Finding a Civic Voice: Latino Immigrant Youths’ Experiences in High School Social Studies

Abstract

Socialization into the dominant civic and political discourse lies at the heart of social studies. As they become proficient in the discourse of home and school, Latino immigrant youth demonstrate the potential to uniquely benefit from this socialization. This qualitative study explores ten Latino immigrant young adults’ perceptions of how their social studies experiences shaped their young adult civic selves. Participants internalized not only their parents’ high expectations for them, but also those of their teachers, highlighting the potentially instrumental role of schools in the civic fabric of the nation. In addition, the Latino young adults felt empowered by their social studies teachers via civic expectations and academic encouragement and perceived this empowerment to have facilitated the skill development necessary for later civic leadership. In closing, we reflect on immigrant students’ incorporation of the discourse of the dominant culture with that of the home to develop their own civic voices.

Introduction

Latino immigrant youth comprise one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. population, yet we know relatively little about their induction into the dominant political and civic discourse. While formative educational experiences may shape their political and civic integration, stratification of opportunities within the U.S. education system all but ensures unequal outcomes. Segmented assimilation theory highlights the unique interaction of individual background characteristics with those of the three modes of incorporation: global, societal, and communal in shaping patterns of immigrant integration (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Zhou, 1997). As a societal mode of incorporation, the high school, especially the academic coursework in which immigrant students participate, offers a rich contextual opportunity to explore immigrant youth’s pathways to political and civic socialization.

For Latino immigrant adolescents, we argue that coursework embodies one mode of societal incorporation. The present study is designed to explore how Latino immigrant young adults perceive their high school social studies course experiences to have shaped their future political and civic development. As a societal mode of incorporation, high school social studies has the potential to offer not only modeling of traditional civic behavioral norms by the teacher, but also the academic and social capital necessary to successfully navigate the dominant political discourse in young adulthood. The social studies classroom and the social studies teacher in particular, may present a critical juncture for immigrant students incorporating the discourse of the dominant culture and the home as they develop their civic and political selves.

To translate theory into practice, the current study interrogates the civic potential of high school social studies among immigrant youth. Our work builds on results from prior quantitative research suggesting that social studies course taking predicts immigrant adolescents’ young adult voting behaviors in a way that it does not for children of U.S.-born parents (Callahan, Muller, & Schiller, 2008). Among others, this finding spurred the research question at the core of this study:

How do Latino, immigrant young adults perceive their high school social studies experiences to have shaped their development as political and civic participants?

Designed to highlight Latino immigrant youths’ voices, the present study targeted the former students of nationally board-certified (NBC) social studies teachers in high Latino service areas. Interviews were designed to explore the relationship between Latino youths’ perceptions of high school social studies and their future political and civic selves. The recent unprecedented growth of the Latino population, especially Latino immigrant youth (Passel & Cohn, 2008; U.S. Census Bureau, 2006) highlights the critical importance to our democracy of equipping these citizens with the knowledge, skills and behaviors necessary to engage in their civic and political society.

The Intersection of Immigration Theory and Educational Practice: At the Core of Immigrant Youths’ Political and Civic Incorporation?

Segmented assimilation theory highlights the interaction between individual and contextual characteristics to determine integration outcomes (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Waldinger & Feliciano, 2004; Zhou, 1997). Specifically, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) highlight selective acculturation as an optimal outcome, a means by which immigrant youth integrate critical aspects of the dominant culture while simultaneously maintaining strong ties to the home culture and community. Similarly, Gibson (1997) argues that, perhaps most important to any theory of assimilation as it pertains to youth in schools, immigrant students perform best when simultaneous school and home support allow for a pattern of selective acculturation. However, the bulk of research on immigrants’ societal incorporation addresses the neighborhood and the society at large (Alba, Logan, & Stults, 2000; Logan, Zhang, & Alba, 2002; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Rumbaut & Portes, 2001); here, we narrow our inquiry to the societal context of the classroom. In particular, we focus on high school social studies, due not only to students’ exposure to political discourse, but also the theoretical emphasis of the social studies curriculum on understanding and adopting alternate points of view as a function of a democratic society. We theorize that high school social studies in particular may offer Latino immigrant youth, already practiced in negotiating multiple perspectives, an optimal environment for civic and political socialization.

