In their own right: Immigrant adolescents research the global city
Item
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Title
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In their own right: Immigrant adolescents research the global city
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:b2444c171348:11831
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identifier
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12418
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Creator
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Walsh, Daniel,
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Contributor
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Stacey J. Lee
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Educational sociology | English as a second language | global city | immigrant adolescents | New York City | participatory action research
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Abstract
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The purpose of this dissertation research project is to explore how recently-arrived immigrant adolescents who are English learners (ELs) experience New York City during an era of unprecedented globalization and neoliberal social and economic policies. It explores immigrant adolescents' experiences in the global city (Sassen, 2001) through a qualitative study that incorporates the tenets of both critical ethnography and participatory action research. The study has two overarching questions: 1. How does the context of the global city shape the conditions of the lives of immigrant adolescents who are learning English? 2. How do they understand and respond to these conditions?;To explore these questions, I collaborated with a group of immigrant adolescents who are ELs for one year and assisted them with the design and implementation of their own research projects. Their research questions reflect both their lived experiences as immigrant adolescents in the global city and topics about which they desired to effect change. Such a research design ensured that the co-researchers would receive some degree of reciprocity for their role in the study and that I did not simply "mine" a community for data. Four young women from Haiti, Guinea, Senegal, and Togo completed research projects that addressed the following questions of their own design: 1. What is the nature of cultural, linguistic, and racial conflict at a high school for immigrant youth? 2. How do immigrant students in International and traditional schools feel about their school experiences? 3. How do immigrant adolescent girls negotiate their home culture and culture of the U.S.? 4. How do undocumented high school students negotiate the transition to college and/or work?;The nature of their provocative questions is only the beginning of the insight that this study provides into the lives of immigrant adolescents learning English in the global city. The research findings indicate that legalistic notions of citizenship fail to capture the complexity to citizenship and belonging, that cultural identity in global times is hybrid and unresolved, that a discourse of tolerance depoliticizes the nature of inter-group conflict, and that language-in-testing policy has both cultural and economic implications for immigrant youth. In addition to contributing theoretical and methodological insights about immigrant adolescents learning English, these findings have implications for educational pedagogy and policy as well as broader social and economic policies in global cities.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Urban Education
