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  • Communication Breakdown: Informing Immigrant Families about High School Choice in New York City
    Authors:
    Year: 2011

  • Abstract:
    Though many studies have asked whether students participating in school choice programs differ in social background from those who do not, the interaction between immigrant status and school choice has been largely overlooked in the research literature. This paper draws on ethnographic data from research in three middle schools in Queens, New York, and analyzes school choice publications created and distributed by the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) to answer questions about how the district and school-level communication strategies and materials facilitate and/or complicate Latin American immigrant families’ understanding of the choice process. Four key findings emerged. First, in virtually none of the NYCDOE publications and at few of the informational events was school quality mentioned as important to consider when selecting schools. Next, there was considerable variation in the availability and quality of translation and interpretation services at the different middle school events. In a related vein, even when translation and interpretation services were provided, verbatim linguistic translation was often insufficient to convey the meaning of a complicated or unfamiliar concept to immigrant parents. Finally, the NYCDOE relied heavily on web-based resources and the Internet as a means of disseminating information, creating obstacles for people with restricted access to computers or limited computer literacy.

    This paper is published in a book from the Harvard Education Press.


The NCSC is funded by a 5 year, $13.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Its lead institution is Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The center is housed on the campus of Peabody College, one of the nation's top graduate schools of education.