Immigrant Teenagers Research Articles

Korean immigrant teenagers’ literacy practices and identity negotiation through smartphone use

Abstract The computer and online technology world continues to evolve rapidly, with vast improvements in new devices such as smartphones. With these changes, scholarly attention to the impact of mobile technology on literacy development, especially self-based language learning and practice, has also increased. This “virtual space” can create a meaningful motivation for learning and may offer a small yet pertinent support to literacy practices in transnational migrant contexts. The research questions that guided this study were (1) what are the unique mobile literacy practices that Korean teenagers in the US engage in? And (2) how do Korean teenagers in the US reflect upon their local integration and identities through mobile devices? This study draws from new literacies and Norton’s theory of investment and identity. The primary data are semi-structured interviews collected over a three-month period and were analyzed using constant comparison. Findings show that immigrant teenagers’ continued language practices involve their preferable transnational affiliation on social media. Furthermore, findings suggest that participants’ intention to use mobile phones sometimes masks their insecure personality to help them assimilate into a community to which they wish to belong. A better understanding of mobile literacy practices in transnational migrant contexts offers insights for language teachers and educators in the US.

School inclusion, young migrants and language. Success and obstacles in mainstream learning in France and New Zealand

ABSTRACT Inclusive schooling practices that support immigrant students with low language-of-schooling proficiency to actively participate in learning within mainstream contexts is crucial during the newly-arrived phase. The concept of reciprocal integration and its more recent evolution through the inclusive education movement, reframes school-community relationships as negotiable and re-positions young migrants as empowered navigators of new routes into school integration processes. This study conducted between 2017 and 2019 examines how four immigrant teenagers (‘late arrivers’ aged between 13 and 15) navigated mainstream learning in two schools during the newly-arrived phase, in two different educational contexts – France and New Zealand. A key aim is to see where educational conditions and individual learning behaviours intersect, as a way of highlighting how students respond to differing integration variables within these two school systems. Four case studies explore similarities and differences, comparing effects on students’ experiences of integration. Findings identify, describe and explain a set of common best practices for newly-arrived immigrant teenagers in mainstream learning, with implications for teacher education in language-adapted approaches.

Islam, Immigrants, and the Angry Young Man: Laurent Cantet and the “limits of fabricated realism”

My paper juxtaposes Laurent Cantet’s films The Class (2008) and The Workshop (2017) to explore how they are infused with concerns about radical Islam and the place of Muslim immigrants in the West. Both films center on "angry young men" facing class-based marginalization, who are prone to anti-social behavior. In The Workshop, however, a great effort is made to reveal the intellectual potential and moral complexity of the young white French-born Antoine, whose alienation is defined by his attraction to the xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric of the Far Right, whereas viewers of The Class are kept at arm’s length from Souleymane, a Malian immigrant teenager whose nature as a recalcitrant student prone to violent outbursts is interwoven with signifiers emphasizing his Muslim identity. In contrasting these antiheros, I highlight the way Cantet, despite his politically progressive veneer, perpetuates dominant narratives of Muslim immigrants as intractably foreign, which are rooted in colonialism but have experienced a resurgence since 9/11. The cumulative effect of the divergences in these characters’ fates is to depict an angry young Muslim man as innately threatening and "different," unable to assimilate into European culture and drawn inexorably to a tragic end, while an angry young white man embodies great promise, distorted and nearly thwarted by external socioeconomic and cultural factors. Taken together, these films play out western tendencies to marginalize Muslims or reinforce stereotypes of them as inscrutable and alien, while centering, humanizing and valorizing white men.

‘Good residents’ for themselves: psychological screening and cultural imagination of future citizenship in contemporary Israel

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of mental health knowledge in selecting candidates for a high school program for potential immigrant teenagers in contemporary Israel. Analyzing how professional knowledge is applied in the selection procedures subordinated to the national Law of Return, we examine the intrinsic links between the psychological profiling and the cultural imagination of the future citizen. The article demonstrates how experts categorize students’ mental conditions to predict psychological adjustment to the program and draw the boundaries of their potential citizenship, based on the cultural-political criteria of belonging. The selection procedures incorporate two forms of therapeutic governance, functioning simultaneously as a technology of risk management and of subject formation. They promote a unique kind of communal belonging – ‘therapeutic citizenship’, which reflects cultural tendencies in contemporary Israel, and the affective turn in the concept of citizenship. Therapeutic citizenship is based on personal wellbeing and holds value for communal interests.

