Educational context

Honduras holds an educational system that is amongst the lowest performing in Latin America, despite the government spending a large portion of its budget on education each year (^{Orozco & Valdivia 2017}). Approximately 11 % of Hondurans are illiterate, though this number is higher in rural areas; and while 93 % of children ages 6-11 are enrolled in school, only half of those 12-14 years old are enrolled-approximately two-thirds in urban areas, and one-third in rural areas (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2016). As a result, the average educational attainment for Hondurans is four years, as compared to the world average of 12 years (^{Orozco & Valdivia 2017}). Community-based schools through the Programa Hondureño de Educación Comunitaria (PROHECO) have been created in the past two decades to address issues of limited access to schooling in rural areas (^{Di Gropello & Marshall 2005}); however, high dropout rates and low student attainment persist due to students’ needing to seek employment to support their families (^{Gitter & Barham 2007}). As discussed in ^{Gunnarsson, Orazem, and Sánchez (2006)}, poverty in Latin America often makes child labor a necessity, which has been shown to negatively impact student achievement.

On the other hand, research suggests that teachers play a role in improving educational quality if given training or incentives to increase efforts (^{Di Gropello 2005}). Especially in rural schools where teacher training is more limited and teachers come with less qualifications (^{Di Gropello & Marshall 2011}), transnational students returning to these areas are likely met with few, if any, reintegration resources and support. These barriers to quality education in Honduras are further complicated by regular teacher salary delays (^{Altschuler 2012}), with public school teachers often experiencing four or more month’s delay in receiving their paycheck (field notes, July 2018), potentially exacerbating a teacher’s ability to gather more resources for their classroom.

Migration context

In Honduras, emigration has been going on since the Central American civil wars in the 1980s, and continued after 1998 with the destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch, leading to the extension of Temporary Protected Status designation to 60,000 Hondurans in the U.S. (^{Gluckman 2019}; ^{O’Connor et al. 2019}). While the U.S. is often cited as the most common planned destination for Central American migrants (^{Hiskey et al. 2018}), strong historical trends of South-South migration continue to exist for Honduran migrants (^{Flores Fonseca 2014}). Some of the main reasons why families leave Honduras are poverty, violence, extortion, and forced recruitment by gangs. Honduras has the second highest poverty rates in the region, and the highest murder rate per capita (^{Central Intelligence Agency 2018}). Consequently, many migrants seek out job and life opportunities, not only in the United States, but also in bordering countries such as Guatemala or Nicaragua, or those with higher GDP rates, such as Costa Rica and Belize.

Continued increases in migration from Central America to the U.S. in the past two decades has resulted in Honduran nationals and their, often foreign-born, children gaining substantive school experience outside of Honduras, fostering assumptions, habits, and levels of achievement which Honduras schools may not be ready to address. Developing strategies to serve this population may continue to grow in importance given the increased media attention and additional scrutiny Central American migration has received due to the appearance of several large migrant caravans from Honduras to the U.S. starting in 2018 (^{Sieff & Partlow 2018}). Before these so-called «caravans», migrants reported that their transit through Mexico was a crude and violent vía crucis towards their American dream ( ^{Jones 2017}). Some of the dangers included gang recruitment and killings, harassment, robbery and abuse from the Mexican police; trafficking of women and children by drug cartels, among others (^{Anguiano Téllez & Villafuerte Solís 2016}). In order to help each other, and to protect women and children, migrants started using social media and phone applications to communicate with each other and gather at strategic points, to move across Mexico as a group (^{El Colegio de la Frontera Norte 2018}). However, dangers within Mexico persist, especially as a consequence of the Programa Frontera Sur, in which Mexico received funds in order to detain, and deport Central American migrants before they reach the United States (^{Anguiano Téllez & Villafuerte Solís 2016}). This cooperation resulted in the apprehension of over 38,000 unaccompanied minors and almost 104,000 people travelling as families during the fiscal year of 2018 (^{O’Connor et al. 2019}). In the first nine months of fiscal year 2019, more than 363,000 migrants travelling in families were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, tripling the total number from the previous year (^{O’Connor et al. 2019}). South-South migration trends have also shifted making some countries less viable options for Honduran migration or settlement. For example, Nicaragua’s current political climate and Guatemala’s drought, have resulted in growing numbers of outward migration from these countries (^{Kahn 2019}; ^{O’Connor et al. 2019}).

