Latino Immigrant Students in Spain: Potential Poly-Victims and School Underachievers

Abstract

Evidence suggests that school-age Latino immigrants from low socioeconomic backgrounds are at risk of multiple victimization with serious implications for their mental health and academic competence. This theory-oriented paper proposes that the overlapping of certain characteristics in the status of immigrant have been somehow overlooked or not properly addressed when dealing with immigrants’ academic underachievement in Spain. Further, it considers Latino immigrant students susceptible to suffer more than one form of violence and describes how the acculturation process and social inequality clash with the host country’s values. All this seem to exert too much stress on the family, bringing about patterns of victimization of children and youth that hinder competence in several domains. The inclusion in this paper of some American and Canadian neuroscience studies on attentional deficits are relevant to understand immigrants that struggle in Spanish schools. Finally, it discusses the pernicious effects of poly-victimization and the potential benefits of prevention and intervention programs.