Hired Latinx Child Farmworkers in North Carolina: Educational Status and Experience Through a Social Justice Lens

Abstract

We examine the educational experience of Latinx hired child farmworkers in North Carolina, using a social justice framework. Qualitative (n=30) and quantitative (n=202) data collected among children ten to seventeen years of age revealed elevated rates of grade retention and dropout status. Children reported disruption to their schooling caused by international and interstate migration and intrastate movement. Few worked during school time; nevertheless, children reported missed participation in educational enrichment opportunities and little integration into school life. Schools often failed to accommodate language difficulties and problems caused by migration, and an atmosphere of racism prevailed. Educational programs for children in farmworker families were established during the 1960s. However, they do not meet the needs of hired child farmworkers. Policies to reduce child employment in agriculture and to meet their educational needs are necessary to ensure the education needed for future health and well-being. We discuss the applied implications of findings.

Introduction

Children in the United States (US) can be hired to perform farm work as early as age ten.¹ This child labor policy for agriculture contrasts with regulations that prohibit child labor in every other US industry.² Regulations to restrict child labor were part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938, as concerns arose about the mortality and morbidity resulting to child workers, as well as the disruption of education that occurred when children joined the labor force. At the time, young children were working in factories, mines, and other places that today would be considered sites of strictly adult employment; and they were not in school. Concerns about child labor also reflected a new view of children, one that valued them for more than their economic contribution.^3,4 Lack of formal education was recognized as a social injustice by reformers, as it committed these children to a lifetime of limited employment, reduced opportunity, and poor health.

Farmworkers in the US constitute a vulnerable population: they have low incomes and limited benefits, low levels of formal education, and limited access to healthcare, and they are largely immigrants or migrants to the US.,^5,6 The children of farmworkers, particularly migrant farmworkers, are at significant educational risk. Such children are considered among the most educationally disadvantaged students in the US.⁷ Therefore, several programs were put in place for children in migrant farmworker families to try to protect their educational opportunities relative to other children. The Migrant Head Start Program was initiated in 1969, and expanded to include children of seasonal agricultural workers in 1999. This program is intended to provide early childhood education and health promotion, so that children in farmworker families start school with the readiness skills, experiences, and health status of other children. The Migrant Education Program was initiated in 1966 by an amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title 1) to try to help children continue their education as they move from place to place.⁸ Although these programs were not intended strictly for hired child farmworkers, they have provided support for these children as long as they were part of migrant families.

Current research on hired child farmworkers has focused primarily on their health and safety. Child labor in agriculture was largely excluded from the child labor regulations in the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, and no regulations for hazardous activities were established until 1970, so the concern with health and safety is well justified.² A study of Latinx hired child farmworkers in North Carolina found that 26 percent had experienced a traumatic injury in the past year, while musculoskeletal and heat-related injuries had been experienced by forty-three percent and forty-six percent, respectively.⁹ Other studies, although often limited to only those children enrolled in school, have found that hired child farmworkers often engage in hazardous tasks⁹ without proper training or appropriate personal protective equipment.^11–14 Despite this work, no recent research has documented the educational impact for children of their labor in agriculture and considered the social justice ramifications of educational deficiencies on later health and well-being.

In the present paper we examine school and education experiences of Latinx children working as migrant or seasonal hired farm labor in the eastern US. To understand these experiences and extrapolate their possible long-term consequences for child farmworkers, we draw on theory and concepts within anthropology and education related to social justice. The framework of structural vulnerability¹⁵ is a useful way to understand the vulnerability of an individual as a product of her or his place in the social hierarchy and its diverse network of power relationships. For child farmworkers, these power relations stem from macro-level forces such as historical and present discourses on immigration, the globalized context of agriculture and farm labor, and the regulatory environment that permits child farm work. Within the social hierarchy, individual characteristics such as documentation status, language, skin color, and migratory status mark individuals as having or lacking power. Within education, several ideas further explain the vulnerabilities child farmworkers experience within the educational system. These include ideas of capital--economic capital (e.g., parental income and wealth), cultural capital (e.g., dominant language proficiency), and social capital (e.g., networks and social connections that help or harm students’ academic and social advancement).¹⁶ Educators such as Lareau¹⁷ have contrasted how working class and middle class families use these different types of capital as they interact with their children’s school system, with working class families adopting a more passive approach. For child farmworkers, parents (usually farmworkers themselves) are poor, children’s first language at home is rarely English, and social networks tend to be within the farmworker community, not in the dominant local community. Education researchers have also noted the inherent disadvantage minority students bring to the public school system, as the system is not geared to such students’ mobility, language abilities, and parental deference to teachers.¹⁸ Together, these theories explain how child farmworkers encounter social injustices in the US school system that may keep them from fully participating and reduce their academic success.