Immigrant Students’ Modes of Societal Incorporation

High school social studies

An oft-stated purpose of social studies education is “to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world¹.” The goal of citizenship education offers some, but not complete clarity given the multiple discourses regarding democratic citizenship education that address political philosophies of republicanism and liberalism, as well as a discourse of critical citizens (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006) and the kinds of citizens schools work to develop (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). At the secondary level, social studies education typically includes coursework in the humanities and social sciences, and the goal of citizenship education may or may not be explicit. Prior research illustrates an association between political participation in young adulthood and both high school civics preparation (Atherton, 2000; Chaffee, 2000) and achievement (Nie, Junn, & Stehlik-Barry, 1996). In particular, prior research suggests a positive association between immigrant students’ social studies course-taking and their young adult political engagement (Callahan, et al., 2008). A key directive of US public schools is to prepare youth, and immigrant youth in particular, for participation in the democratic process (Tyack, 2003). As young adults, students will be expected to vote and to actively engage in their communities (Cremin, 1951; Goodlad, 1984). Social studies course taking may also produce divergent patterns of civic (e.g., volunteering through an organized club) and political (e.g., registering to vote, working on a campaign, discussing politics) engagement among our youth.

As a result, we designed the present study to explore whether and how high school social studies may provide exposure to the political and civic discourse and expectations of the dominant culture. The social studies teacher serves as a primary model of the dominant political and civic discourse, an adult participant particularly attuned to the importance of fostering democratic behaviors among youth. Peers in high school social studies may then reinforce these expectations through their own behaviors and actions. From a curricular perspective, high school social studies has the potential to engage immigrant students in a civic discourse focused on understanding how individuals navigate society, with an end goal of political and civic engagement in adulthood. Immigrant youth in turn, proficient in the discourse of the home culture, bring the ability to navigate two worlds to the table, and incorporate both as they develop their new civic voice. While we can comfortably assert that political knowledge during adolescence is associated with voting and other behaviors during young adulthood (Sherrod, 2003), key in this process is the development of political initiative which may occur in high school social studies.

Affective context

In addition to the social studies curriculum, teachers’ behaviors and attitudes contribute to the affective context of societal incorporation. Teachers’ perceptions of immigrant youth as hardworking and highly motivated may contribute to positive academic aspirations despite unreceptive, if not hostile peer attitudes. Gibson (1987) describes how Punjabi immigrant youth internalized the high academic expectations of their parents and teachers to buffer themselves against pressure to conform to negative academic norms of American peer behavior. In addition, immigrant students’ perceptions of teachers’ behaviors and academic expectations may also shape their young adult behaviors and outcomes. For example, Stone and Han (2005) find Mexican immigrant students to perceive low teacher expectations and lack of support as discrimination, which in turn is indirectly and negatively associated with grades. Similarly, Lew (2004) found that Korean immigrant drop outs reported multiple teacher interactions they perceived to be uncaring and disparaging—interactions that they subsequently internalized as a disincentive to remain in high school.

Not unsurprisingly, the converse may also hold true. High teachers’ expectations may also be associated with positive post-secondary aspirations as Matute-Bianchi (1986) described among the Mexican-American girls she studied. The immigrant adolescent girls in her work reported that they perceived teacher and counselor support to bolster their college-going and academic success, especially when faced with parents reluctant to send their daughters away to college. For these girls, teachers’ expectations of their academic success provided the support necessary to even entertain the possibility of going to college.

The social capital associated with positive interpersonal relationships such as these is the central focal point of later work exploring immigrant and minority youths’ academic outcomes. Stanton-Salazar and Dornbusch (1995) in their work exploring achievement among Mexican origin youth, emphasize the interaction between immigrants’ grades and institutional ties (i.e., teachers and counselors). For immigrant youth, not only social studies content and curriculum, but also classroom connections appear to shape their young adult outcomes.

