2.4 My experience as a professor in an institute with immigrants

This manuscript has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and endorsed by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of education administration. In addition to publication in the Connexions Content Commons, this module is published in the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation , Volume 5, Number 1 (January – March 2010). Formatted and edited in Connexions by Julia Stanka, Texas A&M University.

My experience as a professor in an institute with immigrants in extremadura

Juan José Jiménez García

It is evident that since the 1990s there has been an increase in the number of immigrants in the Spanish nation. Although this phenomenon has also been part of other European countries; until this decade it was considered as something remote or peripheral, although it was more evident in highly populated cities. The dynamics of the economy in Spain, the consolidation and advance of the state of well-being, the political uncertainty of some states, and the difficulties or few possibilities of social promotion are becoming incentives for immigrants in search of personal and family improvement.

The increasingly stable presence of immigrants makes their integration in the school system a great challenge in the 21 ^st Century, where countries like France or Germany already have an expanded presence, as is also present in the United States which is integrated by Central Americans, especially from Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Spain counts a half million registered foreigners. This is very different from the 5,000 foreign students that were welcomed in Spanish institutions a decade ago. There was a slow annual growth, registered between 6% and 15% that was accelerated to almost 28% and now surpasses 45%, according to the last data reports of Spain 2005 given by the Fundación Encuentro .

In spite of the efforts for integration, the only fact is that 30% of the immigrant students fail, not including basic studies. Not to mention the observed index of absenteeism is very high among these students.

This scholastic failure provides evidence for mistakes made in regards to the integration of these young people, but these, according to our observation, not only depend on the educative center, but also on the non-integration into their surrounding space or economic partner. Non-integration can be the outcome when an immigrant sees her or himself as a second class citizen or perhaps as a transitory circumstance, saying, “I’ll leave tomorrow.” This view causes them to maintain one way of life and traditional values as a reaction to being absorbed by the culture of the new country.