Suchergebnisse

No state has felt the impact of the new immigration more than California, and no institution more than its schools. Fully a third of the nation's 20 million immigrants are concentrated in California, and over a third of the state's schoolchildren speak a language other than English at home. Largely from Asia and Latin America, these new Californians are extraordinarily diverse in their social, economic, and cultural origins. Their children are growing up in a context of prolonged recession and fiscal woes which have fueled public discontent over the presence of immigrants in the state as evidenced by the passage of Proposition 187 in November 1994. Yet for all the political controversy surrounding public funding of education for immigrant children—and even though these children will become a crucial component of the larger economy and society in years to come—very little is known about their educational progress and adaptation patterns to date. The original works assembled in this volume address these complex issues systematically, as well as their implications for educational policy. The expert contributors sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and educational policy analysts bring to the topic a wide range of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Several chapters report new comparative studies on patterns of acculturation and achievement among both U.S.-born and immigrant students. Others focus critically on educational policy and politics, particularly school restructuring reforms and efforts by public school systems to meet the needs of immigrant children.

In this Master thesis, the cities of São Paulo and Oslo are the points of study of Public Policies for unaccompanied minor asylum seeker (UMAs). São Paulo is the first city in Brazil to develop public policies for this population and Oslo is the city that receives most immigrants in Norway. This thesis explores how local governments deal with refugee children through their migratory policies from the perspective of children rights. Through interviews with public and private institutions that work with UMAs and documental analysis of laws and regulations, this study gained comprehension on how these local government respect children rights. In this research I used the CRC (1989) and the UN Guidelines for Refugee Minors to do the analysis of the children rights. This thesis research found how distinct types of public policies demonstrate the concern of the local governments have about the children rights. São Paulo still struggle with the lack of regulation, training of staff and prolonged period of analysis of applications of UMAs for asylum. But the city can count on independent initiatives of public and private institutions to give support to the children. In the case of Oslo, the large tradition of regulations on child reception guarantee that children have their rights respected. However, there is still differences in the treatment and reception of children younger than 15 years and the ones till 18 years old. ; submittedVersion ; M-IR

This article describes the use made of the Internet by immigrant children living in Spain and the opportunities and risks it involves. Specifically, it deals with children from the Maghreb, Ecuador, and Sub-Saharan Africa, three regions which account for a quarter of Spain's foreign-born population. A qualitative methodology was used, based on in-depth interviews with 52 children from these countries and educators from their support centres. Immigrant minors usually access the Internet via their smartphones rather than via computers. They have a very high rate of smartphone use and access the Internet over public Wi-Fi networks. However, they make little use of computers and tablets, the devices most closely associated with education and accessing information. Internet usage is fairly similar among immigrant and Spanish teens, although the former receive more support and mediation from their schools and institutions than from their parents. The Internet helps them to communicate with their families in their countries of origin. As one educator puts it, "they have gone from sending photos in letters to speaking to their families every day on Skype". Some teens, particularly Maghrebis, sometimes suffer from hate messages on social networks.

Increasingly, immigrants and immigration issues are present in family court practice. One underutilized protection available to provide relief to abused, abandoned, and neglected immigrant youth is Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). After providing an overview of the law and regulations concerning SIJS, this article presents the challenges that immigrant youth face in seeking SIJS. By focusing on one hypothetical child, we illustrate how children are treated differently based upon how the child came to this country, what happened once the child arrived here, and whether and when child welfare agency involvement was triggered. Often children who lived through very similar abuse or neglect circumstances will have very different immigration outcomes depending on whether they were found to be in need of state care, as compared to those outside the system (residing with a relative caregiver, homeless, or simply unable to access the child welfare system). In short, a youth's ability to access state courts and secure the necessary state court findings is often left to chance and happenstance. We propose several strategies to increase both flexibility and uniformity as to how these matters are handled by our state courts. Among our recommendations are the need for increased training (both general and SIJS focused), the development of model and standardized policies and tools, and legislative reform.
Practitioner's Key Points:
Provides a definition and overview of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS)
Explains the challenges of immigrant youth, practitioners and judges in establishing eligibility for SIJS for children in need
Offers concrete scenarios to illustrate the problem
Explores solutions that have been implemented in certain jurisdictions, such as training programs, uniform court practices, and special legislation, to facilitate the state court role in SIJS

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
SIJS provides immigration relief to abused, abandoned, neglected, and other children in need—eligibility depends on special state court findings
All SIJS‐eligible children do not have the same ability to access the state courts for relief and to secure the special findings, which leads to many children remaining vulnerable to deportation
Several states have used training, uniform screening tools, model orders, and legislation to reduce the disparate treatment of eligible children depending on their custody circumstances
Additional state and federal reforms can further ensure that all eligible children have access to the state courts and are identified as SIJS‐eligible

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) significantly expanded public insurance eligibility and coverage for children in "working poor" families. Despite this success, it is estimated that over 6 million children who are eligible for public insurance remain uninsured. An important first step for designing strategies to increase enrollment of eligible but uninsured children is to determine how the take-up of public coverage varies within the population. Because of their low rates of insurance coverage and unique enrollment barriers, children of immigrants are an especially important group to consider. We compare the effect of SCHIP eligibility on the insurance coverage of children of foreign-born and native-born parents. In contrast to research on the earlier Medicaid expansions, we find similar take-up rates for the two groups. This suggests that state outreach strategies were not only effective at increasing take-up overall, but were successful in reducing disparities in access to coverage.

Childhood and immigrants : changing ideas at the turn of the century -- Infancy and early childhood -- Grade school years -- Adolescence -- After the doors closed: the effects of restrictive legislation and the depression -- The meaning of immigrant children's experiences

The symbolic and the salient -- Americanization past -- The new immigrants -- Language, identity, and belonging -- Rights, ambivalence, and ambiguities -- Backlash -- More wrongs than rights -- Setting the record straight -- Looking both ways -- A meaningful education

Why is there a native-immigrant education gap in Denmark? And has the gap been reduced over time? This article adds to existing research by examining the explanations behind the existence of the education gap and the development in the gap across time. The education gap is examined by comparing upper secondary completion rates for children graduating from compulsory school between 1990 and 2007. The education production function is estimated as a linear probability model with OLS. The article finds that the gap has narrowed significantly over the past 20 years and that differences in family background explain a large part of the gap. Furthermore, a strong relation between the child's age at arrival and educational performance is found.