In this paper we use the New Immigrant Survey Pilot Study (NISP) to describe the amount and kind of experience that immigrants accumulate in the United States before they become permanent resident aliens. The NISP surveyed a representative sample of legal immigrants who acquired residence papers during July and August of 1996, yielding a completed sample of 1,135 adults. Our analysis revealed that roughly two-thirds of these newly arrived immigrants had prior experience in the United States within one of six basic categories: illegal border-crossers, visa abusers, non-resident visitors, non-resident workers, students or exchange visitors, and refugees/asylees. Each of these pathways to legal immigration was associated with a different profile with respect to nationality, social background, and economic status. Using simple earnings regressions we demonstrate how these differences can yield misleading conclusions about the process of immigrant adaptation and assimilation, even if measured effects are reasonably accurate. We suggest that social scientists should change the way they think and ask about immigrants' arrival in the United States.
The framework of cultural advantage calls researchers and leaders to reexamine the structures, paradigms, and practices of effective education. We argue that the moral imperative in this challenge is to critically scrutinize and counter the way education systems perpetuate systematic inequities in opportunities and outcomes afforded to certain groups in society, in effect curtailing cultural and linguistic diversity and innovation. Our findings from research conducted in Hawai‘i indicate that learners thrive with culture-based education (CBE), especially Indigenous students who experience positive socioemotional and other outcomes when teachers are high CBE users and when learning in high-CBE school environments. Educational progress will come from forward-oriented research and leadership that embraces the cultural advantages of students with diverse experiences of racism, poverty, cultural trauma, and oppression. By cultivating culturally vibrant and affirming learning environments in lieu of “one-size-fits-all” approaches, educators honor assets found in Indigenous knowledge, values, and stories as models of vitality and empowerment for all.
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