The Language of Learning: The Academic Engagement of Newcomer Immigrant Youth

The current study uses an accelerated longitudinal design to examine the role of three dimensions of academic engagement (behavioral, relational, and cognitive) in explaining the influence of English language proficiency on newcomer immigrant youths' academic performance across adolescence. The sample included 354 youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico. As established with other populations, the behavioral, relational, and cognitive dimensions of academic engagement were closely associated to one another and significantly contributed to academic performance. Mediation analyses revealed that immigrant youth with limited English language proficiency were more likely to experience low levels of relational and behavioral engagement, which contributed to lower levels of academic performance over time.     

Foreign Language Skills and Willingness to Move: The Case of a Spanish Region

This research is aimed at assessing the effect of foreign language skills on the geographical area selected by the Spanish unemployed when looking for a job. A Zero‐Inflated Ordered Probit (ZIOP) model has been estimated to analyse the impact of foreign language skills on the geographical scope of the search. The outcomes show that the job search area is broader in case of men, young unemployed, more educated people, and those who never received unemployment benefits. Likewise, foreign language skills (in English, German and French) are highlighted as one of the most influencing factors when widening the job search area.     

Attitudes and Behavior: A Comparison of Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Adolescents in Israel

This study examines the behavioral and emotional experience of sixty non-immigrant and sixty-one immigrant adolescents who resided in the Negev in 1993. The results show, after controlling for various social and economic factors, that immigrant youth were more likely to drink alcohol, feel less happy, and experience more problems with peers than their non-immigrant counterparts. The results also show that the non-immigrant youth tend to associate with others born in the country, and the immigrants with other immigrants. Possible explanations for these observed differences between the two groups are discussed along with implications for service intervention.     

The Role of Parentification and Family Climate in Adaptation Among Immigrant Adolescents in Israel

Parentification has been defined as the familial interactional pattern in which children and adolescents are assigned or assume roles and responsibilities normally the province of adults. Two studies were conducted to examine the role that parentification takes in the context of immigration with regard to its impact on adolescent adaptation. In study 1, a comparison between 70 adolescent immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel with 70 nonimmigrant Israeli adolescents showed higher levels of spousal role taking among the immigrant adolescents. In the case of the immigrants, spousal role taking was seen to involve positive relationships with both parents (as opposed to with only one for the nonimmigrants) and to be associated with better coping with stressful events. In study 2, the association between the incidence of parentification and family climates was explored among 123 adolescent immigrants from the FSU in Israel. Of the three climates found, the optimal cohesive independence‐oriented family climate showed a higher incidence of parentification (parental role taking, spousal role taking, parental role for siblings, and nonspecific adult role taking) as opposed to within the unstructured‐conflict‐oriented and control‐oriented family climates. These results seem to strengthen the position that optimal adolescent development following immigration involves a combination of enhanced familial relatedness and assumption of responsibility within a climate that allows age‐appropriate autonomy.     

The Roots of Linguistic Organization in a New Language

It is possible for a language to emerge with no direct linguistic history or outside linguistic influence. Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) arose about 70 years ago in a small, insular community with a high incidence of profound prelingual neurosensory deafness. In ABSL, we have been able to identify the beginnings of phonology, morphology, syntax, and prosody. The linguistic elements we find in ABSL are not exclusively holistic, nor are they all compositional, but a combination of both. We do not, however, find in ABSL certain features that have been posited as essential even for a proto-language. ABSL has a highly regular syntax as well as word-internal compounding, also highly regular but quite distinct from syntax in its patterns. ABSL, however, has no discernable word-internal structure of the kind observed in more mature sign languages: no spatially organized morphology and no evident duality of phonological patterning.     

Immigrants' Language Skills: The Australian Experience in a Longitudinal Survey

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency (speaking, reading and writing) among immigrants. It presents a model of immigrant destination language proficiency based on economic incentives, exposure to the destination language, and efficiency in second language acquisition. A unique data set, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, is used to test the model. This survey had three waves, at about six months, eighteen months and three‐and‐a‐half years after immigration. The analyses are performed by wave, type of language skill and gender using probit analysis. Bivariate probit analysis is used across waves. The hypotheses are supported by the data. The bivariate probit analysis indicates a positive correlation in the unexplained component that declines with time between waves, suggesting a “regression to the mean” in the unobserved components of English language proficiency.     

Language usage and earnings among minorities: The case of the Arabs in Israel

The paper studies the effect of the usage of the majority language by minority members on their earnings. Unlike recent studies on language proficiency, the paper deals with minorities that were not created through migration. It thereby contributes new insight into the “language component” in the decomposition of wage differentials by separating language usage from other human capital resources. The empirical study deals with three sub-groups of the Arab minority in Israel.     

Immigrant Children: Their Experience of Violence at School and Community in Host Country

This article describes our qualitative sociological study of immigrant children's life experiences of violence. We conducted interviews with 42 first‐generation immigrant children from any country, aged 9–13 years old, living in the Quebec City region (Canada). Results from three main themes are presented: representations of violence and concrete violent acts experienced; perceived effects of violence on children health and well‐being; and reactions and coping strategies. Overall, the narratives show that they may experience racist peer violence in school that leads to suffering situations, and they consequently have to develop strategies to maintain their well‐being. Social implications are discussed.     