Using qualitative and quantitative data from a mixed methods study, our goals in this paper are to: (1) document the educational characteristics of Latinx child farmworkers recruited in North Carolina; and (2) explore the perceptions of child farmworkers of their educational experiences, including their experiences with academics, their involvement with school life beyond the classroom, and role of work and migration in their school experience.

Methods

Research design

These data come from a mixed methods investigation of the effects of hired farm work on the health and well-being of Latinx children in North Carolina.^19,20 Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted in June to September 2016 with a sample of thirty child farmworkers. Quantitative survey data used in this paper were collected in 2017 from a prospective cohort of 202 child farmworkers recruited and interviewed May through November, 2017. The study protocol was approved by the Wake Forest School of Medicine Institutional Review Board.

The study uses a community-based participatory research collaboration of investigators from Student Action with Farmworkers, Wake Forest School of Medicine, and East Carolina University. Youth co-investigators and members of a Youth Advisory Committee through the Student Action with Farmworkers Levante Leadership Institute and a Professional Advisory Committee advise the project.²⁰

Participant recruitment

Qualitative research.

Participants in the in-depth interviews met the following inclusion criteria: ten to seventeen years of age, self-identify as being Latinx or Hispanic, have done farm work for pay in the past twelve months on farms not owned by family members, and fluent in spoken English or Spanish.

Recruitment was designed to balance the sample by gender, region of the state (eastern and western), and migrant status (seasonal and migrant), all dimensions along which experience of work might vary, based on a pilot study.^11,22,23 Children who changed place of residence to work were considered migrants. Those who did not change residence for work and worked seasonally in agriculture were considered seasonal workers. Children were recruited at different times of year to achieve a broad sample of experience in different crops.

Because Latinx farmworkers are often a hidden and hard-to-reach population, a community-based recruitment strategy was used in which the study team contacted community organizations throughout the state (e.g., Migrant Education Program) in contact with farmworkers and rural children to help the team find and recruit child farmworkers. Additional recruitment took place at community events for Latinx farmworkers.

The consent process started with contacting parents to ask if they would let their children participate and the children being asked if they were interested. If both said yes, an appointment for the interview was set. At that time, the child and the parent(s) were both informed of the purpose of the research and that the child’s participation was voluntary. After the interviewer answered questions, one parent signed the consent form and the child signed an assent form. Children were given a $25 cash incentive at the completion of the interview.

Survey research.

For survey participants, inclusion criteria were: (1) age ten to seventeen years at recruitment; (2) self-identify as Latinx or Hispanic; (3) employed to do farm work in past three months; and (4) fluent in Spanish or English. Both girl and boy child farmworkers were eligible. The study had no exclusion criteria.

Interviewers developed lists of potential participants by working with community partners and through their own networks. When a potential participant was identified, the interviewer contacted the child’s parents to explain the study, ensured the child met the inclusion criteria, discussed the monetary incentives for participation in the study, and obtained signed parental permission for the child’s participation. The interviewer then spoke with the potential participant, again reviewing the study, inclusion criteria, and incentive, and obtained signed assent. Two-hundred two participants aged ten to seventeen were recruited. Participants resided in twenty North Carolina counties. Because interviewers worked through community partners, the number of potential participants or their parents who refused to participate is not known.

Data collection

During the qualitative phase of the study, in-depth interviews were conducted face-to-face in English or Spanish by either native English-speaking or Spanish-speaking interviewers who had experience and training in conducting in-depth qualitative interviews. Interviews were conducted from June through September, 2016. Each took approximately sixty minutes to complete and was conducted in the language of the child’s choice. All interviews took place at the child’s home. Interview guides were constructed and focused on asking child workers about their background, family, housing, and community. Apropos of this analysis, the children were asked to discuss their school experience and ways in which their farm work interacted with schooling (see Appendix).