Factors influencing transnational students’ education

Transnational students have been found to «develop and maintain multiple relations-familial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political-that span borders» (^{Schiller et al. 1992, IX}). As a result they are often educated within a ‘culture of migration’, which has been found to result in a decreasing emphasis on school achievement in favor of migration for economic opportunities or social mobility-commonly referred to as the substitution effect (^{de Hoyos Navarro et al. 2016}; ^{Dreby & Stutz 2011}; ^{Kandel & Massey 2002}; ^{Robles & Oropesa 2011}). This substitution, often modeled for children and youth by parents who have migrated abroad, has been noted as a potential contributing factor to the decline in school enrollment from primary to secondary school in countries such as Honduras (^{Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2016}; ^{Davis 2016}, ²⁰¹⁸). Scholars have also highlighted how the economic (^{de Hoyos et al. 2016}; ^{Dreby & Stutz 2011}; ^{Robles & Oropesa 2011}), cognitive, emotional, and psychological effects (^{Panting 2016}) of migration influence transnational students’ classroom experiences and likelihood of re-enrolling in school. Moreover, transnational students have been found to encounter administrative barriers when they attempt to re-enroll in school (^{Valdéz Gardea 2012}), and experience academic and linguistic fractures, which might result in an increase of school dropouts (^{Román González & Zúñiga 2014}; ^{Sekiya & Ashida 2017}). While a recent literature review outlined the wide array of sociopolitical, socio-emotional, socio-linguistic, and sociocultural factors which influence transnational students’ current or future schooling experiences (^{Gluckman et al. 2021}), the current study is the first to focus specifically on the experiences of Honduran teachers who have had transnational students’ in their classrooms.

In Honduras, UNICEF has called for an increased focus on the reintegration of transnational youth, modelling this behavior by allocating resources to the Red Cross Honduras to provide psychosocial support as well as assisting with a «flexible education model» for children who are currently «excluded from the formal education system» (^{United Nations Children’s Fund 2018, 9}). Additionally, in their Annual Report, UNICEF indicated a partnership with the Dirección de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia (DINAF), Honduras’ national child protection agency, to support repatriation and reintegration services. Nonetheless, little information is available on teachers’ specific responses to the growing number of repatriated youth, and on the strategies that the Honduran Secretary of Education would provide to support them in their efforts to educate transnational students in their classroom. This role currently is taken up by local non-governmental organizations, such as the one with which the current study took place.

Teachers’ capacity to serve transnational students

Studies on transnational student experiences within the U.S.-Mexico context provide insight into existing gaps in teacher preparation, knowledge, and skills available to serve this population. In a multi-year study of U.S.-Mexican transnational students, researchers found a lack of preor in-service training provided to teachers as to how they could build on students’ prior knowledge and assets within the classroom (^{Hamann et al. 2008}; ^{Román González & Carrillo Cantú 2017}; ^{Sánchez García & Hamann 2016})-a practice that has been noted to be successful in welcoming immigrant students and increasing their educational outcomes (^{Moll et al. 2005}). ^{Mordechay and Alfaro (2019, 33)} also advocate for the use of a prior knowledge assets approach employing a «culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy and [the] utilization of students’ previous experiences and cultural knowledge». Through these studies, it was found that both in the U.S. and in Mexico, teachers have limited planning time and support for English/Spanish-Language Learners (^{Gándara et al. 2003}; ^{Sánchez García 2007}). Even when training workshops were delivered to Mexican teachers in response to transnational education, participants reported that discussions still tended to be general, rather than specific to transnational students (^{Sánchez García & Hamann 2016}).

^{Mordechay and Alfaro’s (2019, 33)} work, which focused directly on the binational context of transnational students in border regions, revealed that neither U.S. nor Mexican teachers were «prepared to build on the assets to teach ‘students we share’ across borders», citing a lack of «knowledge, disposition, and skills... to understand the binational contexts and difficult realities that students live as they attempt to navigate two educational systems». They argue for the need to develop a global awareness which includes «an understanding of sociocultural influences, biliteracy processes, authentic assessment, and culturally and linguistically responsive curriculum» (^{Mordechay and Alfaro 2019, 31}). Additionally, it has been found that «approaches to education reform that do not honor the uniqueness, resiliency, cultural, and linguistic wealth of the SWS [students we share] are likely to fail» (^{Alfaro & Bartolomé 2017}; ^{Yosso 2005}). As a result, researchers call for a «cultural, linguistic wealth, and community-based approach» to teacher training (^{Valenzuela 2016}; ^{Yosso 2005}) that meets the needs of transnational students.

