Latino Immigrant Youth and Interrupted Schooling

Marguerite Lukes is the Director of National Initiatives for the Internationals Network for Public Schools and Assistant Professor at City University of New York's LaGuardia Community College. She is also Co-Chair of the Adult Literacy and Adult Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association and an Executive Board Member for the New York State Association for Bilingual Education. With almost thirty years of experience in the field, the primary focus of her research is education policy, particularly concerning the experiences of immigrant language learners from high school level and beyond.

In this important new book Marguerite Lukes focuses on the educational needs and challenges faced by a population that is nearly invisible to the American mainstream: disenfranchised immigrant youth. Through her detailed analysis Lukes helps her readers to see beyond the one dimensional characterizations that typically appear in the media so that they can appreciate the grit and agency that many of them rely upon to survive. She also makes it clear why it is so important to their future and ours to address their educational needs.

• Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Understanding Dropouts: Math and HistoryChapter 3: Pre-Migration Educational “Choices:” Interrupted Education in ContextChapter 4: Immigrant Young Adults Entering the U.S.Chapter 5: Pushouts, Shutouts and Holdouts: Entering, Exiting and Evading High School in the U.S.Chapter 6: Hard and Soft Skills: Academic Skills, English and Social Capital Among Migrant Young AdultsChapter 7: The Road Ahead for Young Adult Migrants: Institutional Dilemmas, Nagging Questions and Open DoorsAppendixReferences Index