Recent work on the role of caring in the immigrant and underrepresented student classroom suggests it is a necessary, although insufficient precursor to positive academic outcomes. Specifically, Antrop-González & De Jesús (2006) note that high academic expectations must be followed with active engagement in the students’ learning, and that the quality, not just quantity of interpersonal relationships matters. High expectations can improve achievement when substantiated with teachers’ active involvement in the students’ academic development (Antrop-González & De Jesús, 2006). The relationship between students’ perceptions of teachers’ beliefs and subsequent translation of these perceptions into their individual aspirations warrants consideration.

The intersection of social studies with the affective

Socialization into the dominant political and civic discourse lies at the heart of social studies. High school social studies may be uniquely poised to capitalize on immigrant adolescents’ experience incorporating and balancing multiple discourses to maximize their civic and political development, their ability to move beyond an awareness of one’s own needs to a recognition of those of the group (Sherrod, Flanagan, & Youniss, 2002). Relative newcomers to the dominant political and civic discourse of the U.S., Latino immigrant youth may successfully acculturate into civic society, while maintaining a clear base in their home culture if exposed to its fundamental elements in the social studies context.

Purpose of the Present Study

Immigrant youth, by definition, are neither from the dominant culture, nor from that of their parents’ home country; yet they are of both. The space in which immigrant adolescents reside within high school social studies presents an intriguing area of inquiry. Immigrant students travel through adolescence developing proficiency in the discourse of the dominant culture, as operationalized by the institution of schooling, incorporating it with the discourse of their home culture to develop a civic voice unique to their own experience. By definition outsiders to the dominant culture, immigrant students have practice adopting and participating in discourses different from their own; this constant emphasis on developing empathy may make them particularly open to the social studies curriculum which emphasizes awareness of societal needs (Sherrod, et al., 2002). This study is designed to explore whether and how Latino immigrant youth perceive those adolescent experiences as shaping their present civic and political aptitude and engagement. Specifically, we explore the following question: How do Latino, immigrant young adults perceive their high school social studies experiences to have shaped their development as political and civic participants?

Theoretical Framework

Theories of immigrant incorporation, while primarily focused on sociocultural covariates and context, primarily consider immigrant adolescents’ academic outcomes (Alba & Nee, 2003; Rumbaut & Portes, 2001; White & Glick, 2009), and less often focus on their academic experiences and incorporation. For example, relatively little work explores the association between the societal context embodied in the high school classroom and immigrant youths’ patterns of acculturation; most theoretical work explores the association between the school and neighborhood composition and student outcomes. While many scholars draw on theories of social capital to understand patterns of integration and achievement (Bankston & Zhou, 2002; Kao, 2004), exposure to and experiences with social capital across the high school curriculum warrants consideration as well. And while all of the aforementioned works inform the current study, no one theory sufficiently identifies which aspects of social studies coursework drive future political participation among immigrant youth.

The present study was designed to complement an earlier quantitative exploration, the results from which posed new questions regarding the forces driving civic and political participation among Latino immigrant youth in particular. And in spite of the wealth of knowledge provided by the aforementioned theories, as well as the information drawn from prior research, gaps remain in the field. Grounded theory affords a way to explore issues of this nature. By carefully choosing participants, engaging in data analysis during data collection, and using these processes to inform and shape further data collection (Charmaz, 2006), we were able to create a conceptual framework exploring the unique relationship of the immigrant student to the social studies context (e.g., teacher, content and curriculum). Our initial uncertainty about the forces shaping immigrant young adults’ civic and political participation precluded using an existing framework. To do so would have negated the inductive nature of our analysis. For this reason, we approached the current study using grounded theory methods in order to conceptualize what we interpreted from the data.

Methods

This qualitative study is conceptually situated in constructivism, which holds a basic assumption that knowledge is situated within specific times and spaces, neither static nor singular (Charmaz, 2011). As such, data were collected with the goal of understanding the “multiple realities constructed by people and the implication of those constructions for their lives…” (Patton, 2002, p. 96). This data collection process recognizes that the unique life and school experiences of the participants add a current and different voice to the socialization experiences of immigrant youth. Participants were recruited via snowball sampling (Patton, 2002) and through the recommendation of National Board Certified (NBC) social studies teachers. We chose NBC teachers in an effort to stabilize some of the potential variation in pedagogical practices and content coverage inherent across US high schools and social studies course experiences. The social studies teachers were identified via the NBCT directory website² and contacted through personal email or websites. The teachers were asked to identify former Latino immigrant students who had enrolled in their social studies classes, and with whom they remained in contact. For the most part, the NBCT sent the researcher’s information on to their former students, with a brief description of the study and an invitation to participate. The 10 youths who agreed were the participants for this study. As is the nature of qualitative inquiry, this study is limited in its generalizability to the experiences of Latino immigrant youth similar to our participants.

