Undocumented Students, Faculty, and Higher Education: Engaging in Research to Oppose Discrimination

Background

Higher education in the United States continues to discriminate on the basis of immigration status. Federal financial aid is never available to students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or to undocumented students, and in many states, these students are also denied state-level financial aid and required to pay out-of-state tuition. Flagship universities with prominent schools of social work in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama bar DACA recipients (also known as “DACAmented students”) and undocumented students from attending all or selected universities. If social work students who attend these institutions are unaware of this discrimination, they are likely to be ill-equipped to oppose such discriminatory policies as is required by the NASW Code of Ethics. Thus, the purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) explore what social work students know regarding access to higher education for undocumented & DACAmented youth; and (2) utilize the data collected to develop strategies to oppose discriminatory policies.

Methods

This study used a cross-sectional electronic survey design to gather data from undergraduate social work students (N=175) in a Southeastern flagship university during Fall 2017. The survey questions pertained to students’ knowledge regarding immigration-based discrimination in higher education, their understanding of how social work’s ethical mandates require them to respond, and their level of interest in opposing such discriminatory policies. Educational material was embedded throughout the survey to help students gain more knowledge about the issues. Data was examined at the univariate and bivariate level and subsequently reexamined to develop appropriate strategies for opposing discriminatory policies.

Results

Participants (n=48) were predominantly Caucasian (87.5%) and females (83.3%). A substantial majority of participants (75%) agreed that “every qualified person should have equal access to public education at any level,” and 83.4% agreed that a university is “segregated” if it denies admission to undocumented students. Still, before taking the survey, many students (25%) were unaware of such university-based discrimination. Nearly all the participants (85%) stated that exposure to information within the survey on undocumented youth and higher education affected their thinking on the issue of discriminatory policies. A considerable number of respondents (85%) requested more information on this issue.

Conclusions and Implications

Findings identified gaps in students’ knowledge regarding discriminatory policies directly targeting undocumented and DACAmented youth at both university and state levels. Overall, social work students in this sample exhibited a lack of knowledge about discriminatory policies that affect undocumented youth. Based on these preliminary findings the researchers engaged fellow “gatekeepers”—including university faculty and staff—to develop a curriculum aimed at providing students with more information on discriminatory policies and increasing their skills for opposing such policies. A seven-part strategy for opposing discriminatory policies and engaging in ethical service delivery when working with the undocumented population was developed. The seven-part strategy focuses on: learning; volunteering; teaching; confronting and advocating; publicizing; researching; and training. Future research should examine these strategies for their effectiveness in increasing students’ knowledge of discrimination and skills related to opposing discriminatory policies.