AJE Feature | Belonging and Not Belonging: The Case of Newcomers in Diverse U.S. Schools by S. Garnett Russell and Paula Mantilla-Blanco.

The full-length American Journal of Education article by Garnett Russell & Mantilla-Blanco can be accessed here.

With the highest levels of forced migration on record, reaching 100 million people in May of 2022 according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), understanding how newcomers are incorporated into society and how they perceive this experience is increasingly critical. Schools in particular play an important role in socializing and incorporating newcomer immigrant students, including refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, undocumented students, and unaccompanied children. 

The United States has the highest number of immigrants in the world (14% of the population is foreign born) and historically has also resettled the highest number of refugees. Nonetheless, xenophobia, discrimination, and anti-immigrant sentiment continue to be prevalent in society more broadly and also in the school context.  

In this article, we seek to understand how newcomer students  – those who have arrived in the United States within the past four years – conceptualize their sense of belonging in school. In particular, we are interested in how students from different migration experiences and backgrounds understand the notion of belonging and their experiences in U.S. schools. We highlight the voices and perspectives of newcomer students through data gathered from surveys and interviews in four public high schools in Arizona and New York in 2018-19, during a time of increased anti-immigrant rhetoric. 

We argue that notions of school belonging are mediated by individual identities (including race/ethnicity, gender, region of origin, time in the U.S.) and migration experiences, as well as the broader social and political context. Our survey and interview data show that, while students generally feel that they belong in their diverse schools, they continue to experience discrimination and exclusion in other contexts, which influences their notion of rights and opportunities in the U.S. context. 

Importantly, we find that the schools are providing a protective role for newcomer students. Newcomers report a higher sense of belonging than students who have been in the U.S. for a longer time. This points to the declining optimism among immigrant youth the longer they are in the U.S., in part due to their experiences with racism and discrimination. 

In addition, we find some differences across students based on their identity. For instance, students who identified as Latinx (including newcomers and those who were born in the U.S. or lived there for more than 4 years) reported a lower sense of belonging compared to other students.

Our findings also suggest that the school environment matters for promoting a sense of belonging among students. Students who participate in clubs and organizations, as well as those who report discussing political and social issues in class, report a higher sense of school belonging in comparison to their peers. 

We also find that the broader social context, and how students perceive their environment, are important for shaping how they experience belonging. Students who have a more positive perspective on their rights and opportunities in the U.S. report a higher sense of belonging. Unsurprisingly, experiences of discrimination are associated with a lower sense of belonging. Although we do not find quantitatively significant differences across students in Arizona and New York in the survey, qualitative data from interviews suggest a more hostile environment for immigrant students in Arizona compared to New York, which is emblematic of the more restrictive policies and laws in Arizona.

Although our study points to the important role of diverse schools in fostering a sense of belonging among newcomer youth, findings also highlight the ongoing challenges these students face both within the school environment and also in their daily lives outside of school. Our study underscores the need to explore the broader politics of belonging within the political and social context. In addition, our findings highlight the implications of belonging for newcomer immigrant youth to promote civic identity and social justice, as well as for reducing discrimination.