The survey interview questionnaire was developed to include quantitative measures needed to address the overall study specific aims and to reflect issues that arose in the qualitative interviews (see Appendix). Items from existing questionnaires and scales^11,23,24 were used whenever possible. One section of the questionnaire examined schooling and educational experiences. The study’s Professional and Youth Advisory Committees reviewed the questionnaire content, and the wording of specific items.²¹ The English version of the questionnaire was translated to Spanish, and back-translated to ensure item accuracy. Both the English and Spanish versions were reviewed again by members of the Professional Advisory Committee. Pre-test interviews were conducted by study staff with members of the Youth Advisory Committee, as well as by the field interviewers with youth who had formerly worked in agriculture. Questionnaire item wording was adjusted based on feedback received during pretesting. The final interview questionnaire was designed to be completed within forty-five minutes. Interviews were completed with tablets using REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture), a secure web-based system, to record data.²⁵ Of the 202 interviews completed, 172 were in English and 30 in Spanish.

Ten bilingual interviewers with knowledge of their local farmworker communities from across North Carolina recruited participants and conducted the interviews. All interviewers had experience with farmworkers through employment with organizations that provide services to farmworkers. Each completed an intensive training program that included a didactic component that discussed recruitment procedures, procedures for obtaining parental permission and participant assent, the interview content, and using the tablet and REDCap. Interviewers completed CITI Research Ethics and Compliance Training (https://about.citiprogram.org/en/homepage/). Interviewers had to successfully complete an audio-recorded or observed practice interview before they were certified to contact participants.

Data analysis

The in-depth interviews conducted in English were recorded, and transcribed. Those conducted in Spanish were recorded, and then translated and transcribed directly into English by a professional translation service company. All Spanish transcripts were verified against the recording by a bilingual team member to ensure proper translation of the interviews. All English transcripts were also verified to ensure proper transcription of interviews.

During data collection, the team met frequently to review findings from the interviews, including reading notes and transcripts as they became available. Emergent issues that were identified were pursued and clarified in subsequent interviews with other children. By the end of 30 interviews, the researchers judged that saturation had been reached, as no substantively new issues were being revealed.

Transcripts and notes were entered into Atlas.ti (Version 7.2) text analysis software. Analysis of the qualitative data have been described in detail elsewhere.²⁰ Among the salient themes that emerged were participation in school activities, interaction of work and school, perceptions of effects of moving on schooling, and subjective analysis of their current school situation. Within a group of interviews, salient^26,27 themes may not necessarily have been discussed by every individual, but they were discussed in detail and with emphasis throughout the sample and provided some insight or explanation of the associated topic. Exemplary quotations are presented in the results section to support findings. While only one quotation is frequently presented, readers should be aware that only salient findings are being presented. Therefore, a single quotation does not indicate that only one person expressed the idea highlighted in the quotation. Threats to validity (e.g., focus on extreme cases) were considered in constructing and revising theme summaries.²⁸

Data from the survey interviews were subjected to descriptive analysis for this paper. Counts and percentages were calculated for personal and educational and work characteristics of interest. Associations between personal and educational characteristics were examined using Chi-square or Fisher’s Exact tests as appropriate. All analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) and p-values of less than .05 were considered statistically significant.

Results

Description of the two samples: Demographic, work, and educational characteristics

Qualitative sample.

By design, the qualitative sample (n=30) contains approximately one third in each of the age groups ten to thirteen, fourteen to fifteen, and sixteen to seventeen years (Table 1), and approximately equal numbers of migrant (46.7 percent) and seasonal (53.3 percent) child workers and boys (56.7 percent) and girls (43.3 percent). Three (10 percent) were unaccompanied minors. Fifty percent of the children were born in the US; 76.7 percent chose to be interviewed in English.

Table 1.

Description of the survey (n=202) and in-depth interview (n=30) samples, child farmworkers, North Carolina.

	Survey n (%)	In-Depth Interview n (%)
Age
10–13 years	45 (22.3)	9 (30)
14–15 years	62 (30.7)	11 (36.7)
16–17 years	95 (47.0)	10 (33.3)
Gender
Boys	126 (62.4)	17 (56.7)
Girls	76 (37.6)	13 (43.3)
Migrant status
Migrant	36 (17.8)	14 (46.7)
Seasonal	166 (82.2)	16 (53.3)
Place of birth
United States	164 (81.2)	15 (50)
Mexico	26 (12.9)	11 (36.7)
Central America	12 (5.9)	4 (13.3)
Unaccompanied minor	18 (8.9)	3 (10)
Interview language preference
English	172 (85.1)	23 (76.7)
Spanish	30 (14.9)	7 (23.3)

These thirty children had worked in a wide range of crops in the past year. Those in western North Carolina had worked primarily in vegetable crops, including peppers, beans, and tomatoes. Their tasks included planting and staking seedlings, weeding, picking, and packing the produce into shipping boxes. In eastern North Carolina, the children had worked in some vegetable crops; they also harvested berries, and many worked in tobacco.

