Willow and Juanjo's SplashBlot

We had lunch with César and Teresa in Madrid yesterday, and as usual had a blast with the kids. Cesar vacummed after the made a mess of their dessert, and they all three wanted to be “vacummed” up. It caused quite a ruccus on the couch. And then when we got there they were building a fort in one corner of the room. Ahh the delight of building forts when we were little. I realized yesterday that my little brother and sister and I were similar in age as these three. We had older siblings, but the three of us were closest in age, and played a lot together. Forts in the living room were common in our living rooms in the winter!

We’re in Toledo now for 10 days, drove here Friday and are staying through Christmas. It’s a lot colder than usual right now across Spain, though we probably won’t get a white Christmas (it only snows once a year at most in Toledo, and there was a big snow last week). It was clear and sunny today, and we did get out for a walk, which felt great.

You all know I’m on a Fulbright, and that I’m here working on my dissertation research. You all know too that it has something to do with schools, and immigration. That this will be my thesis at Berkeley. But I promised long ago to give more detail about it, so here goes.

I am studying education policy here, specifically integration policies in schools. I’m trying to understand how people in the education policy world think about what it means to integrate immigrants, and how they take action to change schools. At the same time, I am studying the implementation process, and what actually happens in schools. I’d like to observe and interview in two schools, and compare the experiences of teachers and their immigrant students. Barcelona, Spain is a great place to study this because Spain went from being a country that sent immigrants abroad 20 years ago, to one of the main destinations for immigrants from Latin America, Northern Africa, and Eastern Europe.

So the project is about immigration and school change. It is about cultural difference, and how people work with it in policy, and in practice in schools. This is why a Fulbright is so appropriate to support my research, because the goal of the Fulbright is to bridge cultural boundaries and increase understanding between the US and other countries around the world. I think the things I learn about immigration and schooling here in Spain will help to understand immigration and schooling in California. My fantasy would be to build on this research which compares Barcelona and California, but I might not have enough time to do this during the dissertation. We’ll see!

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That’s the story, in brief, that’s my project that brought us here. Make sense? Please comment, I’ve been curious lately who is following us here, so say hello! It will be good motivation for updating more often….