Helping Immigrant Children Succeed

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049881

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049882

DOI 10.3726/b16368

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About the author

Krystyna Nowak-Fabrykowski, Ph.D. is Professor of Early Childhood. Her research is related to children’s moral development especially caring dispositions, friendship, heroes, and superheroes. She has published three books and authored or co-authored over forty peer-reviewed articles.

About the book

Helping Immigrant Children Succeed examines current research on the educational development of immigrant children and the unique challenges that they, their parents, and their teachers face. The central argument of this book is that immigrant children will be successful if culturally and developmentally appropriate practices are applied in teaching them. The chapters of this book give an in-depth investigation into handling different challenges such as negotiated identities, transition to a new culture, and different learning styles as well as the role of parents and teachers in helping immigrant children. Helping Immigrant Children Succeed is a must read for the teachers and parents and should be on the reading list for courses on multicultural education.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I.Negotiating Identities

1. The Social and Emotional Development of Immigrant Children

Krystyna Nowak-Fabrykowski

2. Adolescent Immigrants from Japan: Finding Balance in the Formulation of Identity

Mikiyasu Hakoyama

3. The Oppositional Latin@ Gaze: Equipping Latin@ Immigrant Youth with Tools for Self-Empowerment

Marisol Ruiz Gonzalez, Ramona Bell, and Cesar Abarca

Part II.The Process of Transition in the New Culture and Social Adaptation

4. An Identity Development Story

Anjam Chaudhary

5. Transnationalism in Daily Lives of Children in Korean Immigrant Families

Hyun-Kyung You and Yu-Jin Jeong

6. For the Girl Like Me: A Discourse on Personal and Academic Development of a Black West Indian Immigrant Woman

Le Shorn S Benjamin

7. Migrant Children’s Identities and Linguistic Confidence

Aleksandra Kaczmarek Day

Part III.The Role of Parents in Supporting Bilingual Children

8. Children in Immigrant Families from India: Contextual Analysis

Meenal Rana and Kimberly Duarte-Bonilla

9. The Influence of American Media on the Children from Arab Gulf States That Live in the United States and Suggestions for Parents and Teachers around the World

Asma Alshammari

Part IV.The Role of Teachers

10. Teacher’s Perspectives on Working with Children from Diverse Linguistic and Cultural Backgrounds

Katarína Marcineková

11. Images of Immigrant Children: Symbolic Interactionism Perspective

Gil Richard Musolf

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

I would like first to acknowledge the work of contributors for sharing their experiences and valuable ideas. I admire them for their ability to reflect and conduct research projects on the issues that are important to all, since the world is progressively becoming more global.

The authors of the chapters were born in different countries and became concerned with the issues that immigrant children, their parents and teachers are facing. They analyzed the challenges that immigration brings, and offered suggestions that we hope would improve the lives of millions. Many of them were moving many times, some as children, some as adults and some with their own children.

Several people stimulated my work, my colleagues from around the world that I had an honor to meet on international conferences that are too many to name, my Central Michigan colleagues from the Multicultural and Diversity Education Committee for the discussion and my international friends and students.

Finally, but foremost, I wish to thank my children Marta and Olga whose living in four different cultures taught me so much over the last thirty years.

I hope that the experiences and the suggestions presented in this book will answer many questions, improve practice, will stimulate further inquiries and will open future areas of research on best practices of helping immigrant children to succeed.

Krystyna

Introduction

Globalization influences almost all aspects of education. Children from different cultural backgrounds need caring teachers that understand the role of culture in human development, especially brain structure. The new research findings recognize the significant social influences on the brain in the form of protective nurturing and stress-buffering effects by parents and acquisition of language, cultural values, and skills that shape the very structure and function of the brain (Barrrasso-Catanzaro & Eslinger 2016, p. 108). Lam (2006) suggests looking at culture as fluid not static. We should look at how individuals develop and assume particular culture practices and affiliations through their history of engagement in multiple, changing, overlapping, and conflicting communities (p. 216).

In my research, I look at how to help immigrant children to be successful. I have been publishing in this area for most of my professional career. After joining the Central Michigan University, I developed the graduate course “Culturally Responsive Early Childhood Programs,” and added multicultural aspects to all courses I taught because globalization influences almost all aspects of education.