2004 - Immigrants and Education in the US Interior: Integrating and Segmenting Tendencies in Nashville, Tennessee

Attribution: Cornfield, Daniel, & Arzubiaga, Angela
Researchers: Angela ArzubiagaDaniel Cornfield
University Affiliation: Vanderbilt University
Email: daniel.b.cornfield@vanderbilt.edu
Research Question:
Examine the expression and pattering of integrating and segmenting tendencies in a local community of the U.S. interior.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Peabody Journal of Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 157-179
Year: 2004
Findings:
  • Nashville immigrants treat educational attainment as a vehicle for becoming integrated and upwardly mobile in the general local community. Most of the expressed educational need reflect integrating tendencies, whereas a minority of these needs reflect segmenting tendencies.
  • The pattering of integrating and segmenting tendencies, in turn, is linked to the structure of opportunities and obstacles afforded immigrants and refugees by local Nashville society and to the modes by which foreign-born residents are incorporated into Nashville.
  • Global immigration to the US interior is yielding a new mix of integrating and segmenting tendencies in local communities and education systems.
  • Integrating tendencies are more prevalent than segmenting tendencies among immigrants and refugees and integrating tendencies are linked to the desire of immigrants and refugees to overcome economic, child care, legal, linguistic and discriminatory barriers to obtaining educational opportunities.
Keywords: DesegregationImmigrantsIntegrationRegions: SouthMethodologies: QualitativeResearch Designs: Focus groupsAnalysis Methods: Qualitative Techniques Sampling Frame:Nashville and Davidson county
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Qualitative-Cross Sectional
Data Description:
  • 2002-2003 Immigrant community Assessment (ICA) conducted under contract with metropolitan government of Nashville under contract with Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Tennessee.
  • Focal ethnic groups: Arabs, Kurds, Laotians, Latinos, Somalis, and Vietnamese.
  • 16 linguistically homogeneous focus groups among 137 individual participants, on premises of local ethnic community organization
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts