Carola Suárez-Orozco - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Carola Suárez-Orozco

International Migration Review, 2002

... relationships and predictable contexts-extended families and friends, community ties, jobs, l... more ... relationships and predictable contexts-extended families and friends, community ties, jobs, living situations, customs, and (often ... Stress and social mirroring among immigrant children 207 the problem of illegal immigration is to ... 1998) and the welfare agency (see Eschbach et al. ...

As immigration has reached historic numbers in the United States, immigrant children have become ... more As immigration has reached historic numbers in the United States, immigrant children have become an integral part of the national tapestry. Over 40 million (or approximately 12.5 percent) of people residing in this country are foreign born (Pew Hispanic Center, 2013), and 25 percent of children under the age of 18, a total of 18.7 million children, have an immigrant parent (Child Trends, 2013). This growth in this population has been rapid-in 1970 the population of immigrant-origin children stood at six percent of the total child population. It reached 20 percent by 2000 and is projected to be 33 percent by 2050

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2009

Background/Context Newcomer immigrant students are entering schools in the United States in unpre... more Background/Context Newcomer immigrant students are entering schools in the United States in unprecedented numbers. As they enter new school contexts, they face a number of challenges in their adjustment. Previous literature suggested that relationships in school play a particularly crucial role in promoting socially competent behavior in the classroom and in fostering academic engagement and school performance. Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the role of school-based relationships in engagement and achievement in a population of newcomer immigrant students. Research Design The Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study (LISA) used a mixed-methods approach, combining longitudinal, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and quantitative approaches to document adaptation patterns of 407 recently arrived immigrant youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico over the course of five years. Based on data from the last year of the study, we examin...

Community College Review, 2020

Objective: Although much research on community colleges focuses on institutional challenges or st... more Objective: Although much research on community colleges focuses on institutional challenges or student deficits, emerging evidence suggests that student–instructor relationships have the potential to impact student success. The current study examined factors that could influence community college students’ development of relationships with instructors and how these relationships are associated with academic engagement and achievement. Drawing on literature exploring student–instructor relationships at 4-year institutions, we hypothesized that students’ relationships with instructors may partially account for the association between student demographic and relational characteristics and academic outcomes (i.e., cognitive and behavioral engagement, grade point average [GPA]). Method: Survey data were collected from 646 ethnically and racially diverse participants, many of whom were first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants, or first-generation college students. Employing a betwe...

Theory Into Practice, 2018

Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the US and Sweden that serve newcome... more Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the US and Sweden that serve newcomer students exceptionally well, we identified the strategies they implemented across sites that served to meet the educational needs of these students. We found that these schools provided a comprehensive approach to support the socioemotional and academic needs of their newcomer students, identifying many common practices for improving outcomes for newcomer students.

Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 2017

In 2016, the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) commissioned an exhaustive review of the l... more In 2016, the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) commissioned an exhaustive review of the literature Consensus Statement on the implications of growing up without authorized immigration status or with at least 1 parent who is unauthorized. The statement, which I coauthored, was released in early 2017, outlining the multiple domains of development that compromise the well-being of approximately 5.3 million children and adolescents in the United States. The intensification of anti-immigrant federal policies and postelection anti-immigration climate make this issue of even more pressing concern. An estimated 775,000 children and youth in the United States under the age of 18 do not have citizenship, permanent-resident status, refugee status, or any of the temporary statuses provided by the United States for long-term residence and work. In short, they are unauthorized migrants. Furthermore, over 4.5 million other children and youth are US citizens with at least 1 unauthorized parent. As such, over a quarter (28%) of the 18.7 million first-generation and second-generation children and youth in the United States are growing up directly affected by unauthorized status—either their own or 1 parent. They originate in multiple countries, with those of Mexican origin representing the single largest group. Historically most crossed over the borders without inspection and the proper authorization. But more recently, so-called visa over-stayers— immigrants who arrive with visas and become unauthorized as the visas expire, have surpassed those crossing the border without inspection. The SRA consensus statement noted that a growing body of research evidence has demonstrated that on average, relative to their documented peers, children, and youth with undocumented status, reveal less positive educational and mental health outcomes, after adjusting for indicators of socioeconomic status. Moreover, the developmental issues associated with unauthorized status are not limited to youth who are unauthorized themselves. Research has shown that having a parent who is unauthorized is associated with a number of developmental and educational vulnerabilities in US born children and youth, including lower levels of cognitive development, lower academic achievement, and educational progress across early and middle childhood and into young adulthood. There is also growing evidence of various mental health challenges associated with growing up in the shadow of the law. These include higher levels of internalizing (depression, anxiety, and withdrawal) and externalizing (aggressive and acting out) behavioral problems relative to their counterparts with documented or citizen parents as well as higher levels of self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms. Although causality is elusive, researchers have hypothesized that undocumented status affects educational and mental health outcomes through a variety of contextual and psychological mechanisms. It is important to note that like all immigrants, many children and youth with undocumented status demonstrate an array of strengths including hope, optimism, motivation, and resilience. Nonetheless, the conferred societal disadvantage imposed on these youths suggest increased contextual and psychological risks. The contextual mechanisms that are thought to mediate educational and mental health outcomes include high levels of poverty in undocumented homes despite having working parents. Furthermore, work conditions are markedly worse for parents with undocumented status, when compared with other lowwage workers, often working below the minimum wage, in physically demanding conditions, with no benefits, with little stability, and no recourse in situations of labor law violations. Such conditions have been shown to have negative consequences for academic, cognitive, and behavioral development among children and youth. Migrant labor, in particular, is associated with high instability in school, home, and neighborhood contexts, all of which have been associated with less optimal youth outcomes. Furthermore, children and youth with unauthorized status are excluded from the safety net of most means-tested From the Human Development & Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

Educational Studies, 2017

In this ambitious issue, the reader is treated to an eclectic array of approaches to a pressing t... more In this ambitious issue, the reader is treated to an eclectic array of approaches to a pressing topic—How should educators consider the diversity of immigrant student experiences? With 1 in 4 students in classrooms coming from an immigrant-headed family, how should teachers be thinking about that student experience? Given that very few teachers have been exposed to teacher education programs that address these students and given their diversity of their experiences, what should they be considering? In this commentary, I discuss the rich content of the articles in this issue and make suggestions for way to address A. Lynn Goodwin's (2002) challenge for teacher education to “do the right thing” (p. 156) for the fastest growing sector of our student population.

Children and Sustainable Development, 2016

Our planet is ever more interconnected, miniaturized, and fragile. With the increase in desertifi... more Our planet is ever more interconnected, miniaturized, and fragile. With the increase in desertification, rising sea levels, erratic weather patterns and climate change, sustainable education becomes an exceedingly important priority the world over. Furthermore, in the age of the “globalization of indifference,” as Pope Francis has taught us, the environment we share becomes a powerful point of entry for educating all children and youth to become engaged, ethical, and competent stewards of a finite and frail world. With the alarming rate of environmental degradation and climate change the right to a sustainable environment is urgently becoming the human rights imperative of our times. As the law of disproportionality makes clear, it is the poor, the weak, immigrants & refugees; and the outcastes that are most vulnerable to both cataclysmic man-made environmental disasters and the slow and steady deterioration of environment qualities (i.e., air quality, water quality, and the like).

International Migration Review, 2002

Helping Young Refugees and Immigrants Succeed, 2010

Outside the family, schools are the most important context of social development shaping the live... more Outside the family, schools are the most important context of social development shaping the lives of newcomer immigrant youth. It is the first sustained, meaningful, and enduring site of participation in an institution of the new society (Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco 2001). It is in schools that immigrant youth begin to acquire the academic, linguistic, and cultural knowledge necessary for their success in the United States. Immigrant students, new to the American system, rely heavily on school personnel—teachers, counselors, coaches, and others—to guide them in the steps necessary to successfully complete their schooling and, with luck, to go on to college. It is through their interactions with peers, teachers, and school staff that newly arrived immigrant youth experiment with new identities and learn to calibrate their ambitions (Stanton-Salazar 2004). These relationships serve to shape their characters, open new opportunities, as well as set constraints to future pathways. It is in their engagement with schooling, broadly defined, that immigrant youth most profoundly transform themselves.

Emerging Adulthood, 2014

The aim of this study was to understand how Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrant-origin community ... more The aim of this study was to understand how Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrant-origin community college students conceptualize adulthood and understand their adult identities. The data are drawn from semi-structured group interviews with 17 low-income immigrant-origin students from three diverse community college campuses in an urban center in the Northeast. The The authors organized the results as a series of dialectic tensions that highlight the contradictions present in the everyday lives of participants. Results reveal that the central task of emerging adulthood is to navigate the multiple divergent messages about what it means to be an adult between home and school contexts. For low-income immigrant-origin community college students, adulthood was defined both by individual responsibility and by social responsibility. Emerging adulthood becomes a time of assuming responsibility for oneself as well as for other loved ones. These findings suggest that developmental pathways vary...

Women & Therapy, 2013

ABSTRACT The current estimate of the unauthorized population in the United States is 10.8 million... more ABSTRACT The current estimate of the unauthorized population in the United States is 10.8 million people (with nearly half (42%) of that population being women and girls). Unauthorized women and girls face unique challenges not only as immigrant women but also as a result of their legal status. Situated in an ecological perspective, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the unique challenges faced by unauthorized women and girls, including the unique challenges of acculturation, discrimination and trauma and the presenting mental health problems that may arise from these challenges. Further, we also delineate barriers to treatment including structural obstacles, differences in perceptions of mental health, preferred sources of help, and alternate coping styles which have been thought to contribute to the underutilization of mental health services by immigrants. Lastly, treatment considerations for mental health professionals will be discussed when working with this unique population.

Research in Human Development, 2006

... Irina LG Todorova Health Psychology Research Center ... a significant motivator for adolescen... more ... Irina LG Todorova Health Psychology Research Center ... a significant motivator for adolescents of Mexican origin; they also sought to establish whether the interdependent affiliative achievement cluster related to cultural patterns that came from the country of ori-gin or whether it ...

Peabody Journal of Education, 2010

Schools the world over are being transformed by growing numbers of immigrant-origin children. As ... more Schools the world over are being transformed by growing numbers of immigrant-origin children. As schools face the challenge of educating linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse students, globalization imposes yet another set of demands on education. In this article we examine the varied pathways taken by immigrant-origin children. We outline some of the most critical contributors shaping their transition to new

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2008

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2013

International Migration Review, 2002

... relationships and predictable contexts-extended families and friends, community ties, jobs, l... more ... relationships and predictable contexts-extended families and friends, community ties, jobs, living situations, customs, and (often ... Stress and social mirroring among immigrant children 207 the problem of illegal immigration is to ... 1998) and the welfare agency (see Eschbach et al. ...

As immigration has reached historic numbers in the United States, immigrant children have become ... more As immigration has reached historic numbers in the United States, immigrant children have become an integral part of the national tapestry. Over 40 million (or approximately 12.5 percent) of people residing in this country are foreign born (Pew Hispanic Center, 2013), and 25 percent of children under the age of 18, a total of 18.7 million children, have an immigrant parent (Child Trends, 2013). This growth in this population has been rapid-in 1970 the population of immigrant-origin children stood at six percent of the total child population. It reached 20 percent by 2000 and is projected to be 33 percent by 2050

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2009

Background/Context Newcomer immigrant students are entering schools in the United States in unpre... more Background/Context Newcomer immigrant students are entering schools in the United States in unprecedented numbers. As they enter new school contexts, they face a number of challenges in their adjustment. Previous literature suggested that relationships in school play a particularly crucial role in promoting socially competent behavior in the classroom and in fostering academic engagement and school performance. Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the role of school-based relationships in engagement and achievement in a population of newcomer immigrant students. Research Design The Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study (LISA) used a mixed-methods approach, combining longitudinal, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and quantitative approaches to document adaptation patterns of 407 recently arrived immigrant youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico over the course of five years. Based on data from the last year of the study, we examin...

Community College Review, 2020

Objective: Although much research on community colleges focuses on institutional challenges or st... more Objective: Although much research on community colleges focuses on institutional challenges or student deficits, emerging evidence suggests that student–instructor relationships have the potential to impact student success. The current study examined factors that could influence community college students’ development of relationships with instructors and how these relationships are associated with academic engagement and achievement. Drawing on literature exploring student–instructor relationships at 4-year institutions, we hypothesized that students’ relationships with instructors may partially account for the association between student demographic and relational characteristics and academic outcomes (i.e., cognitive and behavioral engagement, grade point average [GPA]). Method: Survey data were collected from 646 ethnically and racially diverse participants, many of whom were first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants, or first-generation college students. Employing a betwe...