Participants: Sample Identification & Demographics

The 10 (five female, five male) study participants, two first and eight second generation Latino immigrant young adults, ranged in age from 20 to 24 at the time of data collection (see Table 1). All participants had taken high school social studies coursework with an NBC teacher and were now enrolled as undergraduates across a range of universities nationally.

Table 1.

Participant	Sex	Age	Generation	U.S. State of Residence	Ethnicity
Amanda	F	21	Second	Texas	Mexican
Anthony	M	24	Second	Texas	Mexican
Fatima	F	20	Second	California	Mexican
Fernando	M	21	Second	Texas	Argentinean/ Guatemalan
Isabel	F	20	Second	California	Mexican
Juan	M	20	First	Florida	Colombian
Mireya	F	20	Second	California	Puerto Rican
Ramiro	M	20	Second	Florida	Cuban
Rosita	F	20	Second	Florida	Mexican
Sam	M	21	First	Texas	Mexican

Our Latino young adults’ home communities during high school all had substantial Hispanic populations, ranging from 24% to 76%. They also attended high schools that enrolled between 30% and 82% Hispanic-identifying student populations. All participants were enrolled in a college or university with academic majors that included pre-medicine, international relations, and political science. Each of the Latino young adult participants demonstrated a high level of civic participation on their college campus, many taking active leadership roles and integrating themselves into the surrounding community as well. Nearly all participated in some form of political outreach in their community during the 2008 presidential election: organizing voter registration drives, participating in debates, volunteering on campaigns, spearheading fundraisers and even developing Facebook forums on specific issues. A number held leadership positions, mentored other undergraduates, middle- and high school students, led community service projects, volunteer in the campus and city health care clinics providing health education services. Their employment also leaned towards civic or social-minded pursuits; e.g., advocate in the Office for Student Disabilities; intern on a senate campaign; health sexuality peer educator.

Data Collection and Data Analysis

Data were collected via hour-long audio-taped interviews. With the exception of Isabel and Fatima who were interviewed together, all other interviews were conducted individually. Using grounded theory methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1997), the audio-taped in-person and telephone interviews were transcribed and coded to create categories of meaning. During open coding, the researchers reread the transcripts multiple times in order to identify and label recurring ideas across the interviews. These ideas were given descriptive labels and the transcripts were then rechecked to determine the consistency of these labels and adjustments were made to the descriptive labels. Once the categories were established, the essential elements of each category were determined and descriptive themes were constructed to explain the entire category. The categories and themes were compared to one another to address issues of redundancy. Finally, through the process of selective coding, the themes were woven together in a coherent manner to explain the results, articulating youths’ perceptions of the role of their social studies courses in their civic engagement.

Findings

In this section, we explore Latino, immigrant young adults’ reflections on their high school social studies classes. We first report on the participant’s general impressions of their social studies teachers and then present our major assertion that the study participants consistently reported that their teachers actively worked to empower the students to engage in political and civic life. We then detail and provide evidence of the three distinct ways that the participants explained the process of this empowerment.

In particular, we argue that it is this unique juncture of immigrant youths’ ability to simultaneously draw from the discourses of both the dominant and their home culture, combined with their teachers’ empowerment of their civic selves that enables the Latino immigrant young adults to optimize their positions in young adulthood. Essentially, this distinct combination of forces facilitated the ‘successful’ selective acculturation of the Latino immigrant young adult participants via socialization into the dominant political and civic discourse while maintaining an obligation to their communities.