Children’s current grade level in school ranged from fifth, for a ten-year-old, to twelfth for a sixteen- and a seventeen-year-old. One fifteen-year-old boy who had recently migrated from a Central American country reported he was not currently enrolled in school. Nine (30 percent) of the thirty children interviewed reported that they had had to repeat a grade at some time. Six of those who reported repeating a grade were migrant workers. Two of those children repeated fourth grade during their schooling in Mexico. One, a twelve-year-old boy, reported that he missed school during that year because he had had to help his mother care for his younger sisters.

Survey sample.

In contrast to the qualitative sample, the survey sample (n=202) is skewed toward older children, with 47.0 percent in the sixteen to seventeen year age group; it has more seasonal (82.2 percent) than migrant (17.8 percent) child workers. Eighteen children (8.9 percent) were unaccompanied minors. Boys account for 62.4 percent of the children in the survey sample, and 81.2 percent were born in the US. Most (85.1 percent) chose to be interviewed in English.

The children who participated in the survey reported that they had worked in farm work for one to eleven years, with a median of two years. They reported that, in the last week they worked, they worked in tobacco (57.4 percent), berries (25.7 percent), tomatoes (16.3 percent), and sweet potatoes (14.4 percent). The most common tasks in the previous week were harvesting (50 percent) and topping tobacco (50 percent). Other common tasks were weeding (41.1 percent), loading (27.2 percent), and planting (14.9 percent).

Children’s last grade completed in school ranged from third to twelfth. Ten (five who were migrant and five who were seasonal) children, all ages sixteen or seventeen years, reported that they were no longer enrolled in school, but had not yet graduated from high school. A greater percentage of migrant children were not enrolled than those who worked seasonally (13.9 percent vs. 3.0 percent; p=.0177). Sixty-one (30.2 percent) of the 202 children interviewed reported that they had had to repeat a grade (been retained) at some time. These sixty-one children included 20 percent of those aged ten to thirteen years, 32.3 percent of those fourteen to fifteen years, and 33.7 percent of those sixteen to seventeen years. Almost twice as many migrant children had been retained as children working seasonally (50.0 percent vs. 25.9 percent; p=.0043).

Qualitative findings

Perceptions of school.

Attitudes toward school and children’s concerns varied widely, but several common ideas emerged. First, when asked an open-ended question about school (“Please tell me about your school”), most responses concerned social relationships. Most children talked first about teachers, with many describing their teachers as being “nice”. A thirteen-year-old migrant boy expanded to say that the teachers in North Carolina “don’t yell at you.” A ten-year-old seasonal girl expressed a similar sentiment: “the teachers don’t scream at you like in other schools.” This sentiment was not shared by all. One sixteen-year-old migrant boy declared that some teachers are not patient. They say they “do not have time to go one person at a time, so I gotta pay more attention.” When he does the homework and does not know something, the teacher says, “You should have tried,” even though he has tried but gets the answer wrong.

Other students talked first about positive relations with their fellow students being important to their evaluation of school. One sixteen-year-old seasonal girl reported that she liked having classmates who also worked in the fields. A fifteen-year-old migrant boy liked being able to hang out with his cousins at lunch.

Beyond specific social relations, students talked about the general atmosphere of the school resulting from the actions of other students. A thirteen-year-old seasonal girl described her middle school as having “lots of drama”, with girls fighting. A sixteen-year-old seasonal boy expressed similar sentiments about his high school, that students curse a lot and fight. This was not restricted to North Carolina schools, as a fifteen-year-old migrant boy noted that his Florida high school had lots of fights and he had to be careful. By comparison, his North Carolina school was “calm”.

Other students called attention to racial discrimination in their schools. A seventeen-year-old seasonal girl said the African American students in her high school bullied the Latinx students and “made rude comments.” She also noted a white teacher who told her to get her “Hispanic tail out of here.” The teacher told another friend to “go back to Honduras; we don’t need you here in the United States.” A seventeen-year-old seasonal boy reported he had changed to a magnet high school to get away from what he experienced starting in middle school.

“There [were] a lot of rednecks in our school who liked to cause trouble with the Hispanics. Whenever they could get one person alone, they would either pick on them, tease them, or even try to fight with them…push them into lockers and stuff. It happened to me a couple of times, and I got to the point where I’m, like, I just decided to leave the school… . Some of the rednecks were related to some of the teachers, especially the coaches, so the rednecks would get away with [trouble-making] and the Hispanics would get sent to suspension.”

