Steve Song is a Associate Fellow on the Marie Curie Excellence Team. He joined the project in February of 2008. |
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Biography
Steve Song obtained his doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2007. His doctoral thesis was titled, “The American Journey: Educational and Psychological Adaptations of Newly-Arrived Immigrant Children.” Prior to his doctoral studies, he obtained an MA and a BA from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
During his doctoral studies at Harvard, Steve worked for the Harvard Immigration Project, a longitudinal study examining the social, psychological, and academic adaptations of newly-arrived immigrant students from China, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico. Based on that research experience, his particular focus was on the role of American schools in “Americanizing” non-European immigrant children. Specifically, Steve wrote about how newly-arrived immigrant children from non-European countries change in their perception of themselves as they face various pressures to Americanize their identities (e.g., Latino, Asian, and Black), and how these identities relate to their schooling experiences. He also examined the role of school demographics (social-economic and ethnic composition) and peer influences in the academic outcomes of these immigrant children.
As an immigrant child himself, much of Steve’s studies has been dedicated to better understanding the adaptation processes children of immigrants undergo as they acculturate into a new (and often unwelcoming) land. Previous to his experiences as a researcher, Steve was a high school and middle school ESL teacher in Chicago. |