As noted in the Honduran education context above, teachers currently face diverse challenges with respect to meeting their student population including lack of training, ongoing professional development, and access to resources. While research has yet to highlight the experiences of teachers of transnational students in Honduran schools and how these might compare to those of Mexican and US teachers-a key contribution of the current study-these challenges engendered across the Honduran education system may create less than favorable environments and prospectively limited capacity for meeting the unique needs of transnational students.

Data analysis

The data from this study was compiled from the nine interviews with teachers and principals regarding current or past transnational students. Eight of these interviews were conducted in person using a recording device and transcribed afterwards. One interviewee declined to have their voice recorded, and instead the researcher recorded a brief summary of the answers on the recording device immediately after the interview was finished. To follow identity protection guidelines, all teachers’ and students’ names were changed to pseudonyms.

After the interviews were transcribed, the results were separated based on the responses of the three questions asked, and coded for common emerging themes. We identified three main response categories: 1) what teachers knew or did not know about their transnational student’s experiences 2) how teachers responded to new knowledge about their students’ backgrounds and; 3) teachers opinions about their training on transnational education. These results are further discussed in the following paragraphs.

«No es algo de extrañarse»: Teachers’ prior knowledge about transnational students

In the interviews, four out of seven teachers knew about their current students’ transnational backgrounds, while the other three declared that they were not aware they had transnational students in their classes prior to the survey. Those who had previously worked with transnational students used the interview to discuss what information they knew about former students and their migration experiences.

Teachers from Escuela Puente de Olivera explained this knowledge in a variety of ways. For example, teacher Juana said that she más o menos había cuestionado a los niños sobre estos temas («more or less had questioned the children about these topics»). In her interview, she indicated that she already knew of the only case in her class. She explained la única niña que tengo que nació aquí en Honduras pero migró para España y luego regresó («the only girl I have was born here in Honduras but migrated to Spain and then returned»). Similarly, teacher Kelsi said para mí es algo normal. No es algo de extrañarse («it is fairly normal for me. It is not very surprising»). She reasoned that a nosotros a veces nos exigen ese tipo de encuestas («sometimes we are required to give this type of survey»). Another teacher from this school, Beatriz, replied sí, ya lo sabía («yes, I already knew») when asked whether she had prior knowledge of her students’ transnational experiences. While Juana and Beatriz did not mention why or how they had specifically questioned their students, Kelsi stated that her discovery of transnational students came from a survey she administered in the beginning of the year asking ¿cuántos alumnos hay, cuántos alumnos viven aquí en el sector, cuántos fuera…? («how many students are there, how many students live here in the sector, how many outside…?»). Kelsi’s answer might suggest that she gained her knowledge accidentally through a student’s response to the standardized questions that had been required by the local educational authorities, rather than explicitly asking about transnational students, as was the case in this study’s survey.

Teachers’ prior knowledge also differed in terms of specificity, from more general knowledge of where students had been to more detailed specifics about their migration journeys. Liliana spoke in detail about one of her students’ past experiences commenting that tuvimos en primer grado un niño, hace como tres años, pero luego la mamá pidió traslado y ya no supe de él. Y tuve el caso también de una niña que era extranjera, una mexicana («We had a boy in first grade, about three years ago, but his mom asked to transfer him and after that I didn’t know anything about him. I also had a girl student who was a foreigner, a Mexican»). Kelsi also spoke at length about two former students, explaining that la mamá de esta niñas, que son guatemaltecas, es porque la señora se fue para allá, supuestamente quiso pasar y llegó hasta Guatemala y ahí se quedó trabajando, ahí tuvo sus niñas y luego se las mandó a su mamá para que se las cuide, que son las dos niñas que tengo. Ya tengo dos años de tenerlas y ya están en Honduras («These girls are Guatemalan and their mother left, she wanted to cross, but she only got to Guatemala and stayed there to work, and then she sent the girls to her mother to watch them... but I’ve had them for two years and they are now in Honduras»).

