Majority Educators in a United States Minority/Immigrant Public School District: The Case of Garden City, Kansas
Increasingly, immigrants are settling in rural "new destinations," where low-wage, low-skilled jobs have been created as part of a broad restructuring of the United States economy. This trend has spurred not only the rapid growth of many small towns but also their demographic, linguistic,...
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| Published in: | Human organization 2016-07, Vol.75 (2), p.181-191 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Increasingly, immigrants are settling in rural "new destinations," where low-wage, low-skilled jobs have been created as part of a broad restructuring of the United States economy. This trend has spurred not only the rapid growth of many small towns but also their demographic, linguistic, and cultural transformation. Nowhere is this more evident than in Garden City, Kansas, a micropolitan community Stull has studied for three decades. This changing geography of immigration is manifest in its public schools, where four of five students are members of so-called minorities, many of them recent immigrants or refugees, and three of four are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Studying educators' experiences in this unique district can enrich the otherwise generic notions of diversity that so often inform teacher educators and educational policy makers. This article is based on a five-month ethnographic study involving participant observation and in-depth interviews with administrators and teachers in Garden City's eighteen public schools. It also draws upon documents and interviews from previous research in 1988-1990. This in-depth, diachronic study offers valuable insights for other new destination micropolitan communities and their schools. Un número creciente de inmigrantes se establece en "nuevos destinos" rurales, en donde se han creado empleos no especializados con salario bajos, como parte de una reestructuración generalizada de la economía de los Estados Unidos. Esta tendencia ha estimulado no sólo el rápido crecimiento de varios poblados pequeños, sino también su trasformación demográfica, lingüística y cultural. En ningún otro lugar esto es más evidente que en Garden City, Kansas, una comunidad micropolitana que el primer autor de este trabajo ha estudiado por tres décadas. Esta cambiante geografía de inmigración se manifiesta en las escuelas públicas, donde cuatro de cada cinco estudiantes son miembros de las llamadas minorías, varios de ellos recientes inmigrantes o refugiados, y tres de cada cuatro son elegibles para obtener almuerzos escolares de forma gratuita o a precio reducido. En un distrito donde la diversidad y la pobreza conforman características definitorias, los educadores se esfuerzan por satisfacer las necesidades de sus estudiantes en un tiempo de recortes presupuéstales. Este trabajo se basa en un estudio etnográfico de cinco meses, que incluye observación participante y extensas entrevistas a profundidad con administradores |
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| ISSN: | 0018-7259 1938-3525 |