Young Immigrant Children Research Articles

Following the lead of the child: pedagogical considerations to support responsive approaches to play-inspired and playful arts-informed research with young immigrant children

ABSTRACT Despite the proliferation of play-based and arts-informed research, an under-explored area is using both with young immigrant children to hear from them about their distinctive experiences and complexities. This paper draws on an arts-informed and play-based case study with two young immigrant children in Canada to highlight specific data collection approaches, responsive materials, and play and playful art-making pedagogies. The case study found that the use of video recordings, pedagogical improvisations, close observations, and tailored responses enhanced relational co-constructions between the children and the researcher. Responsive materials enhanced the children’s sharing of their thinking, interpretations, and communication and were effective when relevant to the child and acted as a prompt. Establishing a shared studio space for the children and the researcher was important for supporting interwoven opportunities for play and artistic representations. Illustrative examples highlight how these established considerations can be tailored to young immigrant children to help them explore and negotiate complexities including identity and culture, socially and culturally constructed roles, family and community supports, and pre-and post-migration experiences.

Factors influencing communication between parents and early childhood educators in multilingual Luxembourg

The collaboration between educators of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and parents has a significant positive impact on children's development, particularly for young immigrant children. However, research in multilingual and multicultural contexts is scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study conducted in multilingual ECEC context in Luxembourg was twofold: (1) to identify the significant predictors that influence goal-oriented communication between parents and educators, and (2) to showcase a dynamic interplay between these factors in practice through observations and interviews. To address the first aim, we conducted two regression analyses, one involving parents (N = 323) and the other educators (N = 289). The analysis with parents showed that the most significant factor that influenced goal-oriented communication was parent satisfaction, while for educators it was educators’ professional attitudes towards parents and parent involvement. Furthermore, the results from interviews and observations of parent involvement in literacy activities in two multilingual centres showed that these factors are closely linked. When educators have positive attitudes, they will communicate more frequently and purposefully, and offer opportunities for parents to be involved, which will then lead to parent satisfaction. This study has important implications for policymakers, practitioners, and parents especially in multilingual contexts.

Navigating parent-child value differences: Capturing strategies used by immigrant parents from the perspective of East Asian young adult children of immigrants

ObjectivesWe endeavoured to understand how East Asian immigrant families respond to one another in the presence of value differences. Across three studies, we developed and tested two novel measures to capture the strategies used to manage value differences by immigrant parents, from the perspective of East Asian young adult children of immigrants from Canada and the United States. MethodsThe measures were developed and piloted using exploratory factor analysis with an American (Study 1) and Canadian (Study 2) sample. Item reduction analysis was conducted, and the factor structure of the refined measure was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (Study 3). ResultsFindings support the notion that children of immigrants perceive their parents to use two distinct sets of strategies to manage value differences; value-centred and person-centred. Value-centred strategies include acceptance and tolerance of value differences with their child; person-centred strategies include acceptance, rejection, and persuasion of their child. ConclusionDevelopment of these measures offer a clearer and more concrete assessment of how value differences are managed in East Asian immigrant families.

Preschoolers’ Psychosocial Development, Parents, and Neighborhoods: Towards an Integrative Approach for Immigrant Families

Nearly 5.5 million children between the ages of 0–5 in the US have at least one immigrant parent, and 22% of these children live below the poverty line. Emerging research highlights the importance of examining the neighborhood- and parenting-level risks and resources that are most impactful for young children of immigrants’ social development. Using a subsample of 3–5-year-old children (N = 1134) from the National Survey of Children’s Health (CAHMI, 2018), this study tested a conceptual model of cross-level interactions between neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES), behavior problems and flourishing in young children who have at least one foreign-born parent. Structural equation modeling results suggested an indirect effect of neighborhood SES on child flourishing and behavioral problems through neighborhood- (collective efficacy, resources) and parent-level characteristics (mental health, aggravation, parent-child interaction). The relations between neighborhood structure and child outcomes were fully mediated by parenting. Specifically, disadvantages in neighborhood structure had significant direct effects on parental mental health, parenting aggravation, and parent-child interaction, which explained relations between neighborhood structure and child outcomes. Results point to future research areas and potential policy and prevention interventions at neighborhood and parental levels.