Students were aware that evidence of working in the fields or their skin color could mark them for harassment or discrimination in school. One fifteen-year-old migrant boy described always trying to wear gloves at work so his hands would not get so dirty, “because sometimes [the dirt] doesn’t clean all the way, and I don’t want to go to school with dirty hands. I just feel weird. Everybody has, like, cleaner hands.” Several described taking steps to cover their skin to prevent it darkening during the summer. A thirteen-year-old seasonal girl wore a hoodie up around her head and neck because, she said, “I’m already dark enough, so I don’t want to get darker.” A sixteen-year-old seasonal boy who wore a bandana around his neck said, “You notice you get darker. Your skin tone gets darker, and I don’t want to be that dark.”

Evidence of integration into school life.

With few exceptions, these students appeared not to be fully integrated into school life. Only five participated in any extracurricular activities; all of them were girls. Three of these girls played school sports, two on the soccer team and one basketball. Two other girls were involved in clubs; one of these was also class secretary and participated in student council. Among the boys, two reported that they had thought about joining the track team, but had never done so. Another said he used to play soccer at school in Florida, but no longer did so. When he arrived there from North Carolina midyear, the coach asked him how he thought he could just arrive and play varsity when there were other children who had been there all year and had tried out but did not make the team.

Impact of work on school.

There was no evidence that children missed school on particular days because they had to do farm work instead. Asked directly about this, virtually all denied that this ever happened. Rather, they worked on school vacations. These included spring break for planting, and summer, as well as a few weekends, for harvesting and a variety of other tasks. One fifteen-year-old migrant boy reported that his father might take him to the fields to help his mother finish up her tasks after school. Only one child, a sixteen-year-old migrant boy, stated that working during the school year could impact school work, noting that he fell asleep in class on Monday after working on a weekend. Several of the remaining students noted that their parents asked if they had homework to do and, if they did, the child did not go to the fields.

Perhaps the strongest impact of working on school and education was revealed by migrant children as they discussed the impact of their migration on the school experience. Basic differences were noted, such as the fact that students in Florida could walk to school (which was viewed positively) instead of being bussed. Students noted that in Florida the schools had accommodations for migrant students that could help them catch up when arriving midyear. A fifteen-year-old migrant boy reported, “Instead of buying paper, you can just go [to the migrant center] and ask for some. You can get flash drives [there and] use the computers. If you need extra help, you can just tell your teacher…and they can just send you down there.”

Migrant children reported that they usually finished the school year in Florida. Then they started the school year in North Carolina in August, and moved back to Florida and enrolled there again in late fall. Discontinuities arose when they returned to Florida, as the classes offered there often did not match those in the schools they were leaving in North Carolina. It was confusing to be put into new classes midyear. A seventeen-year-old migrant boy reported, “They’re already ahead of you, and you don’t even know what you’re doing.” Sometimes the classes students needed had no room for another student to enroll. As a result, they entered classes in Florida being behind. The same boy recalled that the transition had been particularly hard in elementary school. “Most of the kids [in North Carolina], their parents didn’t do what we did, so they didn’t really understand why we would start [in North Carolina and then leave].” Every year the family lived in a different place in North Carolina, so the children attended a different school, whereas in Florida they lived in the same house in the same town every year: “When I would get back to Florida, [I would have] the same friends.” It should be noted that even seasonal child workers who did not migrate sometimes experienced the discontinuities of moving to new schools as their families moved among rented dwellings in North Carolina. In addition, some seasonal children report past or infrequent out of state moves. A seventeen-year-old seasonal girl reported that her family goes to Florida every few years to retain a younger sibling’s place in childcare, likely Migrant Head Start. Her father otherwise goes every year by himself.

Several students came to North Carolina as international migrants. Their experience demonstrates an especially marked lack of accommodation for ESL and migrant students in some rural school districts. A fifteen-year-old seasonal boy described coming to the US from Mexico when he was seven. “It was kind of hard at first ‘cause I would sit there at my desk and they gave me a dictionary…. All the kids would look at me and kind of make fun of me ‘cause I didn’t know English. And the teacher would be telling me a lesson…. She would be doing it kind of fast so it was hard for me to look for the words in the dictionary.” A fifteen-year-old boy who had only reached sixth grade in Guatemala and was not currently attending school in North Carolina noted that he and his siblings had a teacher who was supposed to be coming to their house one day a week, but did not seem to come any more. “Perhaps she is busy?” he wondered.

Survey Results

Participation in educational support programs.