‘Good’ Teachers and Privilege: Immigrant Expectations and Obligations

In general, the participants spoke highly of their teachers, in terms of being very knowledgeable and/or supportive. Both of these dimensions were articulated in one of Amanda’s comments, “I still remember my U.S. History teacher; she was intense and she knew so much, and everybody loved her…but hated her.” Participants repeatedly remarked upon their teachers’ knowledge of content, including current events. For example, Fernando explained that his World History teacher “just knew everything off the top of his head” and Mireya reported that her American Government teacher “definitely knew his stuff.” Several participants also reported how having a personal connection to their teachers benefited the participants’ academic learning and civic attitudes.

Fernando noted that he had a “personal connection” with his social studies teachers, who were “big on getting involved.” Anthony also commented that his Economics teacher “expressed that she loved us. She wanted us to excel. It kind of made a good atmosphere to learn in.” Isabel also talked about the devotion she felt her Government and U.S. History teacher must have had for her students:

(She) cared about the kids. With her lifestyle and her amount of intelligence and accomplishment…we knew that what she was doing in the community was pretty much charity work. She could be off making loads of money … but everyone knew she was there because she cared about the kids.

These details provide evidence of the participants’ acceptance of the explicit and implicit curricular goals of their social studies experiences; that is, school and society held expectations, and dedicated and good teachers would help our participants meet those expectations.

Time and again, the participants also connected their perceptions of having knowledgeable and/or supportive (i.e., good) teachers to their own perceived privilege of participating in certain programs or courses or of being a student who benefited from those teachers by being successful in college. Rosita succinctly stated, “I was in gifted, so I got good teachers.” Other participants echoed this idea. In a separate interview, Amanda explained, “I came from a really strong line of teachers because I was in a … gifted and talented (program), so they put all the good teachers there.” Several participants connected this perceived privilege to their obligations to their immigrant parents. This indebtedness reflects a set of parental and familial expectations of children of immigrant parents, what Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, and Todorova (2008) refer to as the immigrant “bargain” (p. 73). Immigrant parents’ optimism (Kao & Tienda, 1995) and high expectations are reflected in our respondents’ drive to fulfill their part of this bargain.

To illustrate, Anthony connected his high school experiences, including having good teachers, to being successful in college; the subsequent weight of that success inspired him to engage in his ethnic community. His success reflected what he recognized to be his parents’ expectations of him, an experience shared by his peers. Anthony explained:

There’s a lot of pressure. Most of us are the first in college. We’re at this big university. We come from … inner city schools. They [teachers] tell us how proud our school was. [There was] a 19% dropout rate and when they said that, I was pretty scared.

Anthony further connected the pressure that comes with that privilege to the decision his parents made to immigrate to the United States several years earlier:

When you are Latino and are in America, it is a big deal. Every time I see [television], you’ll see Nicaragua, Honduras. There’s a flood; there’s political [strife]. My mom knows what she got away from. My mom and dad always made sure I had good grades. They didn’t expect anything less. ‘We are giving you all the opportunity.’

Likewise, Sam reflected that when he and his mother came to the United States together, “It took a lot, because she had everything over there. She had her friends. She had everything.” Sam and Anthony’s blending of privilege, expectations and obligations to their parents is consistent with the Suárez-Orozco, et al. (2008) discussion of familial obligations, and indicative of an added pressure that Latino immigrant youth may carry through their schooling and young adulthood experiences. Fulfilling these expectations requires a certain level of resilience and the ability to navigate multiple contexts.

Empowerment

Our Latino, immigrant young adult participants frequently noted that they had benefitted from the privilege of having had good social studies teachers; felt obliged to live up to the benefits of privilege; and, also believed that their teachers were committed to empowering them to be successful in school and life. Here, success in young adulthood included a dimension of political and civic engagement. In this next section, we detail three distinct ways that the participants believed that their teachers worked to empower them.