Intergenerational transmission of gender social norms and teenage smoking

This paper provides evidence of different teenage-smoking dynamics between genders with social progression. In particular, we find that descending from more gender-equal societies makes girls relatively more prone to smoke than those from less gender-equal societies relative to their male counterparts. Using data from over 6,000 second-generation immigrant teenagers sharing culture and institutions from one host country (Spain) but coming from 45 different countries of ancestry, we find that the higher the degree of gender equality in the country of ancestry, the higher the likelihood that girls smoke relative to boys. Our result holds even after we control for parental, sibling, and peer smoking, as well as for country-of-ancestry indicators of economic development and the smoking gender gap, among others.

Does Legal Status Matter for Educational Choices? Evidence from Immigrant Teenagers

Of the estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, 1.1 million are children. Due to differential treatment in the labor market, teenage undocumented immigrants face low returns to schooling. To measure the effect of legal status on the educational choices of Hispanic teenagers, we compare siblings who differ in their legal status due to their birth country. We find that teenagers who were born in Mexico are 2.7 percentage points more likely to be out of school than their U.S.- born siblings. Alternative explanations, such as differences in prenatal or childhood environment, appear largely unable to explain this result, suggesting that legal status has a significant impact on schooling decisions. After accounting for these alternative explanations to the extent possible and using proxies for legal status in the U.S. Census, our results suggest that being undocumented roughly doubles high school students’ dropout rate relative to their U.S.-born siblings, with substantial wage decreases implied by back-of-the-envelope calculations.

Accountability Reform and Responsive Assessment for Immigrant Youth

Immigrant students, one of the fastest-growing populations in US public schools, have been linguistically and culturally disadvantaged by accountability policies that rely only on standardized tests. Recent changes to these policies allow for the use of performance-based assessment tasks (PBATs) as an assessment indicator to supplement standardized tests. In this article, we explore how 1 highly successful high school that works exclusively with recently arrived immigrant teenagers has incorporated PBATs into its curriculum. We find that school leaders, teachers, and students agree that the use of rigorous performance assessments accomplishes language learning, content mastery, and test preparation simultaneously.

Undiagnosed Case of Metabolic Disorder in Immigrant Teenager

Undiagnosed Case of Metabolic Disorder in Immigrant Teenager

Checks, Balances, and Resistance: The Impact of an Anti‐Immigrant Federal Administration on a School for Immigrant Teenagers

The 2016 presidential election was dominated by anti‐immigrant rhetoric where truths counted for less than bombast, obscuring the fact that the majority of refugees and immigrants are women and children. This article describes how teachers and students in a school for newly arrived immigrants are adapting to the reality of the new administration.

Knowledge on sexual and reproductive health of teen-age immigrants in Finland

Background Finnish teen-age students’ knowledge on sexual and reproductive health has decreased in recent years. The knowledge of immigrant teenagers is poorly known. The purpose of this study was to find out the level of knowledge on sexual and reproductive health of teen-age immigrants in Finland. Methods Data are based on a national School Health Promotion Study carried out at three different levels of schools in …

Social Norms and Teenage Smoking: The Dark Side of Gender Equality

This paper is the first to provide evidence that cultural attitudes towards gender equality affect behaviors with potentially devastating health consequences, and that they do so differently for male and female teenagers. In particular, we show that descending from more gender-equal societies makes girls relatively more prone to smoke than boys. Using data from over 6,000 second-generation immigrant teenagers coming from 45 different countries of ancestry and living in Spain, we find that the higher the degree of gender equality in the country of ancestry, the higher the likelihood that immigrant girls smoke relative to boys, even after we control for parental, sibling, and peer smoking. Importantly, we uncover similar patterns when analyzing other risky behaviors such as drinking or smoking marijuana. This reinforces the idea that more gender-equal social norms may come at an extra cost to women's health, as they increasingly engage in risky behaviors (beyond smoking) traditionally more prevalent among men.

