It’s Time: Beginning to Shift the Adult Education Instructional Paradigm to Value Support for Integration

Abstract: Achieving successful long-term civic, economic, and linguistic integration is critically important to ensure the well-being and economic mobility of immigrant and refugee families, as well as the strength of communities where they settle. Leeway within the system to support successful integration has steadily narrowed in recent years; this trend accelerated in 2014 with passage of WIOA. While federal adult education provisions formerly allowed a more balanced approach to teaching English and meeting learners’ needs in their roles as parents, workers, and citizens, WIOA instituted mandatory performance measures that focus mainly on employment outcomes and the attainment of postsecondary credentials, placing no value on other essential integration skills or topics. This session will explore the potential for new approaches at the intersection of the adult education and immigrant integration fields that a wide range of stakeholders can champion to better support immigrants’ and refugees’ integration success.