Analyzing Educational Inequities through Activity-Meaning Systems: The Authoritative Interaction of Immigrants in Policies and Laws
Mentor 1
Dante Salto
Start Date
28-4-2023 12:00 AM
Description
Policies and laws are designed to address injustices, yet ongoing social, political, and economic circumstances often lead to altering those same policies/laws. Interventions in educational institutions and community organizations can mediate policy/legal systems in collaboration with students and stakeholders to address resulting ongoing injustices and generate new insights. This paper critically analyzes the role of legal and political frameworks in enhancing or limiting educational opportunities of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in higher education through an activity-meaning system sampling of federal policy and higher education documents to capture different perspectives and values analysis to explore the interaction between them. The activity-meaning system approach is one of the components of dynamic-narrative theory, the primary theoretical and methodological framework of this study. The dynamic-narrative theory allows us to highlight the social, interactive, and dynamic nature of storytelling as a cultural tool and a meaning-making process. I have collected and analyzed governmental and organizational policies and documents that influence the relationship between immigration and education including policies put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary findings reveal that federal immigration policies moved from protecting eligible immigrant youth to putting them at risk of being deported affecting their educational opportunities and higher education institutions and community organizations have mediated in these processes by providing legal and financial support. Funding: The research reported in this paper was made possible in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (#10034551) and funding from UWM’s Office of Undergraduate Research program “Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows”. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation or the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Analyzing Educational Inequities through Activity-Meaning Systems: The Authoritative Interaction of Immigrants in Policies and Laws
Policies and laws are designed to address injustices, yet ongoing social, political, and economic circumstances often lead to altering those same policies/laws. Interventions in educational institutions and community organizations can mediate policy/legal systems in collaboration with students and stakeholders to address resulting ongoing injustices and generate new insights. This paper critically analyzes the role of legal and political frameworks in enhancing or limiting educational opportunities of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in higher education through an activity-meaning system sampling of federal policy and higher education documents to capture different perspectives and values analysis to explore the interaction between them. The activity-meaning system approach is one of the components of dynamic-narrative theory, the primary theoretical and methodological framework of this study. The dynamic-narrative theory allows us to highlight the social, interactive, and dynamic nature of storytelling as a cultural tool and a meaning-making process. I have collected and analyzed governmental and organizational policies and documents that influence the relationship between immigration and education including policies put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary findings reveal that federal immigration policies moved from protecting eligible immigrant youth to putting them at risk of being deported affecting their educational opportunities and higher education institutions and community organizations have mediated in these processes by providing legal and financial support. Funding: The research reported in this paper was made possible in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (#10034551) and funding from UWM’s Office of Undergraduate Research program “Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows”. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation or the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
