Leading Diverse Schools: Meeting the Academic Incorporation Needs of Somali Students

The fate of young immigrants is an important socio-economic and political issue of concern to many developed countries including the United States. Will these immigrants achieve academic success and enter the labor market to become productive members of society or will they become disillusioned? Historically, one of the most significant theoretical frameworks for incorporation of immigrants has been the assimilation theory. The assimilation theories predict that, over time and across generations, children of immigrants will become more similar to the natives (Harker, 2001). Much of the research on immigrants focuses on their academic achievements (Hirschman, 2001). While the prevailing assimilation theories and scholarly works on immigrants look at general trends in gauging educational and career success of immigrants, the fate of transition aged youth who enter in the United States with limited prior schooling is not often discussed. Landale, Oropesa and Llanes (1999) identified a newcomer disadvantage in educational achievements among recent immigrants, particularly those who arrived as teenagers. Youth (13-24 year old) with limited schooling who enter the United States as teenagers struggle with education and they are more likely to dropout from school and miss out on an opportunity to attain higher education. They also struggle with entry into the job market and overall transition to adulthood as they lack the requisite career and technical skills.In the last few decades, scholars produced a great amount of scholarly work about the adaptation of transition aged immigrant youth in the US education system and their subsequent entry into the workforce. Suarez-Orozco puts these students in three categories: those who do well and even surpass U.S. born students in grades, test scores and attitudes toward education (ii) those who perform equally as well as their U.S. born peers and (iii) those who achieve below their U.S. born peers (Suarez-Orozco, GaytanBang, Pakes, O'Connor, & Rhodes, 2010). The last group is more likely to struggle with education and employment in the US thereby becoming vulnerable to radicalization and criminal gang involvement. Some of the newest immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa are young people who have never had access to formal schooling before they arrived in the United States. These young people are placed in grade school according to their age and not according to their level of academic preparedness. This leaves them at a disadvantage both in their academic journey as well as their future job prospects (Fix, & Passel, 2003). The integration of these young immigrants into the US workforce will require the development or replication of innovative career and technical education programs to fast-track access to age appropriate education and job readiness programs for these young people. Somali vulnerable young men and women, who come to the U.S. as adolescents with no prior schooling, struggle with access to appropriate education and employment opportunities and become susceptible to the draw of gangs and criminality, and in some cases religious extremism. Weine, Horgan, Robertson, Loue, Mohamed, & Noor 2009).According to data from the most recent census, the Somali-American population suffers the highest unemployment rate among East African Diaspora communities in the United States, and experience significantly high poverty rates and the lowest rate of college graduation (US Census, 2010). This study focuses on transition aged immigrant youth (14-24 year olds) - those who underperform academically and face career entry challenges - and attempts to provide detailed information about the needs, backgrounds, academic experiences and support systems necessary to help these students attain academic success and smoothly enter the U.S. workforce. The study will also document the approaches of the two states with the largest Somali populations - Minnesota and Ohio - to develop education and career exploration programs that target transition aged Somali youth. Finally, the study will make recommendations for facilitating the integration of this group into society and identify areas for further research.