Transitional Bilingual Education and the Socialization of Immigrants

Abstract

David Spener argues that U.S. educational policies reflect an implicit economic need to socialize immigrants and minority group members to fill necessary, but undesirable, low-status jobs. Transitional bilingual education programs, which provide only a limited period of native-language instruction and do not ensure English mastery, prevent immigrant children from attaining academic fluency in either their native language or in English. The subsequent discrepancy between the learning capacities of immigrant children and their monolingual peers reinforces stereotypes of immigrants and some linguistic minorities, and serves to socially legitimize their economically required limited access to better jobs.

Transnational Students’ Perspectives on Schooling in the United States and Mexico: The Salience of School Experience and Country of Birth

“…According to that model (Piore, 1979;Spener, 1988), in the primary sector of the economy, school attainment is rewarded with higher remuneration and greater job stability. In the secondary sector, which includes mostly blue-collar and unskilled jobs, school attainment does not correlate with wage or job security, although an identifiable vocation is likely to be the category in which one seeks work.…”

Sojourners in Mexico with U.S. School Experience: A New Taxonomy for Transnational Students

“…The common schooling script now coexists with a fragmented schooling script (McAndrew 2007). Per the latter, schools are the institutional instruments of modern economies for providing workers who can be productive in the face of changing labor market needs (see also Spener 1988). Schools have to respond to local and regional demands for a labor force because they receive funds from public sources.…”

Anglo (mis)understandings of Latino newcomers: A north Georgia case study

“…Both newcomers' resistance to forgetting a first language and characterizing employment conditions as less than fair violate the script and thus bring enmity to any immigrants who voice such complaints. The pro-immigration script may seem pro-immigrant, but it actually offers only a confining range of possible immigrant actions and little support for immigrants who contest what Spener (1988) calls the "ambiguous social contract" actually available in this socially stratified society. According to Spener:…”

“…The rationale for the complex, four component Partnership as a means of valuing diversity, promoting intercultural understanding, and creating a multicultural community vision was reduced in public discourse to being merely a creative attempt to teach newcomers English and to help them assimilate. Moreover, it was unclear whether the assimilation purportedly offered in the Partnership's redefined public mission was anything more than what Spener (1988) has called "assimilation at the bottom. "…”