Community Solutions to Increase the Healthfulness of Grocery Stores: Perspectives of Immigrant Parents.

Grocery store environments are recognized as one of the most crucial community settings for developing and maintaining healthy nutritional behaviors in children. This is especially true for disadvantaged ethnic minority families, such as immigrants, who reside in the Detroit Metropolitan area and have historically experienced inequities that result in poor health outcomes. Rates of obesity and type II diabetes have affected Detroit 38% more than the rest of the state and nationwide. In 2019, almost 54% of children aged 0-17 in Metro Detroit lived in poverty, and 21.6% experienced food insecurity, compared with the state level of 14.2%. Moreover, nearly 50% of ethnic minority children in Metro Detroit consume sports drinks, and 70% consume soda or pop in an average week. The primary purpose of this study was to explore immigrant parents' perspectives on (1) how in-store Sugar-Sweetened Beverage (SSB) marketing impacts the purchasing behaviors of parents and the eating behaviors of toddlers, and the secondary objective was to (2) determine strategies to reduce SSB purchases and consumption within grocery environments from the viewpoints of immigrant parents. A qualitative multiple-case study design was used to achieve the aims of this study. Semi-structured individual interviews were completed with 18 immigrant parents of children aged 2 to 5 years old who were consumers in 30 independently owned full-service grocery stores within the immigrant enclaves of Detroit, Dearborn, Hamtramck, and Warren, Michigan. Three key thematic categories emerged from the parents' narratives. These themes were: (1) non-supportive grocery store environments; (2) acculturation to the American food environment; and (3) strategies to support reduced SSB consumption among young immigrant children. The findings of this study revealed widespread SSB marketing targeting toddlers within the participating independently owned grocery stores. Even if families with young children practiced healthy nutritional behaviors, the prices, placements, and promotion of SSBs were challenges to establishing and sustaining these healthy eating habits. The parents believed that planning and implementing retail-based strategies in collaboration with families and considering families' actual demands would assist in managing children's eating patterns and reducing early childhood obesity.

Reduced health care utilization among young children of immigrants after Donald Trump's election and proposed public charge rule.

Widespread fear among immigrants from hostile 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric decreased social and health care service enrollment (chilling effect). Health care utilization effects among immigrant families with young children are unknown. We examined whether former President Trump's election had chilling effects on well-child visit (WCV) schedule adherence, hospitalizations, and emergency department (ED) visits among children of immigrant vs US-born mothers in 3 US cities. Cross-sectional surveys of children <4 years receiving care in hospitals were linked to 2015-2018 electronic health records. We applied difference-in-difference analysis with a 12-month pre/post-election study period. Trump's election was associated with a 5-percentage-point decrease (-0.05; 95% CI: -0.08, -0.02) in WCV adherence for children of immigrant vs US-born mothers with no difference in hospitalizations or ED visits. Secondary analyses extending the treatment period to a leaked draft of proposed changes to public charge rules also showed significantly decreased WCV adherence among children of immigrant vs US-born mothers. Findings indicate likely missed opportunities for American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended early childhood vaccinations, health and developmental screenings, and family support. Policies and rhetoric promoting immigrant inclusion create a more just and equitable society for all US children.

Enhanced Measurement of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Marketing to Young Immigrant Children in Grocery Store Environments.

