Countless reforms and interventions have sought to improve academic outcomes for immigrant-origin students, with labels like "at-risk" rushing forth to solve the "dropout crisis." And yet, even in culturally and linguistically affirmative environments, youth still fall to the margins. Using research from a newcomer school located in New York City, the author explores the everyday lives of nine immigrant students outside of school, showing that youth are not simply waiting for school reforms. Their educational lives are not bound to institutional spaces or the logics of schooling. Instead, youth routinely take up educational practices that are intellectually rigorous, joyous, resilient, and fulfilling. These practices reveal educations that are not held to a single place or purpose. Instead, they are present in schools, on subways, at museums, in neighborhoods, across many other places, and always on the move. Using a historical and ethnographic lens, this book challenges researchers and educators to consider how education might be reconceptualized to better respond to marginalization and exclusion and, in the process, provoke new understandings of education itself. Book Features: Listens to the stories, histories, and philosophies of immigrant youth as they explore the realities and possibilities of education. Examines undocumented educations--practices that fall outside of schools or appear only in marginalized, liminal ways. Explores education in everyday life, moving outward from the classroom, to hallways, beyond the school doors, and finally beyond the very logics of schooling. Includes vignettes of student participants, interviews with teachers and administrators, and analysis of school policies and curricular documents. Sparks different ways for researchers, educators, and activists to think and study with recently immigrated youth.
Jordan Corson is an assistant professor of education at Stockton University, Galloway, NJ.
Contents Acknowledgments ?ix Prologue: Scenes of Education ?xi Introduction ?1 This Book's Questions, Themes, and Terms ?2 Guiding Theories: Unconditional, Uncategorizable, and Imaginative Educations ?10 Participants in This Book ?12 Notes on Entangled Methodologies and Positionality ?15 Organization of the Book ?18 Conclusion ?20 1. ?Questioning Marginalization and Schooling ?21 A Very Brief Overview of Margins and Schooling Immigrant-Origin Youth ?23 Marginalization and an Ethnographic Present ?25 Conclusion ?28 2. ?A History of Immigrant-Origin Students in the U.S. Education System ?31 Early History of "Americanization" for Immigrant Youth ?34 Systems in the Gap ?37 The Rise of Bilingual Education and the History of Newcomer Schools ?39 Looking Toward Other Educational Worlds ?48 Conclusion: Challenging the One Best System ?50 3. ?The Birth of the Newcomer as an Educable Subject ?53 Schools Reckon With and Respond to "New" Immigration ?56 Discourses of Newcomer Educability ?59 Educating Desirable Newcomers ?60 Conclusion ?67 4. ?Surviving, Succeeding, and Making Do at WISH Academy for Newcomer Youth ?71 Tracing the History of WISH in New York City's 21st-Century Neoliberal Context ?72 Making WISH ?74 WISH's Curriculum ?75 Survive and Advance: The Evolutions of WISH ?76 WISH vs. Everybody ?84 The Cost of Public School ?87 Conclusion ?90 5. ?Educations in Place and on the Move ?93 Newcomer Youth Participants ?96 Education and Space/Place ?101 Entangled and Moving Educational Practices ?115 Borderless Constellations of Learning ?122 Conclusion ?126 6. ?Undocumented Educations ?129 A Reflection on Authoring and Documenting ?131 Legitimate Education Is Something to Access ?132 The Supplement of Out-of-School Time ?135 Education, Equality, and Opportunity ?137 Subjugated vs. Undocumented Education ?142 Culturally Relevant Teaching to Demands of Schooling ?143 Conclusion ?144 7. ?New Possibilities and Conceptions of Education ?147 Wildness and Education ?149 Potential of Everyday Educational Practices ?152 Daydreams of Newcomer Students ?158 Daydreams as Educational Acts for Newcomer Youth ?160 Daydreaming Impractical Educations ?162 Conclusion ?164 Epilogue ?167 Introducing a School of Otherwise ?168 The School of Otherwise: A School Made for Being and Thinking Otherwise ?168 Conclusion ?172 Endnotes ?175 References ?177 Index ?193 About the Author ?199
"In this timely book, Corson argues that immigrant youth enact meaningful educational practices in informal, unstructured places over transitory space and time. This learning is both pragmatic and liberatory, allowing immigrant youth to learn and apply new skills while imagining future possibilities." -Anthropology and Education Quarterly
