“Unaccompanied Minors: Immigrant Youth, School Choice, and the Pursuit of Equity” by Dr. Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj
Dr. Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Assistant Professor and Co-director of the Center for College Readiness recently published a new book by the Harvard Education Press. The book, Unaccompanied Minors: Immigrant Youth, School Choice and the Pursuit of Equity, will be officially released on September 30th, but is now available for purchase from Amazon and the Harvard Ed Press website.
Unaccompanied Minors is an important and timely book. Taking readers inside the high school choice experiences of low-income Latino immigrant youth and their families, Sattin-Bajaj articulates a new perspective on the equity debates surrounding the school choice policies being implemented throughout the country. With a humane and intelligent eye, she delivers unparalleled insight into the challenges and opportunities for using choice as a tool to promote greater equity in the era of mass migration. Unaccompanied Minors is a must-read for researchers, policy makers, and educators who care about immigrant students and educational equity in the twenty-first century. – Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco Dean and Distinguished Professor of Education UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
School choice – now a pillar of education reform in the United States – is widely touted as a strategy for addressing educational inequity. Yet efforts to implement school choice can exacerbate, rather than counteract, inequities. Unaccompanied Minors takes a close look at the experience of immigrant students and their families who are navigating New York City’s mandatory high school choice program. Drawing on rich ethnographic data – including students’ own perspectives on the decision-making process – Dr. Sattin-Bajaj examines the assumptions and expectations underlying the school system’s policies for implementing school choice and contrasts these with the cultural and practical obstacles that prevent many immigrant students from navigating the system effectively. Sattin-Bajaj distinguishes between “strategic” and “passive” choosers and analyzes the constellation of integrated supports, guidance, and normative mes-sages that contribute to a strategic orientation. Most importantly, Unaccompanied Minors outlines strategic steps schools and districts can take to guide families from all backgrounds through the choice process.