Subject Area

Education, Humanities

Abstract

There are 5.6 million K-12 students who are either undocumented or living with at least one undocumented parent (Passel & Cohn, 2018). In 2021, FWD.us estimated that approximately 620,000 K-12 students are undocumented; 34% of these students migrated from countries in Asia, sub-Saharan African, and Caribbean countries. These students have unique needs in schools, such as support for lower frequency language services, wraparound supports, and classroom curricula that should account for their cultural heritages and traditions. While scholars have conducted research on the largest group of undocumented students, Latinx, existing knowledge of the students coming from Asian and African countries is based primarily on research conducted in higher education settings. The dearth of research leaves school leaders ill-equipped in how to support many undocumented Asian and Black students. To address this gap, this generic qualitative study aims to explore how school leaders in four states support undocumented Asian and Black students in K-12 schools. The findings reveal that school leaders who support undocumented Asian and Black students often respond to situations in a reactive manner. They face a challenging dilemma at the intersection of immigration and education, as they are unable to identify who is undocumented, making it difficult to provide targeted support. Nevertheless, they are still expected to support these students’ education. As a result, it is recommended that school leaders operate under the assumption that they are always serving undocumented Asian and Black students. This study offers education practitioners proactive approaches to supporting this group of students.

Degree Date

Spring 5-10-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ed.D.

Department

Department of Education Policy and Leadership

Advisor

Alexandra Pavlakis

Second Advisor

Meredith Richards

Third Advisor

German A. Cardenas

Number of Pages

126

Format

.pdf

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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