Survival of the Fittest: Russian Immigrant Teachers Speak about Their Professional Adjustment in Israel

This qualitative study explores the determinants of occupational integration among recent immigrants whose profession is culturally and linguistically dependent. It compares personal accounts of 36 former Soviet school teachers of math and physics, of whom 20 succeeded in regaining their occupation in Israel and 16 left teaching for different reasons. Analysis of the interviews shows that, even in a society committed to the goal of professional integration of the immigrants, cultural barriers to successful work performance are rather high. Beyond instrumental skills to master (the Hebrew language and new curriculum), immigrant teachers have to adjust to the new school culture and student‐teacher relationship. They also have to face competition with their local colleagues, threatened by the influx of the better‐educated peers. The study points to a number of external conditions and personal characteristics that are conducive to successful adjustment to the new school system. The reported findings may be applicable to immigrant education workers in other national contexts.     

More Like Us: The Effect of Immigrant Generation on College Success in Mathematics

This article investigates the impact of immigrant generation on students performance in college calculus courses and examines the extent to which the observed patterns corroborate or contradict various assimilation theories. It goes beyond past studies of the relationship between immigrant generation and mathematics achievement that focused primarily on middle and high school students and typically excluded foreign students. Our principal finding is that foreign students and the 1.25 generation earned the highest grades, on average, even after controlling for race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Our findings provide partial support for the immigrant advantage theory.     

Wage Mobility in Israel: The Effect of Sectoral Concentration

Using a unique eight-year data set, merging population census and national insurance data, the paper examines and compares patterns of wage mobility in Israel. First, the public and the private sectors are compared. Second, within each of these sectors, a distinction is made between sub-sector groupings that exhibit a high level of concentration and those that are more diffuse and unregulated. Based on alternative measures of wage mobility, the central finding of the paper is that the extent of wage mobility in a given economic sector is negatively related to the degree of concentration in that sector.     

The Effect of Regional Inequalities on Migration: A Comparative Analysis of Israel and Japan

This article posits three main questions: – Is there a general “mechanism” through which disparities in regional development affect patterns of cross-district migration? – Which aspects of regional inequalities (climate, employment, housingavailability, etc.) have the most profound effect on rates and directionof inter-area migration? – Which planning policies and strategies are conducive to increasing the migration attractiveness of peripheral development regions? In an attempt to answer these questions, the 1985-1995 statistical data fortwo relatively small and densely populated countries – Israel and Japan – are used. A general model of the factors affecting cross-district migration is suggested, and analysis-of-variance is used to explain the factors influencing rate of cross-area migration in the two countries. Although these countries differ substantially in respect to population sizeand local development, they appear to exhibit considerable similarities ingeneral patterns of cross-district migration. Since the late 1980s, the attractiveness of core regions in both countries has tended to decline, while that of peripheral areas appeared to grow. It is argued that this resemblance of migration patterns is related to a similarbalance of employment and housing availability in different geographicareas.     

Immigrant Participation in Decision-Making Processes at the Local Level: A Comparison of Immigrants and Veterans in Israel

The issue of new immigrants' participation in policymaking and planning processes at the local level has not been adequately addressed. On the basis of qualitative research, the article examines a variety of different characteristics of immigrant participation in policymaking and planning in Israel. In particular, the research investigates aspects of participation, such as level of influence and typical tactics, of immigrant leaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States (specifically, Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus) and Ethiopia. In addition, a comparison with veteran leaders in the same city examines whether the characteristics of the immigrants' participation express (a) adjustment to the character of the existing participation in their new city, (b) reliance on the character of participation common in their countries of origin, or (c) participation focusing on the immigrants' position within the power structure of the city. The findings show that the third pattern is prevalent. The article suggests reasons for the emergence of immigrants' participation characteristics, the advantages and limitations of this kind of participation, and means for dealing with the limitations.     

Institutional Structure and Immigrant Integration: A Comparative Study of Immigrants' Labor Market Attainment in Canada and Israel1

The present study focuses on the incorporation of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in two receiving societies, Israel and Canada, during the first half of the 1990s. Both countries conducted national censuses in 1995 (Israel) and 1996 (Canada), making it possible to identify a large enough sample of immigrants and provide information on their demographic characteristics and their labor market activity. While both Canada and Israel are immigrant societies, their institutional contexts of immigrant reception differ considerably. Israel maintains no economic selection of the Jewish immigrants and provides substantial support for newcomers, who are viewed as a returning Diaspora. Canada employs multiple criteria for selecting immigrants, and the immigrants' social and economic incorporation is patterned primarily by market forces. The analysis first examines the characteristics of immigrants who arrived in the two countries and evaluates the extent of selectivity. Consistent with our hypotheses, Russian immigrants to Canada were more immediately suitable for the labor market, but experienced greater difficulty finding and maintaining employment. Nevertheless, immigrants to Canada attained higher‐status occupations and higher earnings than their compatriots in Israel did, although the Israeli labor market was more likely to reward their investments in education.     

A Broader View of Language in School: Research from Linguistic Ethnography

Arguing that educational research into language and literacy has neglected the social and cultural dimensions of children’s language use, this article presents a review of recent research from linguistic ethnography which combines close attention to children and teachers’ language use with an analysis of context and social practice. This research reemphasises the complex role of language in children’s socialisation and learning and the importance of recognising connections and disjunctions between children’s language and literacy practices in and outside school, the influence of societal patterns of linguistic inequality and children and young people’s uses of language among themselves.