The marketing of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) within grocers is an obesogenic factor that negatively impacts children's nutritional behavior, specifically for people from racial and ethnic minority groups, such as immigrants. We aimed to develop and employ a methodology that more precisely assesses the availability, price, and promotion of SSBs to young immigrant children within independently owned grocery stores. A case comparison design was used to explore the differences in the grocery store landscape of SSB marketing by conducting an enhanced Nutrition Environment Measures Survey-SSB (NEMS-SSB) within 30 grocery stores in the Hispanic and Latino enclaves in Southwest Detroit, in the Arab and Chaldean enclaves in North-central Detroit, and in Warren, Hamtramck, and Dearborn, in comparison with 48 grocers in Metro Detroit. Unsweetened, plant-based, and organic toddler and infant beverages, as well as questions about marketing, were added to the original NEMS to capture the promotion tactics used in marketing SSBs. NEMS-SSB scores revealed that, in the immigrant enclaves, there was a significantly higher availability of SSBs in grocery stores (-2.38), and they had lower prices than those in the comparison group (-0.052). Unsweetened, plant-based, and organic beverages were unavailable in 97% of all participating grocery stores across both groups. Signage featuring cartoon characters was the most frequent in-store SSB marketing tactic across both groups. Widespread SSB marketing toward toddlers within the grocery stores in immigrant enclaves could be linked with the higher early childhood obesity prevalence among the immigrant population. Our findings can assist local and national organizations in developing and implementing healthy eating interventions. This study must be repeated in other immigrant enclaves across states to provide comparable results.

Parental Acculturation and Children's Bilingual Abilities: A Study With Chinese American and Mexican American Preschool DLLs.

Previous studies support the link of parental acculturation to their children’s academic achievement, identity, and family relations. Prior research also suggests that parental language proficiency is associated with children’s vocabulary knowledge. However, few studies have examined the links of parental acculturation to young children’s oral language abilities. As preschool oral language skills have been shown to predict future academic achievement, it is critical to understand the relations between parental acculturation and bilingual abilities with young immigrant children. Furthermore, few studies have examined the links between parental acculturation and children’s bilingual ability among different immigrant groups who live in the same areas to understand possible similarities and differences. To address these gaps, this study examines these relations in two of the largest and fastest-growing immigrant populations in the United States, Chinese American and Mexican American families. A total of 119 dual language learners (DLLs; 64 Chinese Americans and 55 Mexican Americans) enrolled in Head Start programs in Northern California were recruited. DLLs were assessed on oral language measures in both their heritage language (HL) and English. Parental interviews were conducted to obtain parental acculturation and language proficiency. Results showed no significant group differences between Chinese American and Mexican American parents on the majority of their acculturation dimensions. Furthermore, there were no significant group differences in the bilingual abilities between Chinese American and Mexican American DLLs. Cluster analysis identified four groups of DLLs based on their bilingual ability: high language ability in both English and HL, low language ability in both, English-dominant, and HL-dominant. Results suggest that parental acculturation levels are more similar than different among the four groups. On average, parents in all four groups had stronger ties to their heritage culture and HL than to the American culture. Results also showed links between parental cultural identities and children’s language dominance. Parents of English-dominant children had significantly higher levels of American identity than the parents of children with high ability in both languages. Implications are discussed.

Troubling Belonging: The Racialized Exclusion of Young Immigrants and Migrants of Color.

In this article, four Latina educators of Color trouble the neutrality of belonging, exploring its politics. They collectively revisit and reflect on their memories and lived experiences as immigrant children of Color and as young children of immigrants and migrants of Color in the United States. They employed pláticas as method to prompt the sharing of memories, experiences, and stories imparting personal knowledge, familial practices, and cultural histories. Through pláticas, they developed a collective understanding of their fragmented memories as situated representations of how belonging engenders othering children of immigrants and migrants of Color. As they reflected on the harm they withstood, named dehumanizing schooling experiences, and reflected on the exclusion and bordering etched in their memories, they noted how belonging had sponsored their marginalization. After audio-recording and transcribing their pláticas, they identified transcript sections associated with heightened emotional displays, shared resonance, and cultural memory. Then, they creatively recombined sections of original transcripts to reveal things about the experiences of young immigrant children of Color and of children of immigrants and migrants of Color that early childhood educators ought to know. Findings unveil the harm enacted by schooling on young immigrant children of Color and young children from immigrant and migrant families of Color in the name of belonging. Implications, offered as poetic advice, urge early childhood education policy and practice to upend the harmful pseudo-neutrality of belonging.