Empowerment via expectations of critical thinking

The participants uniformly commented that their social studies teachers held high expectations for their academic work. Mastery of content is an obvious expectation; however, participants also stated that teachers’ high expectations were articulated through a demand for critical thinking in the classroom. Definitions of critical thinking vary, and are continuously nuanced through the work of various scholars. For the purposes of this study, we ascribe to a broad definition of critical thinking as comprising the “cognitive processes and strategies involved in decision making, problem solving, or inquiry” (Bataineh & Alazzi, 2009, p. 58). Our participants articulated critical thinking as their teachers’ insistence on not what, but rather how one thought and questioned; how one communicated one’s thinking. The participants learned from their teachers that it was the how that would develop a greater citizenry; internalizing the importance of questioning and discussing, challenging and interrogating new understandings. Fernando recalled that he learned “not just [which] questions to ask, but how to ask the right questions.” Similarly, Amanda noted:

Definitely none of [our teachers] sat us down and were like this is how you need to think, this is how it is. It was kind of like, ‘This is kind of how I think. If you want to challenge it, feel free to.’ So I guess that is where more informal style of classes like the Government Economics class was. That gives you more freedom to question.

Similarly, referring to his American Government teacher, Anthony explained the process of questioning one’s assumptions and beliefs as an additional aspect of critical thinking:

He was pushing us [to explain] why we would choose someone…he was trying to get us to vote…he was trying to give us a voice that sound[ed] confident and sounded like we knew [what] we were talking about… He wanted us to be active…to find a reason [to vote]… to know what was happening in politics.

The importance of critical questioning of others and self, of learning through questioning and thorough interrogation, taught the Latino young adults not to take information at face value. This process taught the young adults that a critical understanding of the political forces governing our society could allow them to influence these very forces. Fernando explicitly connected the high school focus on how to think critically with how he processed new information as a young adult:

Whenever I was looking over any policy or opinions on issues… I will read it, I will listen to what they have to say about it, and even how they say it, and just for the sake of argument, I just second-guess it. They may be completely right, but I will second-guess it anyway and then scope out what other people say to back them up.

Empowerment via expectations of the ability to communicate one’s thinking

Across the board, the Latino immigrant young adults reported that their teachers expected them to excel academically, expected them to go to college, and worked with them to make that happen. Immigrant students’ experiences in social studies coursework arose as having both an academic and professional dimension. In addition to the ability to think critically, as discussed above, participants discussed teachers’ expectation that they would be able to communicate their thinking through various modalities.

With respect to written communication, Ramiro explained that his teacher “was very precise about our vocabulary. She [wanted us to] use words as our weapon; to be able to speak in a way and write in a way that is beyond good and bad.” Ramiro also recalled this civic admonishment from his social studies teacher and the importance of learning to communicate orally:

He always said to never pick a side, don’t label yourself as Democratic, don’t label yourself as Republican; label you as you. You vote for who you believe is going to be the right person to vote for; the person who is going to make a change that you feel is the right change that our Country needs. So having that mentality really helps ….he always said do your research, know what you are talking about, know what is going to be -- what are the factors, what are the issues. He always said that if you go into something uninformed, you really have no right to say anything because you don’t understand how great the debate is, how important it is. All these democratic discussions and all of these debates were focused on our research, on our ability to speak and our ability to think and thinking critically. So he really taught us like adults; he taught us like college students.

Ramiro’s reference to the importance of student research also reflects social studies’ teachers’ incorporation of multiple sources of evidence (e.g., primary source documents) as an integral part of both the inquiry process, as well as an historian’s methodology. In turn, students’ ability to interrogate the information at hand, address any subsequent questions that arose, construct and present a coherent written or oral argument, surfaced repeatedly as an integral part of what the participants recalled from their social studies experiences. This process appears to have given many of the Latino young adults their first experience participating in the political question and answer process. While the process was also consistent with the development of critical thinking skills, the students specifically perceived their ability to incorporate multiple perspectives into their understanding of an issue and to be able to communicate that understanding as empowering.

Participants reflected on the importance of orally defending a position as well. And, perhaps even more important than defending a position they may have already held, they noted their ability to defend a position they may not have agreed with. In particular, Isabel noted that:

We would just collaborate on; we would just get together and talk about articles that we had to read. We’d make presentations on articles or on issues that we had to read. And also in that social studies class in senior year we had debates. And I can’t remember what mine was. I think it was stem cell research. And I was arguing against stem cell research. I think we also did abortion and gay rights as well. But, you know, just collaborating with people. And sort of, you know, cultivating that political activism. It really helped us just become a little more outspoken and not so shy about politics.

