Navigating Borders: Moroccan and Mexican Immigrant Youth in Schools and Communities in Catalonia and California
Senior Researchers: (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Silvia Carrasco (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
Research Fellows: Gilberto Conchas (University of California, Irvine), Anna Rios (University of California, Santa Cruz), Jordi Pàmies (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), Maribel Ponferrada (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
Project overview:
This bi-national, comparative project builds on prior research on ethnic borders and boundaries (Barth, 1969; Erickson, 1987; Alba, 2005) to explore issues of membership and exclusion for immigrant youth and their families within and outside schools. Whether immigrant youth experience boundaries as politicized (rigid, bright) or as more neutral (penetrable, blurred) appears to have a direct influence on their school adaptation strategies, either aiding or impeding their access to educational opportunities and their incorporation into the host society. This work is also informed by and builds upon ongoing research that examines the ways in which particular high school structures contribute to the civic and academic incorporation of Mexican-descent youth in California (Conchas, 2006; Gibson, Gándara, & Koyama, 2004; Gibson, 2005) and Moroccan-descent youth in Spain (Carrasco, 2005; Carrasco, Bertran, & Ponferrada, 2005; Pàmies, 2006).
The project aims to investigate the ways in which cultural, social, and linguistic borders are variably negotiated—between schools and the communities in which students reside, among students, and between students and their teachers—and how such processes of negotation impact immigrant youths’ access to resources in school, their sense of belonging or membership to the school community, their participation in school, and ultimately their persistence and achievement. Particular attention will be directed to the contexts in which differences may serve as resources that facilitate social integration and educational attainment, as well as to contexts in which differences may become politically charged and have a negative impact on immigrant students’ experiences in school.
More specifically, the comparison will be between Mexican-descent youth in California and Moroccan-descent youth in Catalonia. In both cases, many of the youth come from households where their parents have little formal education, have limited knowledge of the host language or its system of schooling, and are concentrated in low-level jobs. Unlike the United States, Spain has not been a traditionally immigrant-receiving country. In recent years, however, Spain has experienced a rapid influx of immigrants, particularly in regions along the Mediterranean coast. Presently in Barcelona and surrounding areas of Catalonia, for example, more than one-fifth of all newly-born residents are foreign born, and in some poorer neighborhoods up to 90% of school children are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Nearly 30% of the immigrants come from Africa, with the large majority of these from Morocco. Among the Moroccans, most identify with Islam and most speak either Berber or Arabic as their home language. Another 28% of the immigrants to Catalonia come from Latin America, the majority of these from Ecuador, a national origin almost absent in statistics five years ago. Barcelona and the region of Catalonia thus present an interesting comparison with California, where 46% of public school students today are Latino, mostly of Mexican origin. In both settings there has been a political backlash against the increasing presence of “foreign” workers and their children, which spills over into the schools. In addition, the educational attainment of both the Mexican and Moroccan youth is notably lower than for many other groups (Carrasco, 2003; Gibson, Gándara, & Koyama, 2004; Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Doucet, 2004).
Central focus
The focus of this project centers on how Mexican and Moroccan immigrant youth perceive and negotiate their social and academic integration. More specific research questions include the following:
▶How do immigrant youth navigate between schools and communities?
▶What resources and strategies do immigrant youth draw on to negotiate social, cultural and linguistic boundaries both within and outside schools?
▶How do schools mediate the social and academic integration of Moroccan and Mexican immigrant youth in Catalonia and California?
▶How do the regional and national histories of Moroccans in Spain and Mexicans in the U.S. both inform and shape academic and civic integration?
▶How do schools construct their identity in relation to the students and communities they serve?
▶How are schools both welcoming-unwelcoming spaces for immigrant youth?
▶How does this tension play itself out at the level of policies, structures, and relationships within and outside schools?
▶What are the larger citizenship/membership narratives schools promote?
Rationale for the Moroccan and Mexican comparison
Both groups – Moroccans in Spain and Mexicans in the United States – have experienced long and problematized histories in their respective host countries. In addition, the two groups share many common features including their border situations, colonial relationships, unequal opportunities, status as subordinated minorities, patterns of lower academic achievement, multiple marginalities, important gender differences, and inter-ethnic relations shaped by power-laden boundaries (for example, language and religion). Both groups are also characterized by significant internal variability.