Theory Into Practice, 2018

Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the US and Sweden that serve newcome... more Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the US and Sweden that serve newcomer students exceptionally well, we identified the strategies they implemented across sites that served to meet the educational needs of these students. We found that these schools provided a comprehensive approach to support the socioemotional and academic needs of their newcomer students, identifying many common practices for improving outcomes for newcomer students.

Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 2017

In 2016, the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) commissioned an exhaustive review of the l... more In 2016, the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) commissioned an exhaustive review of the literature Consensus Statement on the implications of growing up without authorized immigration status or with at least 1 parent who is unauthorized. The statement, which I coauthored, was released in early 2017, outlining the multiple domains of development that compromise the well-being of approximately 5.3 million children and adolescents in the United States. The intensification of anti-immigrant federal policies and postelection anti-immigration climate make this issue of even more pressing concern. An estimated 775,000 children and youth in the United States under the age of 18 do not have citizenship, permanent-resident status, refugee status, or any of the temporary statuses provided by the United States for long-term residence and work. In short, they are unauthorized migrants. Furthermore, over 4.5 million other children and youth are US citizens with at least 1 unauthorized parent. As such, over a quarter (28%) of the 18.7 million first-generation and second-generation children and youth in the United States are growing up directly affected by unauthorized status—either their own or 1 parent. They originate in multiple countries, with those of Mexican origin representing the single largest group. Historically most crossed over the borders without inspection and the proper authorization. But more recently, so-called visa over-stayers— immigrants who arrive with visas and become unauthorized as the visas expire, have surpassed those crossing the border without inspection. The SRA consensus statement noted that a growing body of research evidence has demonstrated that on average, relative to their documented peers, children, and youth with undocumented status, reveal less positive educational and mental health outcomes, after adjusting for indicators of socioeconomic status. Moreover, the developmental issues associated with unauthorized status are not limited to youth who are unauthorized themselves. Research has shown that having a parent who is unauthorized is associated with a number of developmental and educational vulnerabilities in US born children and youth, including lower levels of cognitive development, lower academic achievement, and educational progress across early and middle childhood and into young adulthood. There is also growing evidence of various mental health challenges associated with growing up in the shadow of the law. These include higher levels of internalizing (depression, anxiety, and withdrawal) and externalizing (aggressive and acting out) behavioral problems relative to their counterparts with documented or citizen parents as well as higher levels of self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms. Although causality is elusive, researchers have hypothesized that undocumented status affects educational and mental health outcomes through a variety of contextual and psychological mechanisms. It is important to note that like all immigrants, many children and youth with undocumented status demonstrate an array of strengths including hope, optimism, motivation, and resilience. Nonetheless, the conferred societal disadvantage imposed on these youths suggest increased contextual and psychological risks. The contextual mechanisms that are thought to mediate educational and mental health outcomes include high levels of poverty in undocumented homes despite having working parents. Furthermore, work conditions are markedly worse for parents with undocumented status, when compared with other lowwage workers, often working below the minimum wage, in physically demanding conditions, with no benefits, with little stability, and no recourse in situations of labor law violations. Such conditions have been shown to have negative consequences for academic, cognitive, and behavioral development among children and youth. Migrant labor, in particular, is associated with high instability in school, home, and neighborhood contexts, all of which have been associated with less optimal youth outcomes. Furthermore, children and youth with unauthorized status are excluded from the safety net of most means-tested From the Human Development & Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

Educational Studies, 2017

In this ambitious issue, the reader is treated to an eclectic array of approaches to a pressing t... more In this ambitious issue, the reader is treated to an eclectic array of approaches to a pressing topic—How should educators consider the diversity of immigrant student experiences? With 1 in 4 students in classrooms coming from an immigrant-headed family, how should teachers be thinking about that student experience? Given that very few teachers have been exposed to teacher education programs that address these students and given their diversity of their experiences, what should they be considering? In this commentary, I discuss the rich content of the articles in this issue and make suggestions for way to address A. Lynn Goodwin's (2002) challenge for teacher education to “do the right thing” (p. 156) for the fastest growing sector of our student population.