Fernando’s recollections were similar; when asked about key social studies experiences, he shared one teacher’s approach:

He was really good at wanting you to say what you really felt about a subject. And so you get angry because he is baiting you into these things, and you lay out your opinion and then he will ask you why you do you think that. And that question puts you on edge. It’s like, wait a minute, and so you have to go back and rethink everything to double check that, yeah, this is really what I think.

While Fernando was speaking more generally of his ability to communicate his thought process, others spoke directly with respect to the presidential election of 2008, an event that occurred more than two years after their high school experiences. Many of the participants commented on the process by which they learned to critically evaluate the information presented to them. They drew upon these teachings in their interactions with peers reflecting on the political issues of the day. To illustrate this point, Mireya commented that:

We had discussions based upon the different platforms. Because I really was indecisive for a while because they each had their good and their bad, so we’d sit there and argue about why said candidate was better than the other and… what they said and what that means…we watched all of the debates. I remember my roommate and I would sit there and yell at the TV for things said that we didn’t agree with. I thought it was very energetic.

There was one explicit counter to these expectations of critical thinking offered by Juan, a first generation student who had immigrated to the United States at 15 after having already completed several years of a private ‘preparatoria’, high school, in Colombia. Juan expressed his disappointment in his U.S. high school experience, stating:

We limited ourselves to what was covered in the book. Any type of conversation that required critical thinking was avoided because the professors didn’t want to influence our thinking and most of the students didn’t care about what was going on. Basically they were telling us not to think.

Juan, in fact, may have been noticing his history teachers’ reticence to advocate a given political perspective, a constraint his teachers in his relatively affluent, powerful high school in Colombia may not have felt. Even though Juan’s experiences were different from the other participants, in general the power gained through learning how to think critically, as well as how to communicate that thinking, rests squarely in the academic realm of the school experience. In addition to this academic realm, students felt empowered through more affective measures, including emotional support. This is evidenced by the levels and types of civic participation and leadership expressed by the immigrant young participants, which we explore in the following section.

Empowerment via cheerleading

We term the affective or emotional support that the students recalled as cheerleading as it often included pep talks, slogans, and encouragement. Related to the personable nature of their teachers, the participants reported being cheered on to be successful in high school, in college, and in the future. Anthony, speaking of his Economics teacher’s encouragement to be successful in life, said, “She was …worried about us just living and doing stuff and empowering us…She was telling us, ‘get out there. You can do it. Don’t let anyone hold you back.’” One of Rosita’s teachers specifically encouraged his students to engage politically. Rosita recalled, “as cheesy as it sounds, we really did have a voice. I remember him always telling us to vote; that we had the power to change things.” She reflected on another social studies teacher, explaining, “he would [say], ‘since you have this voice you should try [using] it;’ He was very one-on-one and he was very involved with the students, after school with our club activities, and just gave really great feedback and was inspiring.”

In some instances this cheerleading was explicitly tied to the participants’ immigrant and/or ethnic identity, with an expectation for the students to make a difference for multiple over-lapping communities, including their ethnic group, city, and nation. Juan recalled how his teacher:

Got us thinking because one of the things he knows, and he always taught us in class, was how immigrants, our populations, have the power to change things… to shape the community around them.

Similarly, several young adults reported teachers who also promoted civic and political engagement via cheerleading. According to Isabel, her teacher “emphasized that we need to be very active because it is our country and we are the future of it.” Fatima’s recollections were similar, stating that one of her social studies teachers said, “You know, it’s your duty as a U.S. citizen to be active in the political process. You are our future. If you want change in this country, you have to be an active part of it.” These high school social studies teachers’ emphasis on their students’ civic and political potential appear to have shaped these immigrant young adults’ conceptions of civic and political engagement as they entered adult society.

Discussion

What Kind of Civic and Political Engagement?