Sobre migração internacional, crianças pequenas e educação infantil: algumas questões

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre as crianças pequenas imigrantes nas instituições de educação infantil, buscando problematizar a questão da imigração, da pequena infância, do acolhimento e demais relações sociais presentes nesta etapa da educação. Para tanto, traz a produção acadêmica sobre infância e imigração, apresenta recorte de pesquisa realizada em uma Escola Municipal de Educação Infantil (EMEI), na cidade de São Paulo, entre 2018 e 2019, com crianças bolivianas, nacionalidade bastante expressiva na cidade de São Paulo. Ao final, aponta a pouca pesquisa sobre crianças pequenas imigrantes e propõe política de acolhimento e permanência destas crianças nos centros e escolas de educação infantil, derivada e em consonância com a legislação já construída pelo município.

Teaching immigrant children: learning from the experiences of immigrant early childhood teachers

ABSTRACT The field of early childhood education and care in the United States and around the globe is challenged by the growing number of immigrant children in classrooms and their diverse needs. Juxtaposing these concerns is a great silence in the literature on teacher development and education for teaching young immigrant children. Through a series of interviews, classroom observations, and artifact collection, this qualitative case study uncovers immigrant teachers’ knowledge grounded in their lived experiences, including immigration and schooling experiences as immigrant students, and reflected in their teaching practices toward young immigrant children. The findings demonstrate that listening closely to immigrant teachers’ stories about teaching immigrant children, in which multiple cultures, languages, and experiences mesh, offers important insights into the nuanced everyday practices of responsive teaching and caring for immigrants, and provides implications for teacher education and early childhood programs.

The role of socioeconomic and sociocultural predictors of Spanish and English proficiencies of young Latino children of immigrants.

Young Latino children of immigrants typically speak primarily Spanish at home and are exposed to varying amounts of English. As a result, they often enter school with a wide range of proficiencies in each language. The current study investigated family background, language use at home and early childhood settings as predictors of Spanish and English language proficiencies among Latino dual language children (N = 228). Findings demonstrated divergent sets of predictors were associated with either Spanish or English proficiencies at kindergarten and second grade. Sociocultural variables (parent origin, gender, home language use, home literacy practices, and language use in early childhood settings) predicted children's Spanish proficiency, while socioeconomic variables (poverty, and maternal and paternal education) predicted children's English proficiency, with little to no overlap in these predictions. These results suggest that different supports are required for proficiency in Spanish and in English, highlighting the importance of sociocultural and socioeconomic factors.

Understanding Race and Racism Among Immigrant Children: Insights into Anti-bias Education for All Students

This study examines relationship dynamics between young immigrant children in an afterschool program, and the ways in which these children become involved in racial discrimination and exclusion whereby one group perceives itself as majority. In order to explore and understand these children’s narratives and behaviors in an in-depth and comprehensive way, this study utilizes a qualitative case study approach. Employing a sociocultural theoretical lens as an analytic tool, this study provides insight into how young immigrant children whose first languages are other than English are aware of linguistic and cultural differences among their peers in the afterschool context, and how they develop their social attitudes toward these differences, include or exclude children, and negotiate power in their relationships. The findings extend the discourse of racism beyond the Black–White framework, increase awareness and understanding of how racial discrimination plays out between young immigrant children, and highlight the need for anti-bias education for all students.

Young chinese immigrant children’s language and literacy practices on social media: a translanguaging perspective

In this paper, we present a research approach that makes visible how young children in Chinese immigrant families muster their multilingual, multimodal and multisemiotic repertoires as they interact with distant family and friends on social media. The approach brings multimodal social semiotics into conversation with translanguaging to problematize the notion of languages as bounded systems, and to illustrate how emergent multilingual learners deploy their knowledge of the features of different language scripts and modalities to maximise their communicative capacity. We focus on the emergent translanguaging practices of Chinese immigrant children when using WeChat—a popular Chinese social media that is widely used by young families in their everyday language and literacy practices. Reporting on a study of nine immigrant families in southeast London, we home in on one boy aged eight years and his younger brother aged six years, with mixed Chinese (mother) and Portuguese (father) immigrant heritage. Through fine-grained multimodal analysis of online exchanges between the older brother and contacts in their mother’s WeChat network, we illustrate the multimodal, translinguistic and polyadic nature of his language use in practice and reflect briefly on the disjuncture between his home uses of multiple languages and his schooling. We also consider how the younger brother is socialised into translanguaging practices by observing and occasionally participating in his older sibling’s online chat. The findings address a gap in research knowledge by illustrating how social media can enrich opportunities for young children’s emergent translanguaging practices and heritage language learning.

