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Nichole Mendes
SLIFE & ESL Teacher
Framingham Public Schools
ncm46@drexel.edu

“Our schools reflect the sociocultural and sociopolitical context in which we live. This context is unfair to many young people and their families and the situations in which they live and go to school, but teachers and other educators do not simply have to go along with this reality. I believe one of our primary roles as educators is to interrupt the cycle of inequality and oppression. We can do this best by teaching well and with heart and soul.”

-Sonia Nieto,

Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, 2004

I have been working with SLIFE since the beginning of my teaching career and developed a passion for understanding how education travels transnationally and cross-culturally with the arrival of ELL and SLIFE in U.S. public schools. I was interested in furthering my understanding of comparative education and of all the programs I considered, Drexel's M.S. Global and International Education stood out to me. This capstone has given me a deeper understanding of the needs of the students I work with everyday. It has provided me with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to to educate and support them to reach the goals of graduation and a better life!

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The influx of refugees and asylees seeking a home in the United States is increasingly placing demands on schools to meet SLIFE needs. SLIFE experience challenges in academia (e.g., low literacy, behind in content knowledge, limited English), in non-academic (social-emotional issues, past trauma, obligations outside of school, stress of transitioning to living new place, responsibilities outside of school that affect well-being) and culturally (collectivistic ways of thinking and learning, expectations for student and teacher roles, values that conflict with American standards), which inhibit their ability to graduate and to adapt to their new home in the United States. The reasons behind these challenges vary and may include factors such as poverty, migration, war and other violence, natural disasters, refugee status, and ethnic, religious, or political persecution (DeCapua & Marshall, 2014; Hos, 2014). Because there does not seem to be a cessation of young people seeking refuge in the U.S., American schools must adapt to support the specific needs of SLIFE as they face unique academic, non-academic and cultural obstacles in their new home.

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1.     How do the lack of basic education and literacy skills impact the academic achievement of SLIFE?

2. What types of non-academic challenges do SLIFE encounter?

3.How do the cross-cultural and academic transition affect SLIFE?

4.     What are teachers’ roles in SLIFE success?

5.     Are there school programs or services that are effective for assisting SLIFE?

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The theoretical framework of grounded theory to conduct the data analysis. Creswell (2013) adds that researchers can use grounded theory when looking at a general explanation to a problem. Research about SLIFE is new and broad and thus the author sought to find general themes “grounded’ in the current data about SLIFE. Grounded theory was appropriate for this study because this study sought to adjust, add to, or create new theories about SLIFE needs in and outside of school.

Twenty peer-reviewed articles and journals were carefully selected based on studies pertaining to SLIFE, and contained keywords such as SLIFE, newcomers, interrupted education, limited formal education, refugees, and migrant students. Sixteen of the articles were from the United States, three were based out of Australia and one was from Canada, since the issues involving students with interrupted education is global and not exclusive to the United States. The data was analyzed using grounded theory in order to find the most common themes, issues, and gaps in the current literature about SLIFE. Initially, the author openly coded the data by reading each article and extracting raw data that related to the five research questions. Then, the author collected indicators like words, phrases, statements, and observations and constantly compared the data. Next, the data was categorized into the five sections and common words, topics, and themes were identified. Then, the author read each article a second time while considering the ‘hidden’ themes that arose from data. Finally, the researcher generated subcategories under each of the five research questions to state the emerging themes from the data for each question.

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There are multiple recommendations that teachers, schools, and policy-makers can utilize to grow the number of SLIFE reaching academic success and graduating from public schools. SLIFE face a whirlwind of challenges and changes when they enter formal schooling and schools may offer the best opportunity for their academic, social-emotional and acculturation success in their location of resettlement. Recommendations include researched-based curriculum specific to SLIFE, training for teachers in culturally-responsive teaching, quality mental health and social services, and action research on methods for pedagogy and support of SLIFE that lead to graduation.

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1.  How do the lack of basic education and literacy skills impact the academic achievement of SLIFE? The main academic challenges that SLIFE face based on the literature were high risk of failure, gaps in print and literacy and numeracy, and difficulties in acquiring English according to 18 of the 20 articles.

2. What types of non-academic challenges do SLIFE encounter?
The first theme of non-academic challenges that was discussed in each article was the psychological, socio-emotional, and behavioral struggles of SLIFE. The word trauma was used in 17 of the 20 articles because of the significant effect that traumatic experiences encountered by SLIFE have on their learning. Other words that arose various times throughout the articles were PTSD, stress, grief, violence, depression, anger. The second theme was impoverishment which studies show to have a high link to poor academic performance (Li, Allen, & Casillas; 2017). Additionally, poverty forces students to have additional responsibility such as outside work, a significant amount of work inside the home, or caring for younger siblings.

3.How do the cross-cultural and academic transition affect SLIFE?
The two major themes that arose from the literature were cultural dissonance and the role of community. Cultural dissonance is “not understanding the expectations, discourse styles, and modes of school-based ways of thinking and learning in U.S. educational institutions leaving [SLIFE] feeling confused and alienated (DeCapua & Marshall, 2015). Fourteen of the 20 spoke specifically of the challenges of acculturation and used the word stress or phrases like culture shock, difficult transition, and cultural dissonance. Schools are the main context where students get acclimated to their relocation community (Hos, 2016). The importance of community was discussed in ten of the articles as a major role in the academic and social success of SLIFE. Key words and phrases like connectedness, feeling accepted, and social isolation were used to describe the role that community played in the lives of newly-arrived SLIFE.

4.     What are teachers’ roles in SLIFE success? Two major themes were expressed throughout the articles: how teachers’ levels of cultural competency affect SLIFE and how teachers’ training and knowledge about SLIFE pedagogy affect SLIFE academic success. The word frustration was used by six articles to express how teachers often felt inept to effectively teach SLIFE. Birdman and Tran (2017) found that classrooms with teachers who had discriminatory attitudes and saw SLIFE as inferior to other immigrant groups experienced a higher volume of behavioral incidents, student distress, and less engagement than classrooms with multicultural teachers.

The themes that teachers faced obstacles, were not trained, underprepared or inexperienced to meet the academic and nonacademic needs of SLIFE was clear in that these words or phrases were found in all but three of the articles.  These eleven articles explained how SLIFE teachers, even those trained in second language pedagogy, were not trained in early reading instructional methods or filling deep academic content gaps. Additionally, SLIFE teachers were not trained in meeting the social and psychological needs of SLIFE such as practices that engaged students unfamiliar with the norms of school or addressing mental health and behavioral issues.

5.     Are there school programs or services that are effective for assisting SLIFE? The data from 18 articles revealed that although there are programs and services for SLIFE, schools lack consistency in academic programs, curriculum and resources, availability of academic supports, and access to non-academic supports like mental health services. Fourteen of the 20 articles used phrases like limited resources, lack of meaningful materials, without adequate instructional materials, no culturally relevant curriculum, limited funding, and no age-appropriate print literacy. Additionally, the articles stressed that there were no policies and no curriculum which forced the use of mostly teacher-created materials. Fifteen articles stressed the critical need for counseling services specifically for SLIFE. The gap in mental health services for SLIFE delays academic progress and schools simply do not have the supports in place to successfully serve SLIFE.