Benjamin J. Roth

Building a Stronger Safety Net: Local Organizations and the Challenges of Serving Immigrants in the Suburbs

Just as more poor people in America now live in suburbs than in primary cities, immigrants are more likely to live in suburbs than in the urban core. This study examines the nonprofit safety net in select Chicago suburban municipalities to assess the capacity and accessibility of these service providers relative to the location and need of low-income immigrants. We identify differences between immigrant service providers and mainstream organizations, particularly their willingness and ability to reach out to and serve immigrants and to analyze their role as mediating institutions.

Making Connections in Middle-Class Suburbs? Low-Income Mexican Immigrant Young Men, Social Capital, and Pathways to High School Graduation

This study explores access to social capital for low-income Mexican immigrant young men in a middle-class suburb and how social capital influences educational attainment. In-depth interviews with 20 Mexican immigrant young men in one Chicago suburb provide insights into how network composition is shaped by structures within high school. Findings also highlight how respondents’ diverse and nonlinear educational pathways, in turn, are shaped by characteristics of their social networks. Implications for future research are discussed.

Perceived advantages: the influence of urban and suburban neighbourhood context on the socialization and adaptation of Mexican immigrant young men

ABSTRACT Neighbourhoods are important contexts for the socialization and adaptation of immigrant youth. They provide resources and opportunities for positive interactions with peers and non-family adults. But neighbourhoods differ systemically in their demographic composition and the type and quality of resources they offer young people. In the US, there is an implicit assumption equating suburban neighbourhoods with better schools, more jobs and higher quality housing compared to urban neighbourhoods. There is however, little explicit empirical evidence of how such differences may shape the experience of immigrant youth. This gap is concerning in light of recent trends of immigrants to move directly to the suburbs. The first part of the paper reviews the literatures on immigrant adaptation and neighbourhood effects. Drawing on two qualitative studies, the second part of the paper illustrates mechanisms through which suburban and urban neighbourhoods may influence the socialization and adaptation of immigrant youth growing up in them.

Reducing bias through indirect social contact: assessing the impact of student involvement with faculty-led research on unauthorized immigration

Abstract This paper explores how working on a faculty-led research project influenced the views of Master of Social Work students concerning unauthorized immigrants. Five graduate assistants worked for one year with two faculty members and one doctoral student to code data from interviews with social workers at immigrant-serving organizations in South Carolina. The master’s students then reflected on what they learned from participating in data analysis tasks, indicating that the experience had further sensitized them to the social justice concerns confronting unauthorized immigrants. Drawing on social contact theory, we argue that student participation in faculty-led research can provide a form of indirect social exposure to other groups, which reduce bias, and suggest that such experiences be included in how educators conceptualize the implicit curriculum in schools of social work.

Advocating for Structural Change? Exploring the Advocacy Activities of Immigrant-Serving Organizations in an Unwelcoming Policy Context

The growth of the immigrant population in the United States has prompted a recent increase in the number of restrictive immigration policies at the state and local levels. The literature on policy advocacy and social service organizations suggests that these local providers can engage in political activities that challenge the restrictive nature of these contexts. This qualitative study explored how immigrant-serving social service organizations engage in policy advocacy in a state with restrictive, anti-immigrant policies. In-depth interviews with directors of 50 service providers in South Carolina clearly indicate a tension between the need for policy advocacy and the risks associated with engaging in such activities. Fifty percent (50%) of the providers in our sample reported engaging in some form of policy advocacy. However, their policy advocacy activities were often indirect, non-confrontational, and episodic. Most were engaged in coalitions and other forms of indirect advocacy tactics. We discuss implications for the social work profession and recommendations for future research, including the need to further explore the impact of policy advocacy efforts on changing the policy landscape in places that are unwelcoming to immigrants.

Recentering our tendencies: Immigrant youth development and the importance of context in social work research

ABSTRACT Complex historic and structural constraints disproportionally disadvantage many low-income immigrant youth in the United States. This conceptual article summarizes scholarship on how local context influences their development and argues that the social work profession needs to attend to the diverse settings where immigrant youth are coming of age to design effective interventions. We use three recent studies of different environmental contexts—urban neighborhoods, suburban municipalities, and high school classrooms—to illustrate how they influence the trajectories of immigrant youth. We argue that the social work profession needs to recenter the person-in-environment perspective toward more context-focused interventions to support immigrant youth. We conclude with areas for further research to advance the profession’s understanding of immigrant youth development.