Nested Contexts of Reception and K–12 Schools - Addressing Immigration Status

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen

Nested Contexts of Reception and K–12 Schools: Addressing Immigration Status examines how an urban K–12 community in California addressed immigration issues over nearly a decade. Scholarship links immigration, legal status, and education, while schools function as sites to support students’ academic and social success. The study outlines three approaches across time—college-going supports, meeting newcomer and unaccompanied students’ needs, and delivering legal services—highlighting intentional, ethical, and supportive ways to respond.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Literature Review

Legal and Political Contexts Affecting Education

Reception and School Incorporation Framework

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–13 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211056344 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Nested Contexts of Reception and K–12 Schools: Addressing Immigration Status Marco A. Murillo Santa Clara University Karen Hunter Quartz University of California Los Angeles Leyda W. Garcia Los Angeles Unified School District Christine Abagat Liboon University of California Los Angeles Scholarship on the intersection between immigration, legal status, and education has grown over the past decade. Given that schools are intended to be purveyors of democratic values, schools represent an ideal context to examine how immigration and legal status are considered in a community that aims to support the academic and social success of all students This study investigates how members of an urban, K–12 school community in California addressed immigration issues over nearly a decade-long period. The study details three ways in which the school addressed immigration status issues across time. They include college-going supports, addressing newcomer/unaccompanied students’ needs, and delivery of legal services. The study’s implications highlight how K–12 schools can address immigration issues in intentional, ethical, and supportive ways. Keywords: legal status, immigration, education, incorporation, nested contexts of reception ImmIgratIon has been a driving force in the racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic changes occurring across the United States (U.S.), especially in education. Demographic changes alongside political shifts have called on educators to address immigration policy and legal status issues in schools (Ee & Gándara, 2020) . Across the United States, 5.1 million children younger than 18 years live with at least one parent whois undocumented; 800,000 are undocumented themselves (Capps et al., 2016) . In addition, an estimated 97,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year (Zong & Batalova, 2019) . Although the “undocumented” label is utilized to refer to any individual with an unauthorized legal status to reside in the United States, it is important to note within-group differences. Undocumented youth include individuals considered to be part of the 1.25 and 1.5 generation consisting of people who typically arrived in the United States between ages 13 to 17 and 6 to 12 years, respectively. The 1.75 generation typically arrived at age 5 or younger (Rumbaut, 2004) . In this study, the 1.25 generation is referred to as newcomers—students with less than 3 years in U.S. schools. Some of them are also unaccompanied young migrants. They are individuals with no lawful presence in the United States and who arrived without a parent or legal guardian (Galli, 2020) . These generational differences are important to note because immigration policies affect immigrants differently, depending on when and how they entered the country. Undocumented youth experience markers of belonging and exclusion in different contexts and at different points in their lives (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2016). As purveyors of democratic values, schools represent an ideal context to examine how immigration status is considered in a community that aims to support the academic and social success of all students (Adelman & Taylor, 2015) . More broadly, studying schools as part ofa nested context of Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work

FAQs

What is the main focus of the study on K–12 schools?

The study investigates how members of an urban K–12 school community in California addressed immigration issues, especially how immigration policies and societal exclusions were handled for immigrant/undocumented students and families.

What three ways did the school address immigration status issues over time?

The study describes three approaches: college-going supports, addressing newcomer/unaccompanied students’ needs, and delivery of legal services.

Why is the “nested context of reception” framework important here?

It helps explain how immigration policies and societal exclusions across different communities, regions, and states shape the incorporation of immigrant students through school structures and practices.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen