(Re)Imagining First Grade: Perspectives From a Texas School Serving Children of Latina/o Immigrants

April 29, 2015, 12:30 - 1:30 pm

Wisconsin Idea Room 159, Education Building, 1000 Bascom Mall

Jennifer Keys Adair

Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Education, University of Texas at Austin

Jennifer Keys Adair

Keys Adair’s talk will review a study completed in a Texas school district on the U.S./Mexico border that examined the learning experiences of the young children of Latina/o immigrants. The school’s superintendent, teachers, immigrant parents and students were shown a film and then asked for their thoughts regarding what first grade should be like. The differences in each group’s answers were dramatic, revealing stark differences in ideas about what children of immigrants are capable of at school and in their lives. The study’s findings revealed a disconnect within the hierarchical system that ultimately sends messages to children of immigrants that they must be quiet, submissive and still to learn.