Children and Sustainable Development, 2016

Our planet is ever more interconnected, miniaturized, and fragile. With the increase in desertifi... more Our planet is ever more interconnected, miniaturized, and fragile. With the increase in desertification, rising sea levels, erratic weather patterns and climate change, sustainable education becomes an exceedingly important priority the world over. Furthermore, in the age of the “globalization of indifference,” as Pope Francis has taught us, the environment we share becomes a powerful point of entry for educating all children and youth to become engaged, ethical, and competent stewards of a finite and frail world. With the alarming rate of environmental degradation and climate change the right to a sustainable environment is urgently becoming the human rights imperative of our times. As the law of disproportionality makes clear, it is the poor, the weak, immigrants & refugees; and the outcastes that are most vulnerable to both cataclysmic man-made environmental disasters and the slow and steady deterioration of environment qualities (i.e., air quality, water quality, and the like).

International Migration Review, 2002

Helping Young Refugees and Immigrants Succeed, 2010

Outside the family, schools are the most important context of social development shaping the live... more Outside the family, schools are the most important context of social development shaping the lives of newcomer immigrant youth. It is the first sustained, meaningful, and enduring site of participation in an institution of the new society (Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco 2001). It is in schools that immigrant youth begin to acquire the academic, linguistic, and cultural knowledge necessary for their success in the United States. Immigrant students, new to the American system, rely heavily on school personnel—teachers, counselors, coaches, and others—to guide them in the steps necessary to successfully complete their schooling and, with luck, to go on to college. It is through their interactions with peers, teachers, and school staff that newly arrived immigrant youth experiment with new identities and learn to calibrate their ambitions (Stanton-Salazar 2004). These relationships serve to shape their characters, open new opportunities, as well as set constraints to future pathways. It is in their engagement with schooling, broadly defined, that immigrant youth most profoundly transform themselves.

Emerging Adulthood, 2014

The aim of this study was to understand how Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrant-origin community ... more The aim of this study was to understand how Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrant-origin community college students conceptualize adulthood and understand their adult identities. The data are drawn from semi-structured group interviews with 17 low-income immigrant-origin students from three diverse community college campuses in an urban center in the Northeast. The The authors organized the results as a series of dialectic tensions that highlight the contradictions present in the everyday lives of participants. Results reveal that the central task of emerging adulthood is to navigate the multiple divergent messages about what it means to be an adult between home and school contexts. For low-income immigrant-origin community college students, adulthood was defined both by individual responsibility and by social responsibility. Emerging adulthood becomes a time of assuming responsibility for oneself as well as for other loved ones. These findings suggest that developmental pathways vary...

Women & Therapy, 2013

ABSTRACT The current estimate of the unauthorized population in the United States is 10.8 million... more ABSTRACT The current estimate of the unauthorized population in the United States is 10.8 million people (with nearly half (42%) of that population being women and girls). Unauthorized women and girls face unique challenges not only as immigrant women but also as a result of their legal status. Situated in an ecological perspective, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the unique challenges faced by unauthorized women and girls, including the unique challenges of acculturation, discrimination and trauma and the presenting mental health problems that may arise from these challenges. Further, we also delineate barriers to treatment including structural obstacles, differences in perceptions of mental health, preferred sources of help, and alternate coping styles which have been thought to contribute to the underutilization of mental health services by immigrants. Lastly, treatment considerations for mental health professionals will be discussed when working with this unique population.

Research in Human Development, 2006

... Irina LG Todorova Health Psychology Research Center ... a significant motivator for adolescen... more ... Irina LG Todorova Health Psychology Research Center ... a significant motivator for adolescents of Mexican origin; they also sought to establish whether the interdependent affiliative achievement cluster related to cultural patterns that came from the country of ori-gin or whether it ...

Peabody Journal of Education, 2010

Schools the world over are being transformed by growing numbers of immigrant-origin children. As ... more Schools the world over are being transformed by growing numbers of immigrant-origin children. As schools face the challenge of educating linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse students, globalization imposes yet another set of demands on education. In this article we examine the varied pathways taken by immigrant-origin children. We outline some of the most critical contributors shaping their transition to new

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2008

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2013