Developmental Contextualism and Cultural Adjustment of Immigrant Children

Immigration rates are significantly shifting the demographics of America's public schools. The U.S. public education system is becoming increasingly multicultural, multilingual, and multiracial. In California, for example, immigrant children make up 20% of the public school population (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001), and according to national estimates, it is predicted that by 2010, the number of school-aged immigrant children will rise to 9 million, making up approximately 22% of the entire school-aged population (Fix & Passel, 1994). Given the growing numbers of immigrant children entering today's public schools, educators and school-based professionals are increasingly required to attend to the multifaceted needs of an extremely diverse group of students.

For immigrant children and their families, the consequences of immigration for cultural adjustment can be lifelong (Partida, 1996). For undocumented individuals, the added stress related to possible deportation serves as a significant barrier to positive health and mental health outcomes. Upon arrival, some of the potential losses immigrant children face include the loss of self-expression, self-identity, cultural identity, and confidence (Igoa, 1998). With such potential stressors, it is not surprising that many children of immigrant families are at heightened risk for negative health, mental health, and school outcomes (Arroyo, 1998). Given the risk factors associated with immigration, it is critical that educational and helping professionals begin designing interventions that specifically meet the needs of this growing group of students and their families. However, when designing interventions, educators, service providers, and researchers must rethink the assumption that all immigrant groups undergo the same kind of psychological acculturation process and examine the many variables that may affect their successful development (Bhatia & Ram, 2001).

“Best practice” in designing school-based intervention programs for immigrant children rests on a solid theoretical framework. Although there is a growing body of research that examines the acculturation outcomes of immigrant children, much of the research is atheoretical (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001). It is becoming increasingly clear that meeting the needs of a rapidly growing immigrant student group requires more than the modification of old methods of inquiry and intervention; rather it calls for new ways of engaging youth that are practical and theoretically sound. Given that the experiences of immigrant children are diverse and dependent on a host of factors, the applicable theory must be comprehensive and yet flexible. Developmental contextualism represents a theoretical framework that can adequately capture the complex relationships between immigrant children and their varying contexts.