults. A total of 485 foreign-born students representing 72 countries of origin attended Nashville State Community College in the spring 1999 semester.
With the instructor's permission, I gave a three-minute classroom presentation about the study and asked those interested in participating to sign up on a piece of paper. It is important to use such a combined approach because this research serves as a pilot study with the end goal of testing the suitability of the interview protocol. An informed research consent document, which was approved by the Vanderbilt University Institutional Review Board, was reviewed and signed by both participants and the interviewer at the beginning of the interview.
By continually comparing the hand-coded data, similarities and differences emerged between refugee and non-refugee immigrant students in each area of the educational assimilation process. I chose not to use computer software for data analysis because I considered six participants to be a fair sample size from which detailed voices of the participants would be heard through organic stories and perspectives.
FINDINGS
For example, two-thirds of non-refugee students lived with both father and mother, while this was the case with only one refugee student. Also, the student's family's tendency to own rather than rent a home was found to be greater among non-refugee student households than among refugee student households. However, the level of prior education and English language skills of the students themselves were comparable between refugee and non-refugee students.
Only one non-refugee student from Korea said that she received more encouragement from her friends and people in the community than from her own family members. Speaking at the group level, refugee and non-refugee students were found to differ largely on two aspects of the “mode” through which immigrant groups are integrated into American society. Almost all non-refugee students mentioned their concentrated ethnic communities in Nashville, while most refugee students did not mention such communities in the area.
Finally, refugee and non-refugee immigrants carry the same risk of facing discrimination in society because of their non-white racial background. The significant impact of the war on the lives of refugee students in their countries of origin is evident from the interviews, while non-refugee students do not recall any such incident. Overall welcoming college atmosphere with subtle discriminatory experiences Both refugee and non-refugee students felt welcome at Nashville State Community College.
Despite their responses without direct discrimination, one refugee student and two non-refugee students recalled subtle discriminatory encounters due to limited English language skills. With the exception of two students, both refugee and non-refugee students worked full- or part-time to contribute to their family income while attending school. Refugee and non-refugee students during the interviews described how their close friends from the same ethnic group were helpful in finding a school and a job.
Overall, the refugee students had higher expectations than the non-refugee students in their educational endeavors. All three non-refugee students expected to obtain a bachelor's degree in their field of study.
DISCUSSION
As we discussed in the previous chapter, virtually all of the students interviewed talked about the various ways in which their family members regularly encouraged them to continue their education. This particular form of cultural capital was the resilience of refugee students, developed in the face of life-historical difficulties that were distinctly different from the experiences of non-refugee immigrant students. Such resilience in education was found to be mainly developed in difficult living conditions and experiences in refugee students' countries of origin.
This finding is consistent with the literature that immigrant students master unique skills, such as a general resilience in the face of hardships and obstacles, and convert them into cultural capital that leads to educational success (Trueba, 2002). Compared to refugee students, overall higher human capital and more favorable family structure among non-refugee students and their families placed them in a better position for educational assimilation in the United States. This resilience was reflected in the continuation and expectation of high levels of education in the United States.
Supporting evidence of the increasing attractiveness of local schools for immigrant students, as seen in the literature review (Szenlenyi & Chang, 2002), was clearly evident in the student interviews. As described in the literature review, Goldstein (1988) observed that teachers were more concerned with classroom order than paying attention to the educational assimilation of Hmong refugee students. Interviews with students revealed that various aspects of social capital may serve as buffers against barriers such as hostile climate, individual discrimination, and time constraints for family survival.
As previously discussed in the findings, the barrier of time constraints placed on students due to their multiple commitments for family survival was found to be explicit, while the barriers of unwelcoming climate and individual discrimination were found to be subtle. A partial difference is that the students in the current study experienced subtle discriminatory attitudes from the people in the community instead of school. Second, teachers appeared to play a significant role in facilitating socialization and educational assimilation of both refugee and non-refugee students, as previously argued in the literature (Hones & Cha, 1999; Trueba et al., 1990).
This may be due to the level of human capital of refugee students and their families, which is generally low when they move to the United States, as noted earlier. In contrast, most non-refugee immigrants have their own established communities and businesses that are geographically and interpersonally accessible in the area.
DESIGN REFINEMENT
How different do you feel about your life here in America compared to where you lived before you moved here. To what extent do you participate in the classroom by asking questions or talking to your teachers? Do you ever think that sometimes it's better to talk to your teachers about something than to your close friends or family?
Do you or your parents own or rent the house or apartment you live in now? Government: Do you know if the majority (eg Sudanese) in America are refugees/asylees, legal immigrants or illegal immigrants. How much do you feel respected for your native language and culture by students at NSCC?
How much do you feel that refugee and immigrant students have learning opportunities where they can interact with English-speaking students at NSCC. How much do you feel respected for your mother tongue and culture by students at school. Do you think that you and other immigrant students have enough interactions with students whose mother tongue is English in your school.
Do you think there is a lot of conflict between different racial and ethnic groups in America in general? What do you think was the main reason why the person treated you that way? To what extent do you participate in the classroom by asking questions or talking to your teachers?
Do you ever think that sometimes it is better to talk to your teachers about something instead of talking to your close friends or family.
