The educational differences between Arab students who immigrated to the U.S.A. and Arab students who immigrated to the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

This study examined the question of whether there was a difference in the general school experiences of children who move to a new country with an entirely different culture and language and children who immigrate to a country with a language and culture that is similar to their native culture. It was noted that existing literature had stated that immigrant children's school experiences can be affected by any attitudes about the country of immigration and its people which they pick up from their parents as well as from the degree of parents' willingness to interact with the new culture. Based on these postulates, it was predicted that being in a culture different from one's own makes for far more problems in school than merely language or academic difficulties. Subjects in the study consisted of Arab families whose children were attending school in either the United States of America or the United Arab Emirate and who had one or more children in the fourth or fifth grades. All data were collected using researcher-designed questionnaires given to parents, children, and their teachers. Four research questions were formulated which examined the general school experiences of Arabic school children who immigrated to the United Arab Emirate or to the United States. The findings reveal that U.A.E. parents held more positive views of their children's school experiences than did U.S.A. parents. However, children in both U.A.E. and U.S.A. show positive views in terms of general school experiences. Teachers' perceptions of children's school adjustment and level of school success did not differ in association with cultural differences. Both descriptive (computation of frequencies and percentages) and inferential (t-tests, chi square) analyses were conducted. Findings revealed several differences in association with differences in the similarity/dissimilarity of the country of immigration to the country of birth for parents, children, and teacher groups. The study recommended that objective measures, more social variables, gender differences, time period of immigration, different level of schooling, language proficiency and method of teaching be investigated in the future.