Migration and Mobility in Education (Essay Sample)

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Migration and mobility in education
Human migration is the relocation of people from one place to another for varying duration of time and different reasons. It can be either intra-national or international since the shift may be across cultural and national boundaries or within the same country’s boundaries. Migration has become more prevalent, particularly towards more affluent countries for reasons ranging from survival and exploration. It is possible for the migration stages i.e. pre-migration, migration and post-migration to bring specific stressors and challenges with them (Bhurga, 2014).On the other hand, children who are immigrants experience severe problems with mental and physical health, poverty, education and assimilation into the new society. Very little is known about children’s adaptation process, although it has been proven that immigrants adaptation to the new school system is very poor. Problems that immigrant children face that limits their educational opportunity in the classrooms include: discrimination, racism, and prejudice. Immigrant children face discrimination and racial prejudice during the adjustment period to mainstream society (James, 1997; Rumbaut, 1997). Being accepted and connected is a very important component among children and youths, therefore, children failing to connect well with family, peers, or schoolmates may increase risk of self-denial, substance abuse, criminal activity, health problems, school failure and drop outs. Furthermore, the process of acculturation increases this risks since immigrant children may be rejected and alienated from school by their peers due to different cultures and lack of English fluency. Cropley (1983) argued that English learning should be mastery to help build fluency in English. Unique needs should be catered for to the immigrant students to enable them overcome emotional and mental stress for academic excellence. According to Olsen (1988) most of the immigrant students believe Americans are unreceptive and react negatively toward them. Hence, for children to adapt to the challenging environments, they need the support of authorities and schools.
Precariousness and exclusion are likely to be experienced by the new families who have migrated. Many risks are faced by immigrant families including the migration itself, language barriers, as well as mixed legal status. The separation between the child and parent due to migration may cause a long-term separation and hence creating health problems and poor parental education among children. In many cases, parents leave their children behind under the care of relatives and immigrate only when parents are settled. Reunification problem may come about since young children may not have understood the reasons for being left behind. After the reunification, problems between children who are now at adolescent stage and parents begin as they assert their authority (James, 1997; Waters, 1997). Hence causing stress in children and confused emotions that may affect them in schools.
The increased diversity in the classrooms brings about questions as to whether the schools, teachers and students are well prepared for new challenges brought about. Education systems are given increasingly responsibilities in the role of breaking social-economic background and prospects of life. However, dropouts and poor performance in school may be as a result of various factors that the education system and schools have little or even no influence e.g. place of residence, poverty, residential segregation, etc. The teachers in the school have a responsibility in ensuring education equity among all the students despite their origin. Equity can be seen in two dimensions as inclusion and fairness. Social and personal circumstances, gender or ethnic origin should not be seen as obstacles to success in education as seen in equity. On the other hand, equity as inclusion ensures that the students reach basic minimum education. Failure of schools in providing appropriate education to different needs cause failure in students. Teachers should have the skills, resources, and the correct training to fight inequality that immigrants may be facing. The school structures, practices and, resources, and more so, teachers relation with peers matter a lot on academic performance. Teachers need a lot of training especially in countries where there is a sharp rise of immigration. Reasons being that, special training in new languages for immigrant children is required to help buffer stress in their life. However, there has been a controversy about teaching children English, which was not their first language to learn. Teachers are not fully equipped in fighting inequality of educational opportunity that greater number of immigrants may cause. Due to the rising number of immigrants, the resources available may not be enough to serve the large number. The governments involved to cater for immigrants should be vigilant enough to ensure that the needs of immigrants are all met. For example, subsidized programs can be published and marketed to minimize informational gaps, cultural sensitivities, language barriers, and misconception about the services offered by the government. According to Alva’s Work (1991), resilient children i.e. Those who perform excellently in academic, have a network of support consisting friends, parents and teachers who help them adapt to the new environment. The students also repo...