SCHOOLING FOR CULTURAL TRANSITIONS: HMONG GIRLS AND BOYS IN AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOLS
Author(s):
Goldstein, Beth Leah
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1985.
Pages:
328
Language:
English
Abstract:
This study examines the dynamics of ethnicity in schooling in order to clarify the nature of the educational process in relation to the resettlement of immigrant youth. It analyzes this phenomenon using an ethnographic case study of Hmong high school students, their families and schools. The study focuses on what immigrant students learn about themselves in school and how they learn this. To this end, it examines their schooling from the perspective of the institution and its staff and from that of the ethnic community. The research addresses (1) how the education of immigrant students is shaped by the school, its staff and American students; (2) how male and female Hmong students differentially receive that education; and (3) how community and individual concerns based outside of the school influence that reception. The study uses a theoretical conception of ethnicity as a multi-faceted, interactive process of collective identity formation, continuity and change to interpret the experience of Hmong immigrant students as ethnic minorities in American schools. Ethnicity is understood to be perceived differently from within the ethnic community than from outside of it. These different perspectives are identified in order to examine the significance of varying interpretation of meanings and negotiation of actions that routinely occurred among the students, teachers and families. The study found that differences in the institutional organization and ethos of the two shcools influenced the climate of teaching Limited English Proficient students and consequently the educational experiences of the Hmong. Concern for institutional reputations, efficiency and order mitigated against integration of the Hmong students and taught them about their marginal, lower place in the dominant-culture society. Hmong students made practical decisions about their schooling based on a combination of (1) what school in practice offered to them; (2) their understanding of how American society worked; and (3) their needs for a sense of belonging, worth, and communal self-sufficiency. In reaction to isolation in school, Hmong high school students cooperated with schooling only when it did not conflict with behavior necessary for acceptance in their ethnic community. That behavior was based on their culture's conceptions of group identity and personhood, appropriate gender roles and communal responsibility.