Over half of the children (117; 57.9%) reported ever having participated in educational support or enrichment programs (Table 2). After-school programs were the most frequently attended, with 80 (39.6%) reporting attendance. About two-fifths (41; 20.3 percent) reported being enrolled in the Migrant Education Program. For all programs, more migrant than seasonal child farmworkers reported having participated at some time, but they were also more likely to miss attending the program because of doing farmwork.

Table 2.

Impact of farm work on school participation, for migrant and seasonal child farmworkers (n=202), North Carolina.

	Total n=202 n (%)	Migrant n=36 n (%)	Seasonal n=166 n (%)	p-value
Ever attended any of the following programs:	117 (57.9)	35 (97.2)	82 (49.4)	<.0001
Summer school	54 (26.7)	18 (50.0)	36 (21.7)	0.0005
After-school program	80 (39.6)	21 (58.3)	59 (35.5)	0.0113
Summer camp or other summer program	35 (17.3)	11 (30.6)	24 (14.5)	0.0207
Migrant Education Program	41 (20.3)	31 (86.1)	10 (6.0)	<.0001
If attended programs, ever missed because doing farm work1	16 (13.7)	13 (37.1)	3 (3.7)	<.0001
Engaged in any paid farm work during the last school year:	93 (46.0)	27 (75.0)	66 (39.8)	0.0001
During fall when school was in session	52 (25.7)	20 (55.6)	32 (19.3)	<.0001
During the school day2	7 (13.5)	5 (25.0)	2 (6.3)	0.0925
Before or after school2	22 (42.3)	10 (50.0)	12 (37.5)	0.3747
On weekends2	50 (96.2)	19 (95.0)	31 (96.9)	1.0000
During spring when school was in session	69 (34.2)	18 (50.0)	51 (30.7)	0.0270
During the school day3	6 (8.7)	4 (22.2)	2 (3.9)	0.0363
Before or after school3	28 (40.6)	10 (55.6)	18 (35.3)	0.1323
On weekends3	63 (91.3)	17 (94.4)	46 (90.2)	1.0000
During summer break	197 (97.5)	34 (94.4)	163 (98.2)	0.2174
During other school vacations or holidays	47 (23.3)	22 (61.1)	25 (15.1)	<.0001
Ever missed school because doing farm work	10 (5.0)	3 (8.3)	7 (4.2)	0.3883
Ever missed school because doing other paid labor	12 (5.9)	3 (8.33)	9 (5.4)	0.4515

¹n = 117

²n = 52

³n = 69

Impact of work on school.

Almost half (93; 46.0 percent) of the child farmworkers reported doing some paid farm work in the past school year (Table 2). Fifty-two children (25.7 percent) reported working during the fall agricultural season while school was in session. Most worked on weekends. Only 7 (13.5 percent) reported working during the school day. Of those, two were underage (a migrant child worker age 15 years and a seasonal child worker age 14 years). Fewer children worked during the spring (69; 34.2 percent). As in the fall, most worked on weekends, and only 6 (8.7 percent) worked during the school day (all ages 16 or 17 years). As might be expected, almost all (197; 97.5 percent) worked during summer break. About a quarter (47; 23.3 percent) reported working during other school vacations or holidays. Migrant child workers were significantly more likely to have ever worked during the last school year (p=0.0001), during fall and spring when school was in session (p<.0001 and p=0.0270, respectively) and during other school vacations or holidays (<.0001).

Ten children (5.0 percent) reported that they had ever missed school because they were doing farm work. Twelve (5.9 percent) reported missing school for other types of paid labor. For both of these types of work, a higher percentage of migrant children reported missing school because of work, but the numbers for both migrant and seasonal children were small and the differences not statistically significant.

Discussion

This study draws upon mixed methods to understand the educational experience of hired Latinx child farmworkers and to examine the linkages between their farm work and their educational status. Education is a particularly important aspect of these children’s lives to consider, as formal education constitutes one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of health across populations.²⁹ Education’s effect on lifelong health is both direct (educated persons learn more about health promotion) and indirect (educated persons have higher incomes and can afford better housing, better food and access to high quality medical care). Therefore, achieving a better education for these children has lifelong ramifications.³⁰

Several findings stand out and can be placed in the context of the theoretical frameworks described earlier. Structural vulnerability¹⁵ describes these children’s situation well. Their very employment as farmworkers is part of such macrolevel factors as the globalization of agriculture and the dependence of the US on immigrant and minority labor. All children came from at least one previous generation of farmworkers. Minority workers have predominated as hired labor in US farm work for generations, with the farm labor force transitioning to predominantly Latinx and from Mexico since the late 1980s.³¹ Previous to the dominance of Latinx farmworkers in North Carolina and other areas of the eastern US, these farmworkers had been Afro-Caribbean, southern African American, and Appalachian white.³²

