Immigration, Diversity, and Student Journeys to Higher Education, 2nd Edition

Immigration, Diversity and Student Journeys to Higher Education presents an in-depth understanding of how immigrant students at a major public research university balanced keeping their family cultures alive and learning U.S. culture to get to college. A revitalized anthropological understanding of acculturation provides the theoretical framework for the book. The text builds its analysis using extensive quotes from the 160 immigrant students who participated in the 21 focus groups that form the core of this study. The students’ families come from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and Latin America, and reflect a wide diversity of experiences and insights into how these students successfully pursued higher education. A key theme of the book is the ＂immigrant bargain,＂ where students repay their parents’ hard work and migration sacrifices by excelling in school. A large majority of the parents made clear that a major motivation for immigrating was so their children could have better educational opportunities; these parents had the original dreams for their children. Immigration, Diversity and Student Journeys to Higher Education examines the similarities and differences across this diverse group of students, ending with a series of recommendations about how to improve acculturation research and how to facilitate immigrant students’ journeys to educational success.

Peter J. Guarnaccia (Ph. D., Connecticut, 1984) is an Emeritus Professor at Rutgers University. For 36 years, he was a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology and an Investigator at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy & Aging Research. His research interests include cross-cultural patterns of psychiatric disorders and processes of cultural change among immigrants. He was the 2022 Faculty recipient of the Clement A. Price Human Dignity Award at Rutgers University