Who is a friend? Voices of young immigrant children

ABSTRACTThrough nine months of ethnographic observations and video-cued child interviews, this study explored two Korean immigrant children’s perspectives on friendship in U.S. preschools. The study was framed by Bakhtinian dialogism and revealed that, compared to their teachers, who tended to identify friendship by observing the frequency of peer interactions, the participating children recognized friendship through qualitative features of relationships, such as sharing non-verbal and verbal communication, respecting ongoing play activities, and offering mutual assistance. This manuscript highlights the importance of considering what cultural- and linguistic-minority children pursue in a friendship when designing pedagogical strategies for encouraging positive peer relationships.

Mobilizing historical knowledge through transcultural play: a multi-sited ethnographic case study of an immigrant child

ABSTRACT This multi-sited ethnographic case study documents a second-generation Korean immigrant child who engages in regular border-crossing experiences between the U.S. and South Korea, his father’s country of origin. Pairing a transnationalism framework with the concept of funds of knowledge, this study examined how border-crossing experiences and transnational engagement shapes the focal immigrant child’s funds of knowledge and what he does with his transnational funds of knowledge. With the illustrative examples gathered across cultural boundaries and geographic borders, I discuss how transnational mobility constructed and expanded the focal child’s depth of historical knowledge and the ways he transmits and mobilizes his historical knowledge beyond local-global spaces through transcultural play. This article emphasizes the need to create an educational space that makes immigrant children’s agency in learning and transnational resources more visible. Furthermore, it offers new guidelines for documenting the connectivity and flow of young immigrant children’s knowledge and experiences in the context of transnational migration.

Yesterday they marched, today they mobilised the vote: a developmental model for civic leadership among the children of immigrants

ABSTRACTThis article proposes a developmental model for the political incorporation of the adolescent and young adult children of immigrants. We assert that key politicising agents – including parents, educational institutions, civic associations, and social media – play significant roles in mediating the political incorporation of 1.5- and second-generation youth. These politicising agents help determine if the children of immigrants will exhibit depressed engagement, participate in ways similar to their peers from non-immigrant families, or exercise civic leadership roles. In particular, we highlight the recent role of social movement-affiliated civic associations that have provided this young population with an intensive civics education and formative opportunities for civic action. We also note how intersectional frameworks adopted by broader millennial movements align with the campaigns of, as well as the political socialisation that occurs within, some of these organisations. To advance our argument, we draw on data from California, the state with the largest immigrant population and home to a vibrant social movement sector.

Over the Hills and Far Away: Inviting and Holding Traumatic Stories in School

Thousands of young immigrant children enter school each year, bringing their immigration stories with them. They enrich the communities that receive them, bringing hope and new perspectives, new languages, and experiences of other worlds to share with peers. Sometimes their stories include experiences of loss and trauma in their lives prior to entering school. Studies estimate that more than 51% of immigrant families have experienced at least one traumatic event or loss, and at least 15% of immigrant parents and children present with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Aragona, Pucci, Mazzetti, Maisano, & Geraci, 2013). These traumatic histories can include difficult events and/or losses that occurred in children’s countries of origin, during immigration journeys, or as part of the acculturation process, when poverty and regressive immigration policies often exacerbate existing vulnerabilities (Aragona, et al., 2013). Refugee children and families have an even higher incidence of traumatic history, with PTSD rates up to 75% (Rousseau, Measham, & Nadeau, 2013). Societal obstacles such as social and emotional isolation have been a common experience for immigrant families, who may have limited social networks, which increases their risk for depression and poor adjustment. Young children who come to school with traumatic immigration histories may experience barriers to learning that may not be readily visible to their teachers. Children may be preoccupied, experience fight-or-flight reactivity to social challenges, or be hyperalert to the externals of the environment, causing them to be distracted from the school’s academic readiness agenda (Holmes, Levy, Smith, Pinne, & Neese, 2015). In addition, difficult behavior resulting from trauma triggers may distract teachers from the underlying issues that fuel some children’s outbursts and disruptions. Frequently, teachers and other school support staff react in frustration to children’s difficult-to-manage behavior and then seek to remove the children from the classroom and/or school settings. Those children then find themselves further isolated and stressed. This paper features an innovative school-based approach employed by the Center for Emotionally Responsive Practice (ERP) at Bank Street with groups of young children who have a traumatic history. In the cases documented here, the children had traumatic immigration stories and had experienced trauma and loss as a part of their immigration history. The purpose of the ERP approach is to have foundations of child development as well as an understanding and appreciation of how children’s life experiences inform classroom interactions. ERP tries to uncover the root of children’s behavior and its connection

