Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The presentation intends to engage in critical dialogue on issues of homogenization in comparative research. The focus of the presentation is on minority marginalization within racial unitary groups. Paradoxically, multiple and complex variables may be concealed when comparing across identity groups. As a result, compounding variables further marginalize within group minority populations; contradicting with the research that aims to understand social inequalities and injustices. Holistic and decolonizing methodology theories are applied to understand the strengths and limitations of comparing across racial and ethnic identifications. The presentation draws on research analyzing the post-secondary aspirations of Aboriginal students in relation to their non-Aboriginal counterparts using results from the Youth in Transition Survey. In this analysis, students’ post-secondary aspirations are contextualized using individual, social and structural variables to determine relationships between these variables and different educational outcomes. The research contributes to national and international studies on inclusion, public education, structural discrimination and reproduction of social inequalities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The North-South divide has had a major effect on Pakistan in terms of the divisions of its classes and espoused ideologies in the political sphere. In many ways for the majority of the population, Pakistan is trapped in a cycle of poverty (helplessness) with the majority of state infrastructures geared towards the maintenance of elite classes. This is most visible in the role of education in perpetuating various classes and the role of the state in improving the lives of its future generations. The status of civic education in Pakistan goes to the heart of this North-South divide and what we can expect of Pakistani society in the near future as current Northern politics continues to directly affect Southern states. Pakistan?s role in the current Global War on Terrorism and US involvement in Afghanistan is an excellent example in observing how civic education or lack of it affects the citizenry?s attitude towards society, the state and the North in terms of international relations and protracted global conflicts.This study examines civic education in secondary and higher secondary public (government) schools in Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Pakistan. The research data examines the national civics curriculum, textbooks, teachers? attitudes and opinions, and the overall effectiveness of the civic education system in Pakistan. This study has not focused on elite politics as the majority of academic works on Pakistan are already heavily focused on elite personalities and their interpretations of events and have neglected ?the values and attitudes of its larger publics.? The subject focus of this study deals with the opinions and attitudes of the average urban Pakistani teacher and/or student in Rawapindi/Islamabad and the qualitative data acquired through the author?s research interviews at secondary and higher secondary schools in Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Pakistan. The research interviews were conducted among three groups of subjects: teachers at various schools, government officials in the Ministry of Education, and a third category of miscellaneous academics and researchers involved in Pakistani education. These three groups were utilized and structured in the study for data triangulation and validation. The major sections of this study examine the history, social culture, successes, failures, and the future of civics education in Rawalpindi-Islamabad?s schools.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: A growing number of high school students are involved in “dual enrollment” programs of one form or another, ranging from programs in which high school students do work to earn college credit (e.g., through Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs) to actual enrollment in college courses prior to high school graduation. At the same time, it is clear that large numbers of students who are formally enrolled in post-secondary institutions are doing secondary school-level work (e.g., through high school completion programs, GED programs, or remedial coursework). In the former case, secondary school students are essentially doing post-secondary level work. In the latter case, post-secondary school students are essentially doing secondary level work. However, researchers who analyze the transition to post-secondary schooling almost universally treat secondary and post-secondary schooling as discrete, non-overlapping entities. We pursue three objectives in this paper. First, we quantify the degree of “blurriness” in the boundary between secondary and post-secondary education. What fraction of secondary school students is essentially doing post-secondary school work? What fraction of post-secondary school students is essentially doing secondary school work? Second, we describe inequalities by race/ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic circumstances in the “blurriness” of the boundary between secondary and post-secondary schooling. Third, we compare models of the transition to post-secondary schooling that view that transition as discrete and non-overlapping to those that view that transition as gradual and nuanced. To do so we analyses data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 and from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Job quality in the United States is attributable to numerous factors, including human capital. Human capital, however, is often narrowly defined as the number of years of education or the highest degree attained. Labor market researchers have invested extensive research that either supports or challenges human capital theory without consulting the Sociology of Education literature which clearly illustrates how human capital is developed. Sociology of Education researchers have illustrated that the quality of education varies depending on students’ academic track placement in secondary school. We integrate the Sociology of Education literature by examining the relationship between academic track in secondary school and postsecondary labor market outcomes. We pursue this research using the National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988-2000. We find that academic track is associated with job quality, independent of the quantity of education attained.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Recent research shows that in the United States many arrivals to “new” immigrant destinations are actually “secondary” internal migrants, coming from major gateway regions, such as Los Angeles and New York. This pattern means that to understand immigrant settlement in emerging and traditional gateway regions, we must pay more attention to the links that connect these two types of locales, instead of treating each in isolation. This analytical approach would move us away from viewing urban centers as simply spatial containers for immigrant adaptation and, instead, focus attention on the geographic embeddedness of migratory flows, networks, and social capital that link gateway regions with alternative destinations throughout the United States. Such an approach is critical to understanding the dispersion of U.S. immigrant populations now, not only because of the sheer number of immigrants now residing in gateway regions but also because new federal legislation will likely increase the geographic mobility of many immigrants in coming years, as the legal risk of pursuing new opportunities in new places declines.
To investigate these issues, this paper will engage four basic questions. First, how many immigrants are leaving top gateway regions for alternative U.S. destinations? Second, what types of jobs do outmigrants tend to take when they leave these gateway centers: are the jobs similar to those that comprised the ethnic niches they left behind, or are the jobs located in different industrial sectors? Third, why would immigrants move elsewhere to take jobs similar to ones in which they already concentrated in the gateway center: do the jobs pay better, and/or is there evidence of “niche saturation” in the gateway center? Fourth and finally, what are the consequences of these types of outflows for top destinations: are outmigrants from gateway centers contributing to the expansion of existing ethnic niches, the establishment of new ethnic niches, or neither?