The Adolescent Children of Immigrants, Language Brokering, and Civic Purpose

1. The Adolescent Children of Immigrants, Language Brokering, and Civic Purpose Lisa Dorner, Ph.D., University of Missouri Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis October 22, 2014

2. Agenda • Research study and context • Literature review and definitions • Data collection • Findings • Implications (your turn!)

3. Longitudinal study of ‘Language Brokers’ • Started in 2001 • Research team • Data includes: • Surveys • Journal entries • Participant observation field notes • Transcribed translations • Transcribed interviews with parents and children • (Dorner, et al., 2007; Dorner et al., 2008; Orellana, 2009; Orellana et al., 2003)

4. What is Language Brokering? • “The work that the children of immigrants do as they use their skills in two languages to read, write, listen, speak, and do things for their families” (Orellana, 2009). • Natural Translation • Family interpreting • Cultural mediator • Phone calls, bills, bank statements, report cards, movies, doctor visits, store transactions …

5. Brief Literature Review • Educational and psychological outcomes: • Greater metalinguistic awareness, enhanced academic achievement • Decline in psychological well-being, with increased anxiety, acculturative stress • Social and relational processes: • Positively related to respect for parents • Positions youth as helpers: tutors, advocates, workers in a family business, and caregivers of siblings • Developmental processes: • Moves from family to community in adolescence

6. What about…?

7. That is . . . (Guiding Frameworks) • Rarely is language brokering conceived as an expression of citizenship, even though . . . • Brokers act as competent citizens as they demonstrate civic knowledge, skills and dispositions (Torney-Purta & Lopez, 2006). • Civic purpose: the desire of people to make a difference and help one’s communities (Haste & Hogan, 2006) in ways that are “of consequence to the world beyond self” (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003, p. 121).

8. Research Questions • What are the language brokering practices of adolescents from Mexican immigrant homes? • How do adolescents understand their work, especially in relation to civic engagement? • What implications does this work have for citizenship education in schools?

9. Data Collection • Built upon case studies from 2001 • 10 narrative interviews (McAdams, 1995) with first- and second-generation Mexican-Americans (ages 18-28) • Meetings and extended conversationswith 4 adolescents over 1 year (2009-2010)

10. Findings: How Brokers View Their Work • Brokers demonstrate a sense of “civic purpose.” • Taking on “responsibility” • “Stepping in” • Recognizing “global” and local connections • But, for some, there are challenges in enacting this purpose. • Civic pathways disrupted. • Civic action disrupted. • Caught in between.

11. Purpose: Taking on Responsibility • I think a turning point is when I started becoming a translator for other people… like my dad would bring friends over…. It’s definitely everything to do with who I became…. Like you see people in need, you have the skill, and you use it…. And I think my role as a translator gave me, that, um, that responsibility, the sense of responsibility: this is much bigger than your family, this is much bigger than, um, than your goal as a kid, you know. This is about helping other people because if you don’t help these people, they’re gonna be in trouble. And that gives you a sense of responsibility where it becomes part of who you are. And I think that has a lot to do with, who you have become and my role as a citizen in this country.

12. Purpose: Stepping In • I’m comfortable knowing something and trying to explain and bridging the gap… I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I had to explain really difficult concepts to my parents…. in a different language. It made me really, it’s very practical for me to do that, even though it’s challenging and still, I am working on it.… I think, definitely, it has a lot to do with what I do, and how I am as a person in terms of helping people. Um, so my ability to communicate, like even when I don’t understand stuff, I feel very comfortable stepping in.

13. Purpose: Recognizing Global & Local • I’m more concerned about just being a genuine person, just citizen being, you know. Narrowing citizenship down to just my country, I guess, isn’t all of that, I don’t wanna say, important to me. It’s just less of, I guess, the word has more of a connotation now. Um, being at the university and having friends from all over the world and how our world is very quickly transforming into, you know, it’s a lot easier to be, to think globally, I guess. I guess the notion that citizenship is only about being a great American is, is less of an idea to me…. It’s -- or me being able to help out my neighbor – [it’s] more about a global aspect than, um, you know as opposed to, oh, it’s about all being American or being Mexican.

14. Challenge: Civic Pathways? • I want to a nurse. But then since I don’t have a social security number or anything, it’s kind of hard. • I would like to be able to go to college. And to be able to get, at least some help from the government. You know the FAFSA and I can’t file for it. So, I mean, I have good grades. I have a 3.9 average and, like, I’ve managed never to have an F or a D. And um, I would like to go to college and get some help, get financial help. . . [but] I can’t even get that.

15. Challenge: Civic Action? • Interviewer: Have you gotten involved with anything that would contribute to your desire to help the immigrant community? •  JR: No. •  I: No? •  JR: No, not yet. Not, it may bring a lot of attention to me. Well, to anybody, people that, ah, if I go out and do something about it, ah, I guess people are scared that the police might not like it. Like think that they are doing something bad when the are trying to do something good. •  I: So, what do you think would happen? •  JR: Well, they do - how they used, they did the batting and stuff downtown.   • I: Did you go to that? • JR: Na. Maybe because ah of all the - Probably like the Civil Rights Movement, I thought of what it would be like with police and hoses and dogs and all that.

16. Challenge: Caught In Between? • “That’s basically it, because my Dad – I guess he still needs me, that’s why. He still needs me to, to talk to, to different people when he can’t express himself.”

17. Summary • Taking on “responsibility” • Having practice “stepping in” • Recognizing the “global” and local; citizenship is more than a national identity or piece of paper • But without that legal citizenship, enacting civic purpose can provedifficult . . .

18. Implications (Your Turn!) • Language brokering and civic purpose – adolescents: • Exhibit concern for others • Understand community issues • Want to address those issues politically • Want to become (have become) community leaders • Community programming? • Citizenship education?

19. Thank you! • Please contact me for updates or with questions: • dornerl@missouri.edu • For this presentation, please visit Resources on: • www.lisamdorner.com

20. Data Analysis • Constructivist approach to grounded theory: • Open coding for patterns and themes • Constant comparison of patterns across different youth and experiences over time • Memo writing • Returning to the data for axial coding