Children of Latino immigrants framing race: making sense of criminalisation in a colour-blind era

ABSTRACTPost-1965 children of Latino immigrants in the United States have come of age during an era of mass incarceration and a colour-blind ideology. Drawing from in-depth interviews with inner city, male, young adult children of Latino immigrants in Los Angeles, we examine the extent to which they make sense of their criminalisation through a racial lens. We find the segregated urban context to be a place of paradox: one that marginalises and racialises children of immigrants, while helping to sustain a colour-blind ideology. Internal dynamics in urban neighbourhoods heightens the criminalisation of young men, but obscures their perceived racialisation. Most young men dismiss instances of discrimination, but a racial lens emerges as they step out of their neighbourhoods into white spaces and discover they are uniformly ‘othered’ in association to the criminalised inner city. Respondents more likely to traverse urban space were more likely to emerge in racial consciousness, whereas the most ‘locked in place’ and subject to criminalisation, normalise this process through a colour-blind lens.

Troubling Messages: Agency and Learning in the Early Schooling Experiences of Children of Latinx Immigrants

Background/ContextEarly childhood education in the United States is currently suspended between the belief that young children learn through dynamic experiences in which they are able to create and experiment, and the belief that young children's emerging literacy and math skills require formal instruction and assessments to ensure future academic success. This balance is difficult because each approach requires different allowances for children's agency.Purpose/ObjectiveThis study investigates how district administrators, school administrators, pre-K–3 teachers, and bilingual first graders within a school district serving Latinx immigrant families think about the role of agency in early learning.SettingData was collected in Lasso ISD and El Naranjo Elementary School, located on the U.S./Mexico border.Population/ParticipantsLasso ISD is predominantly Latinx with 85% of its population self-identifying as Latinx and experiencing financial stress. Over 35% of children at El Naranjo are labeled as English Language Learners. We interviewed five administrators, nine teachers, and 24 children.Research DesignThe research method used is a variation of multivocal, video-cued ethnography (VCE). Following VCE's pattern of data collection, we made a film of a typical day in a first-grade classroom where children of Latinx immigrants used agency in their learning. The film was used to elicit perspectives on how much control young children of Latinx immigrants should have over their learning in the early years. Focus group data was analyzed comparatively across participant groups and district hierarchies.FindingsThe data reveals an inverse relationship—termed agency diffusion and deficit infusion—between participants’ ideas about the amount of agency students should be afforded in the classroom and the deficit ideas they articulate about children of immigrants and their families. Our findings suggest that even in supportive, academically successful districts, deficit thinking at any level can justify narrow, rote types of instruction that ultimately impact the types of messages young children receive about learning and being a learner.Conclusions/RecommendationsPre-service and experienced teachers may need help with discriminatory, deficit attitudes toward the families they serve as well as pedagogical skills to offer more agency to children, in the culturally relevant forms that make sense in the classroom. In developing guidelines and policies at school, district, state, and federal levels, agency should be a necessary component of classrooms considered (and labeled) as high quality. Children's perspectives are important ways to determine whether policies and practices are really effective.