Tuberculosis screening programme for undocumented immigrant teenagers using the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube test

Background and objectiveThe aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of tuberculosis infection in undocumented immigrant teenagers using a tuberculin skin test (TST) for initial screening and QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) as a confirmatory test. Patient and methodFrom 2007 to 2012, under 19-year-old immigrant teenagers from 2 accommodation centres of the Basque Country (Spain) were included in the study. The TST was done in all of them and the QFT-GIT was done in selected patients with a TST≥5mm. ResultsEight hundred and forty-five immigrants were included, most of them from Africa (99.5%). Fifty-one percent of immigrants with TST≥5mm has a positive QFT-GIT. We found 2 cases of active tuberculosis (2/845: 0.24%). The concordance between TST (≥10mm) and QFT-GIT was 63%, with 57% of positive concordance cases and 96% of negative concordances. There were 246 cases with TST≥10mm (29%), with significant differences between Magrebis (21.5%) and Subsaharians (67%) (p<0.001). Vaccination with Calmette-Guéin bacille was an independent predictor for having a TST≥10mm (OR: 2.11; p<0.001) and for the discordance TST+/QFT-GIT−, both for a TST≥5 and a TST≥10mm (OR 2.16, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.46–3.20, and OR 1.91 95% CI 1.23–2.97, respectively). The positive value of QFT-GIT increased significantly as the TST increased, with a positive association in all the cut-off points analysed: 10–14mm (OR 7.95, 95% CI 1.79–35.33), 15–19mm (OR 35, 95% CI 7.93–154.52) and ≥20mm (OR 91.3, 95% CI 18.20–458.11). ConclusionDue to the high prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection in Subsaharian immigrants, we recommend implementing screening programmes in this population. Using QFT-GIT, the number of candidates for chemoprophylaxis was reduced to 43% compared with TST alone (≥10mm).

Letters from an Immigrant Teenager: Letters from Varpu in Canada to Kaisa in Finland, 1963–65

Letters from an Immigrant Teenager: Letters from Varpu in Canada to Kaisa in Finland, 1963–65

Cribado de la tuberculosis en inmigrantes adolescentes indocumentados usando el QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube

Background and objectiveThe aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of tuberculosis infection in undocumented immigrant teenagers using a tuberculin skin test (TST) for initial screening and QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) as a confirmatory test. Patient and methodFrom 2007 to 2012, under 19 year-old immigrant teenagers from 2 accommodation centers of the Basque Country (Spain) were included in the study. The TST was done in all of them and the QFT-GIT was done in selected patients with a TST≥5mm. ResultsEight hundred and forty-five immigrants were included, most of them from Africa (99.5%). Fifty-one percent of immigrants with TST≥5mm has a positive QFT-GIT. We found 2 cases of active tuberculosis (2/845: 0.24%). The concordance between TST (≥10mm) and QFT-GIT was 63%, with 57% of positive concordance cases and 96% of negative concordances. There were 246 cases with TST≥10mm (29%), with significant differences between Magrebis (21.5%) and Subsaharians (67%) (P<.001). Vaccination with Calmette-Guéin bacille was an independent predictor for having a TST≥10mm (OR: 2.11; P<.001) and for the discordance TST+/QFT-GIT−, both for a TST≥5 and a TST≥10mm (OR 2.16, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.46-3.20, and OR 1.91 95% CI 1.23-2.97, respectively). The positive value of QFT-GIT increased significantly as the TST increased, with a positive association in all the cut-off points analyzed: 10-14mm (OR 7.95, 95% CI 1.79-35.33), 15-19mm (OR 35, 95% CI 7.93-154.52) and≥20mm (OR 91.3, 95% CI 18.20-458.11). ConclusionDue to the high prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection in Subsaharian immigrants, we recommend implementing screening programs in this population. Using QFT-GIT, the number of candidates for chemoprophylaxis was reduced to 43% compared with TST alone (≥10mm).

“Here your ambitions are illusions”: Boundaries of Integration and Ethnicity among Ecuadorian Immigrant Teenagers in Madrid

This study analyzes the relationship between a discourse of integration in the European Union and the ways in which the ethnic boundaries of segregated social groups of immigrant children are conceptualized in one working-class and immigrant neighborhood in Madrid, Spain. I use qualitative data gathered during sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork among Ecuadorian immigrant teenagers to explore the unintended consequences of European efforts to promote the integration of immigrants in member states. My argument is that the pervasive discourse of integration in the European Union is central to a racialized process of subject formation occurring in Madrid through which the children of immigrants come to be recognized as ethnic outsiders in Spanish society. By analyzing in ethnographic detail how discursive forces intertwine with material constraints to shape the subjectivity of immigrant children in Madrid, this study helps to explain how racialized colonial and postcolonial socioeconomic hierarchies are reproduced in current immigration scenarios.

Second generation identities: The case of transnational young females of Russian descent in Israel

The present paper explores the transnational orientation of second-generation female immigrant teenagers of Russian descent in Israel and their position regarding these two cultures and the respective part they play in the participants’ identity negotiations. Comparisons are made with findings of two previous studies on gender-based adaptation styles of youth of similar origin, who arrived during mid-to-late adolescence. This is in order to investigate the impact of age at arrival on gendered features of identity construction. Comparative analyses are also performed, with pertinent findings, among additional second-generation transnationals, such as Vietnamese and Filipino in the United States. These serve as heuristics in an attempt to disclose common characteristics in second-generation identity construction processes among young female transnational migrants.

Strategic Autoethnography and American Ethnicity Debates: The Metrics of Authenticity in When I Was Puerto Rican

In taking up the vexed example of Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was Puerto Rican, I want to do two things: read it as in part a model of autoethnography organised by what Sidonie Smith and I have developed as ‘the metrics of authenticity’; and consider how such a narrative, read as strategic autoethnography, can be understood as a feminist project of—partially successful—self-representation to demystify patriarchal institutions. Although Santiago sets up a detailed autoethnographic narrative of Fifties Puerto Rico, when she turns to the immigrant teenager's encounter with Brooklyn Puerto Ricans, it is overwhelmed by the powerful model of the ‘up by the bootstraps’ story of immigrant assimilation to the American dream. Reading these two models of storytelling as competing and incompatible suggests that much women's life writing by ‘hybrid’ subjects in the Americas tells a story of incomplete ‘self-transculturation’ about the incommensurability of different languages and cultures.

“I Am Not Who I Thought I Was”: Use of Grief Work to Address Disrupted Identity Among Hispanic Adolescent Immigrants

Immigration from Latin America to the United States is often an escape from difficult circumstances, but with this gain comes a loss of identity. This can be a special burden for adolescents, who are thrown into a new culture and environment while in the process of identity formation. Using case studies from my work as a psychotherapist in a community mental health clinic, I will describe this special turmoil and a way in which Latino immigrant teenagers can be helped to resolve it. Psychodynamic grief work aimed at helping them mourn the loss of identities and valued capacities through emigration can reduce self-destructive enactments and support them in the adolescent task of forming an identity.

Tracking Identity: Academic Performance and Ethnic Identity among Ecuadorian Immigrant Teenagers in Madrid

This article examines Ecuadorian students' attempts to contest immigrant stereotypes and redefine their social identities in Madrid, Spain. I argue that academic tracking plays a pivotal role in the trajectory of students' emergent ethnic identity. To illustrate this process, I focus on students who abandon their academic and professional ambitions as they are tracked into low-achieving classrooms, and in the process participate in social and cultural practices that reify dominant stereotypes of Latino immigrants. [academic tracking, identity, immigration, ethnicity, Spain]

Psychotherapy with immigrant patients in France: An ethnopsychiatric perspective

This article focuses on recent developments in clinical ethnopsychiatry theorized by the French psychologist Tobie Nathan, as understood and practised by a member of his clinical research team. Alongside Western psychological theories, Nathan's approach sets out to include, within its clinical research setting, cultural and religious theories and healing practices related to unhappiness and disease. All such theories, regardless of the culture or civilization they belong to, are regarded as potentially valid and also as possible therapeutic tools. In this perspective, Nathan criticizes the concepts of representation or belief and prefers to talk about objects and theories. To illustrate his unique approach to therapy, the treatment of a Cameroon immigrant teenager and her family, conducted at the University clinic founded by Nathan, is extensively presented in this article.