The political and civic health of the nation rest on the active engagement of the populace; the youth population is rapidly changing, increasingly comprised of Latino, immigrant, youth of color. Until the nation’s schools begin to develop the civic potential of this growing demographic on par with native-born, middle-class whites, its’ democratic ideals will remain at risk. The levels of civic and political engagement among the Latino immigrant youth in this study were striking given the vast literature suggesting political apathy among these youth relative to their native-born, non-Latino counterparts (Jones-Correa, 1998; Verba, Scholzman, & Brady, 1995). These Latino immigrant young adults proved exceptional in their levels and variety of civic and political integration and their dedication to their community; exceptional in part due to the mentoring they received in the social studies classroom, the high civic expectations bestowed upon them by their teachers.

As noted earlier, the participation varied from volunteering with their church, serving as a lifeguard, and tutoring younger students, which are aligned with social engagement, to health education counseling, donating clothes and food to organizations, which are more civic in nature. As young adults, they also engaged in explicitly political endeavors. They discussed politics with peers, volunteered for state and national campaigns, watched and analyzed the presidential debates, blogged on political issues, and attended political events. The participants were active and engaged in their communities, maintaining ties through a pathway of selective acculturation (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). There is little doubt that they express mastery of the dominant political and civic discourse in U.S. society. What is of particular interest are the kinds of engagement that the participants felt empowered to enact.

Westheimer and Kahne (2004) provide a framework that details three different kinds of citizenship education, corresponding to three different kinds of citizens: the personally-responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice-oriented citizen. That is, depending upon the kind of citizenship education experience one receives, it is reasonable to expect a citizen who reflects the goals of that particular experience. The personally-responsible citizen is one who donates food and money, obeys the laws and votes. This citizen acts individually; although he or she may participate in larger events, like book drives, the actions are individual. The participatory citizen typically takes a more active role and may take on leadership duties. This citizen organizes the food or book drives, is engaged in community improvement projects, and stays informed. There is a more collective or group nature to this kind of citizen. The justice-oriented citizen may organize others to collect food or books, but will also ask why people are hungry, and why children do not have access to enriching materials such as books. This third type of citizen is informed, just as the other two types; however, justice-oriented citizens use their knowledge to challenge the status quo, to address issues of oppression and disempowerment.

The participants in our study, like those in Westheimer and Kahne’s work, which did not focus on immigrant populations, reside squarely in one of the first two categories. For example, Juan volunteers for note-taking with his university’s Office for Student Disabilities. His engagement is important, responsible, and individual. Rosita, on the other hand registers others to vote and works with an organization to bring in speakers on various social and political issues. She is clearly engaged in civic life and participates in collective endeavors. These kinds of citizen engagement are commendable, particularly for young adult immigrants, and demonstrate an acculturation into the political and civic discourse of the dominant culture.

However, none of our participants represented the third kind of citizen articulated by Westheimer and Kahne (2004), the justice-oriented citizen; nor would they be expected to be given their perceptions of their high school social studies classes. Given the role of school as a socializing agent, and social studies as a specific citizenship socializing context, this result is not surprising. While our respondents felt empowered by their social studies experiences, they were empowered to participate as citizens in very distinct ways that were consistent with the dominant culture. In this sense, the students may not have perceived that they were being socialized into a discourse representative of the dominant culture, beyond the discourse of critical thinking. They successfully negotiated their roles bridging two cultures, visibly supporting their home community while remaining relatively compliant with the status quo. This positionality values immigrant youths’ discourse of their home, and also aligns with the dominant political/civic discourse. In fact, most will argue that the first two types of citizens make up the majority of the population, with very few attaining the status and ability to question and to enact systemic change. Only if we, as a society, truly expect and embrace change, will teachers have the freedom to develop a justice-oriented citizenry in our schools.

Given the popular discourse and conventional wisdom bemoaning current levels of political and civic involvement among youth general, and Latino and immigrant youth in particular, our participants’ perceptions of the positive association between their incorporation into an academically and affectively positive social studies classroom and their sense of civic and political selves merits consideration. Further research that explores acculturation processes among immigrant youth will want to consider the classroom as a societal mode of incorporation. In addition, the particular disposition of immigrant youth balancing, and integrating multiple discourses may make high school social studies particularly relevant to their perspective. Combining the inquiry-focused social studies curriculum and classroom with the unique perspective of the immigrant youth may result in an unintended, yet perfect storm of forces producing political and civic socialization.