哈佛研究:男女移民差距大

Consider the kids' experiences in school. The study found that boys face more peer pressure to adopt American youth culture—the dress, the slang, the disdain for education. They're disciplined more often and, as a result, develop more adversarial relationships with teachers—and the wider society. They may also face more debilitating prejudices. One teacher interviewed for the study said that the "cultural awareness training" she received as part of her continuing education included depictions of Latino boys as "aggressive" and "really macho" and of the girls as "pure sweetness."

我们再来考虑孩子们在学校的经历。研究发现，与女孩子相比，男孩子在接受美国年轻人文化——衣着、俚语以及对教育的蔑视等——方面面临更多的来自同龄人的压力。他们会受到更多的惩戒，因此，他们跟老师以及外界社会更容易发展成一种敌对关系。他们还可能会面对更多的使人意志衰弱的偏见。研究中接受采访的一位老师说，她所接受的继续教育中的“文化意识培训”部分把拉丁美洲男孩描述成“好斗的”、“真正大男子主义的”的人，而对女孩子的描述是“清纯可人”。

Gender shapes immigrant kids' experiences outside school as well. Often hailing from traditional cultures, the girls face greater domestic obligations. They also frequently act as "cultural ambassadors," translating for parents and mediating between them and the outside world, says Carola Suarez-Orozco. An unintended consequence: "The girls get foisted into a responsible role more than the boys do." Take Christina Im, 18, a junior at Fairfax who arrived from South Korea four years ago. She ranks ninth in a class of 400 students and still finds time to fix dinner for the family and work on Saturdays at her mother's clothing shop. Her brother? "He plays computer games," says Im.

性别也决定了移民孩子的课余生活经历。由于女孩子常常处在传统文化的氛围之中，她们要对家庭承担更多的责任。卡罗拉•苏瑞兹-欧罗科说，她们常常担当“文化大使”的角色，为她们的父母作作翻译，帮助他们与外部世界沟通。这产生了一种意想不到的结果：“与男孩子相比，女孩子不得不承担起更多的责任。”我们以克里斯蒂娜伊•殷为例。她今年18岁，四年前从韩国来到这里，现在是费尔法克斯中学三年级学生。在全班400名学生中，她排名第九位，但她还能抽出时间给她的家人做正餐，每周六还要在她妈妈的服装店里帮忙。她弟弟干什么呢？殷说，“他在打游戏。”

The Harvard study bears a cautionary note: If large numbers of immigrant boys continue to be alienated academically—and to be clear, plenty perform phenomenally—they risk sinking irretrievably into an economic underclass. Oscar Herrera, Martha's dropout brother, may be realizing that. "I'm thinking of returning to school," he recently told his mother. He ought to look to his sisters for guidance.

哈佛大学的研究带着一种警示性口气：如果大量的移民男孩子在学业上继续荒废下去—说得清楚些，有很多人荒废得令人难以置信—他们将冒将来在经济上不可挽回地陷入底层社会的危险。马撒辍学的弟弟奥斯卡•赫雷拉可能已经认识到了这一点。他最近告诉他的母亲说，“我在考虑重新回到学校去。”他应该向他的姐姐们求教指导意见。