Research design
This study has two major components: first, it will provide the opportunity for a comparative review and synthesis of the ethnographic research that currently exists on the school adaptations and academic achievements of Mexican and Moroccan youth in the U.S. and Spain. The second component involves complementary ethnographic fieldwork in two high schools in each country and in the communities surrounding these schools. In each country, one of the high schools will have a very high concentration of working class and immigrant youth and the other will have a more bi-modal student population, differentiated along class and ethnic lines.
We plan to conduct at least five months of ethnographic field research in each of the four high school field sites. The research will involve focus group interviews with sub-groups of students, as well as individual interviews with focal students, their parents, their teachers, and other members of their families and commnities. In keeping with the overall ethnographic methodology, the project will also involve more naturalistic participant observation and informal conversations in both school and community settings. Our current plan is to develop case studies of 24 students at each research site; the participants will be equally divided in terms of gender and country of origin (6 students in each high school, half of which will be boys and the other half which will be girls).
Additional sampling criteria:
▶Students who are attending 9th grade in the U.S. and the 3rd year of secondary school in Spain.
▶Students who have been attending schools in the host country since the early elementary years.
▶Students whose parents have little formal schooling and who are both immigrants.
▶Students from low-income families.
Research team and team members’ foci
The research fellows will work in pairs in each country, one based in each high school. Common sets of data will be gathered in each site, but the focus of analysis will be divided among the four researchers. Four of the central themes for analysis that have already been identified include:
1. Notions of membership and belonging in and out of schools. Notions of citizenship and membership are variably imagined and mediated with and through social institutions such as schools. How these are imagined, however, have powerful implications for immigrant youth and their sense of belonging within schools. Team members will focus on the ways in which schools are implicated in producing varying dimensions of “belonging” and in constructing “multiple” and “unequal forms of citizenship” (Ramos-Zayas, 2004). Attention will be centered not only on how these larger official discourses of citizenship/membership are received by Moroccan immigrant youth, but also how they might be contested or transformed. How do Moroccan immigrant youth carve out counter-spaces (Solórzano et al., 2000) that allow for the performance of multiple and distinctive identities and the (re)claiming of rights? Of more consequence, what role do these alternative spaces, both real and imagined, play in immigrant youths’ academic and social engagement?
2. Peer relationships, identities, and school achievement. One important factor shaping school participation and achievement and the formation of student identities among immigrant youth is the nature of their peer affiliations and peer relationships (Gibson, Gándara, & Koyama, 2004; Pamies, 2002). This comparative project aims to highlight commonalities and differences in the way interactions within peer groups promote different levels of achievement and influence the formation of ethnic identities, as well as the ways that schools themselves collaborate in structuring peer relationships and the impact of these relationships on social integration.
3. The role of gender in shaping school performance. There is increasing evidence that among working-class minority students boys more often than girls exhibit behaviors that lead to conflicts with teachers; there is also evidence that males may have a harder time crossing cultural and social borders than females, particularly when they feel their identities are being devalued (Gibson, 1997; Waters, 1996). There is also evidence that in certain circumstances social relations at school can have an emancipatory effect for working-class immigrant and minority girls, both in their everyday lives and in shaping their future aspirations (Raissiguier, 1994). However, there are few studies that examine the convergence and divergence between models of femininities and masculinities lived by immigrant youths in different spheres of their everyday lives and how these shape their identities, their school experiences, and their future aspirations. This project, therefore, will have a focus on how school shapes and legitimates certain gender models and how students make sense, reelaborate and adjust to these, and how these re-formulations impact students’ academic trajectories.
4. School structures and cultures. In comparison to large high schools, small schools have shown tremendous promise in producing significant strides on most social and academic indicators, especially among schools serving low-income immigrant populations. However, we still have insufficient understanding of how and why small high school settings produce positive school dispositions in comparison to large high school settings. One aim of this comparative project is to compare the sociocultural processes at work within large comprehensive high schools in California (1500 to 3000 students is typical) and the small high school settings more common in Catalonia (400 to 500 students is the norm) and to explore how these different structures and cultures mediate academic engagement and achievement among immigrant student populations.
Timeline for field research
October 2006 – May 2007: field research in California high schools and communities
January 2007 – November 2007: field research in Catalonia high schools and communities.
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