skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Adult Immigrants’ Perspectives on Courses in Icelandic as a Second Language: Structure, Content, and Inclusion in the Receiving Society
Title: Adult Immigrants’ Perspectives on Courses in Icelandic as a Second Language: Structure, Content, and Inclusion in the Receiving Society
This article aims at a further understanding on the role of formal language education in immigrants’ inclusion and identity redefinition in a new society. We analyze adult immigrants’ perspectives on education in Icelandic as a second language (ISL) by conducting a cross-analysis of a survey and various ethnographic studies. Many immigrants in Iceland report dissatisfaction with language courses and prefer to have courses better tailored to their practical daily needs. Teachers are evaluated positively, but curricular utility, concerns about in-class evaluations, unevenly prepared student cohorts, lack of opportunity to use class knowledge in further education, and a lack of availability of courses in rural areas are mentioned as challenges. This indicates that ISL education does not fulfil its “dual purpose” declared in the 2007 Icelandic immigration policy: Strengthening the position of Icelandic and speeding up immigrants’ integration. We make suggestions for further development of ISL education based on learners’ perspectives.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1932664
PAR ID:
10503618
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Routledge
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Language, Identity & Education
Volume:
23
Issue:
2
ISSN:
1534-8458
Page Range / eLocation ID:
304 to 319
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Icelandic identity inclusion migration second language learning
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, Journal of postsecondary education and disability)
    The University of Washington’s (UW) Access to Informal STEM Learning (AccessISL) project employs a student-centered approach and potentially transformative practices that embrace the social model of dis- ability, social justice education, disability as a diversity issue, intersectionality, and universal design. A leadership team of interns—each member a UW student with a disability or a museology graduate student—along with project staff engage with the UW Museology program to identify and implement strategies for making ISL activities and courses more welcoming and accessible to individuals with disabilities. Initial outcomes of AccessISL intern engagement include specific changes within ISL programs, increased awareness and implementation of universal design principles in the Museology graduate program, and expanded skills about the accessible/universal design of informal learning within future professionals who served as interns in AccessISL. 
    more » « less
  2. ; (, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy)
    The ability to speak and understand a host country’s primary language is strongly associated with measures of immigrant integration. We estimate the causal effects of English language training for adult immigrants on participants’ civic and economic outcomes using randomized enrollment lotteries from a public adult education program in Massachusetts. Participation doubles voter participation and increases annual earnings by $2,400 (56 percent). Increased tax revenue from earnings gains cover program costs over time, generating a 6 percent return for taxpayers. Ours is the first randomized evaluation of adult English language training as a standalone intervention in the United States. (JEL D72, H75, I21, I26, J15, J24, J31) 
    more » « less
  3. ; (, FG 2019)
    The subregular approach has revealed that the phonological surface patterns found in natural language are much simpler than previously assumed. Most patterns belong to the subregular class of tier-based strictly local languages (TSL), which characterizes them as the combination of a strictly local dependency with a tier-projection mechanism that masks out irrelevant segments. Some non-TSL patterns have been pointed out in the literature, though. We show that these outliers can be captured by rendering the tier projection mechanism sensitive to the surrounding structure. We focus on a specific instance of these structure-sensitive TSL languages: input-local TSL (ITSL), in which the tier projection may distinguish between identical segments that occur in different local contexts in the input string. This generalization of TSL establishes a tight link between tier-based language classes and ISL transductions, and is motivated by several natural language phenomena. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; (, CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
    Immigrants usually are pro-social towards their hometowns and try to improve them. However, the lack of trust in their government can drive immigrants to work individually. As a result, their pro-social activities are usually limited in impact and scope. This paper studies the interface factors that ease collaborations between immigrants and their home governments. We specifically focus on Mexican immigrants in the US who want to improve their rural communities. We identify that for Mexican immigrants having clear workflows of how their money flows and a sense of control over this workflow is important for collaborating with their government. Based on these findings, we create a blockchain based system for building trust between governments and immigrants.We finish by discussing design implications of our work and future directions. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference for Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT ‘24))
    Hawaiian bilingual language immersion (Kaiapuni) schools infuse curricula with place-based education to increase student connection to culture. However, stand-in teachers often lack the background and tools needed to support immersion learning, resulting in discontinuity for students in their culturally relevant education. This experience report describes a partnership between the Ka Moamoa Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Ke Kula Kaiapuni 'O Pu'ohala School to design a teacher-substitute support platform via a hybrid of assets-based design methodology and emerging technology capabilities. We share insights offered by teachers and design requirements for such a platform. We also reflect on how HCI methodologies should adapt to center and respect Native Hawaiian perspectives. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email