The mismatch between the social and cultural capital¹⁶ these students bring to their school situation and the construction of the school’s culture around white middle class students and their families results in limits on their ability to advocate for themselves. This is made clear in the report of students of verbal and physical attacks due to their ethnicity. As one student explained, the white students were often related to the authority figures in the schools—coaches and teachers—so there was nowhere for these farmworker students to seek justice. This same situation has been demonstrated for schools attended by immigrant children in Florida.³³ Although many students perceived their teachers to be “nice”, there was evidence from other children that their teachers shared the prejudicial sentiments of their fellow students. While many school districts have staff and student trainings focused on cultural sensitivity, racial bias and discrimination, and fostering inclusivity, our data suggest that more intensive training efforts are needed on this front. In addition, while many school districts have implemented “zero tolerance” policies related to racial bias and discrimination, not all districts implement and enforce these policies in the same way. Greater district and school level checks and balances are needed to ensure that Latinx farmworker children and their families are provided with educational opportunities that meet their unique educational needs in a safe and discrimination free environment.

We have little evidence to contradict Lareau’s ideas of working class versus middle class parenting approaches and their intersection with the educational system.¹⁷ We would expect that the parents of these students, many of them with low educational attainment themselves, lacking documentation, and not native English speakers, may adopt a more passive approach to education and advocacy for their children. Indeed, despite obvious evidence that some children struggled in school, no child mentioned any parental attempts to improve their school situation by demanding services or interceding for their child in difficult situations. It is likely that the Migrant Education Program is important in the absence of direct parental involvement, as their staff members tend to serve as navigators for parents in schools as well as other systems for parents.³⁴ School districts should consider evaluating their current educational supports and resources, including parental engagement strategies, to support Latinx child farmworkers and their parents.

We found that these child farmworkers had little evidence of integration into school life such as participation in extracurricular activities and sports. None of the boys reported any participation and less than a quarter of the girls. Although some children reported being enrolled in enrichment activities, some reported that they failed to attend the program activities due to work obligations.

About thirty percent of children in each sample had been retained a grade at some point in their education. This occurred both in schooling in the US and in Mexico or Central American countries of origin. This rate is substantially higher than the US average, reported for 2015–2016 as seven percent of children six to seventeen years of age.³⁵ Some retention occurred due to excessive absences caused by family obligations, such as taking care of younger siblings. Other was related to migration and inability to communicate in English when entering the US school system, with insufficient assistance of ESL programs. More migrant than seasonal children reported being retained, which may be further indication of the educational disruption caused by familial migration and language.

Ten of ninety-five sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in the survey had already dropped out of school. Although it is difficult to find data that are strictly comparable, this proportion appears to far exceed the 2019 figures for the US, which note 2.2 percent and 3.2 percent of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds had dropped out.³⁶ The dropout rate for migrant children nationally has been estimated by some to be 50 percent.^37,38 Estimates for out-of-school youth in North Carolina (which includes individuals up through twenty-one years of age who have not graduated from high school) are as high as fifty percent (https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/federal-program-monitoring/migrant-education). Factors known to be shared by students experiencing school failure across populations appear to be common in farmworkers (low parental education, lack of English proficiency, little or no participation in extracurricular activities, and low socioeconomic status) and likely contribute to drop out rates.³⁹

Overall, there is strong evidence that child farmworkers’ education is shaped by their families’ participation in farm labor. This is particularly evident for children who are migrant workers. They are significantly less likely to have been enrolled in enrichment programs and, if enrolled, to miss sessions. They work more during the school year, including, for a few, during the school day. The classification as migrant or seasonal workers used in the present study fails to capture some migration earlier in a child’s life that may have affected earlier child-care arrangements and schooling or the frequent local moves that are typical of low income families with insecure or rental housing. Zarate et al.⁴⁰ note that moves within the same school district can have implications similar to interstate moves, as children change schools, teachers, and friends. Vernon-Feagans and colleagues⁴¹ have termed such child history “chaos” and linked it to poor academic performance. For formerly or currently migrating students, travel, and school changes or absence can contribute to a weak educational foundation that leads to grade retention or to dropping out.

While programs noted earlier such as Migrant Education Program exist to assist students, not all needs can be met. The program requires students to have evidence of migration every three years to qualify, a requirement that contradicts the goals of family stability that see less mobility as beneficial for schooling.⁴⁰ Similarly, one student reports that the father migrates back to Florida every year, but the family must accompany him every several years to maintain eligibility or priority for younger siblings in Migrant Head Start. Policy changes in requirements for these programs can help support children’s educational experience as well as their access to other services.³⁴ In addition, such policy changes would reflect the reality of farmworker families today. There is less international migration and even interstate migration of farmworkers, likely due to the current anti-immigrant sentiment and resulting travel difficulties for undocumented individuals. As a result, families are settling and transitioning to seasonal rather than migrant farmworkers.³²

These results make clear that the schooling child farmworkers receive is perpetuating longstanding social injustices through the current system of farm labor.^5,42 Although programs are provided by some non-profit organizations that make educational investments in child farmworkers and children in farmworker families (e.g., Student Action with Farmworkers [https://saf-unite.org], NCFIELD [https://www.ncfield.org/]), the numbers of children these programs support and their geographic reach are limited.

Strengths and limitations

This analysis focuses on a population of agricultural workers, children, whose education has received scant attention. Most educational research among farmworkers focuses on children of migrant farmworkers and does not consider children of seasonal workers nor the fact that children may themselves be workers. The use of both qualitative and quantitative data helps to capture details of child farmworkers’ experiences revealed in in-depth interviews that are useful to explain figures for such experiences as retention and low participation in enrichment programs found in the survey data.

Despite strengths, this study has limitations that should be considered. It focuses on child farmworkers recruited in North Carolina. These children’s experiences may differ from those of child farmworkers in other parts of the US; crops and their seasonal cycle, as well as educational systems vary regionally and by state. No list of child farmworkers exists, so these children were recruited using a variety of community contacts across the state. These contacts may be incomplete because growers generally claim they have no children working for them, so cannot be used as sources for recruitment. We have no way to calculate a refusal rate because the initial contacts with children and their parents were made by others.

Conclusions

Our findings highlight the need for greater attention to the education of Latinx child farmworkers. Indeed, the status of education for these children is just one more injustice experienced by this vulnerable yet essential population. While some educational programs exist for children of migrant farmworkers, they are not designed to meet the needs of children who are themselves working. Greater efforts at state and federal levels to highlight the unique social, familial, work, and economic characteristics and overall challenges for Latinx child farmworkers and their families are needed in order to be intentional in better meeting their educational needs and ensuring their academic success. In this way, states and school districts can ensure their efforts and school support services align with the characteristics and needs of this special population. Greater checks and balances to ensure that teachers, school staff, and students are trained to recognize both explicit and implicit biases guiding their thoughts, behaviors, and interactions with this special population are also needed. Additional programs and student support services to further engage child farmworkers and their families are also needed, as our data suggest that there are unique challenges associated with student and parent engagement for this population. Research is needed to develop such model programs and to understand the contributions of these programs to educational outcomes and trajectories as well as overall school engagement for students and families.

A focus on migrants and on residential change remains important—child migrants with parents who do farm work, whether or not the child also does farm work, will experience regular disruptions in schooling. Children whose families change residence often, even those who do not migrate to do farm work, also experience regular school disruptions. While some school districts have programs and student support services in place for students who make transitions from one school to another within the same district, many districts, particularly more rural and under-resourced districts, struggle to meet the needs of students with frequent housing and school transitions. Furthermore, managing educational requirements and attainments across states for migrant students is especially challenging, with students in our study reporting that they often “feel lost” or “left behind” their peers in regards to lessons and educational requirements. Peer and adult mentoring and tutoring programs for Latinx farmworker students may be useful strategies for ensuring educational requirements are met, social engagement and enrichment activities are fostered, and ultimately, for decreasing systemic bias and prejudices. Such efforts may also be part of a more comprehensive plan for decreasing grade retentions and for enhancing graduation rates for Latinx farmworker students.

Policy enforcement and policy changes at federal and state levels are also needed to better support the educational needs and academic success of Latinx child farmworkers. Indirect support could be in the form of increased wages for adult farmworkers, so that those who are parents of child farmworkers have less reason to have their children work in the fields. Direct support could be provided by enforcing policies such as child work during school hours and modifying existing policies to apply the same child labor policy to agriculture that is applied to all other US industries. In addition, an educational supplement could be provided to Latinx farmworker families so that children’s income is not required to meet the basic family needs. In doing so, Latinx child farmworkers would have greater opportunities to more fully engage in academics and other enrichment opportunities, increasing the potential for their academic success.