The variability of prior knowledge could imply that even if there is a formal survey or processes undertaken in Honduran schools for teachers to learn about their students’ backgrounds and trajectories, that it is implemented with varied fidelity. Rather, the fact that three of the four teachers who knew about students’ transnational experiences prior to the survey were all from the same school (Puente de Olivera) may suggest that some schools or communities may have adopted informal means of questioning students about their experiences. While these teachers did not speak about how they utilized this information, it may be that having a more detailed understanding of their transnational students’ backgrounds could inform strategies that these teachers have or could implement to support their students’ success. In addition, other teachers’ responses indicated that specific information may often be unavailable regarding students’ pasts, as well as what happens to them when they disappear or migrate. This may suggest that the very knowledge of students’ backgrounds is a necessary first step in creating an environment where transnational students can be appropriately supported.

«Yo pude aprender que..»: How teachers respond to new knowledge about transnational students

For teachers who learned new information about their students’ backgrounds through the survey, several mentioned how this new knowledge is valuable to them. One example comes from teacher Gabriela’s conversation with her student who had lived in Nicaragua until age four. Gabriela said solo pensaba que él estudiaba en Nicaragua pero no que sabía otro tipo de idioma y esta encuesta me permitió conocer que, además del idioma español, sabe otro tipo de lenguaje («I only thought he studied in Nicaragua, but I didn’t know that he knew another language and this survey allowed me to learn that, besides Spanish, he knows another language»). In her self-reflection on the knowledge she gained, Gabriela continued, saying yo pude aprender que él estudiaba francés y así él puede ayudarles a sus compañeritos a aprender lo básico del francés («I was able to learn that he studied French, so now he can help his classmates to learn the basics of French»). Gabriela expressed that her student’s additional language capabilities could be employed as an asset in her classroom, placing value on her discovery as a prospective learning opportunity for her other students.

Another teacher, Lorena, also had a student who had studied and lived in Nicaragua. She said she was surprised to learn that her student solo estuvo un mes en preparatoria y luego se vino un mes a hacer la preparatoria, o sea, que él no vivió mucho tiempo allí, solo hasta los cuatro años («he only spent a month in preschool [in Nicaragua] and then came for a month to do preschool [in Honduras], so he did not spend much time there, only four years»). Later in the interview, Lorena indicated that the learning gap her student had due to only completing two months of preschool was likely correlated with the student’s bad behavior in class. This provided her with new knowledge about her student’s educational background which she could prospectively use to inform her approach to working with this student in the future.

Several other teachers expressed that through the administration of the survey, they learned useful information about students’ backgrounds. Liliana spoke about one student, mentioning no sabía que el niño estaba estudiando inglés hasta ahora («I did not know that the child was studying English until now»). While this student did not have transnational experience, Liliana was able to learn new information related to her student’s background. Unlike teacher Gabriela, however, Liliana did not elaborate on the value of this knowledge, only stating her surprise to learn about the student’s enrollment in an English program. She only mentioned this student at the very end of her interview after speaking in more detail about her past student’s experience migrating to Mexico, prospectively indicating a newly emerging understanding of the value of students’ backgrounds on a teacher’s practice. Another teacher, from Escuela Puente de Olivera, a primary school, added that from the survey, she learned about her student’s family life. She described, tengo una alumna que dice que el papá la llevó, él es coyote -el papá pasa gente-, pero solamente la llevó y la trajo («I have a student who says her dad is a ‘coyote’-he smuggles people-but he only took her and brought her back»). Again, this student did not have transnational educational experience, however the information gained could be relevant to the teacher in understanding her students’ home life. Teachers’ responses demonstrated that the background of the students, whether they migrate, north or south, or are learning something new outside of schools, is important to understand students’ family interactions and dynamics, their migratory and educational trajectories, and their individual needs. Additionally, teachers agreed that knowing their students’ assets, like being able to speak another language, or the challenges they have faced such as not finishing a complete year in a single school, could help them to prepare their classes better, either to use the transnational student as a helper, or to implement different teaching strategies to integrate those who were behind.

«Me da una pauta de cómo debo enseñar»: Resources for teaching practices

In addition to valuing the new knowledge about their students, most teachers agreed that learning from their students would help them to maximize their potential in their classrooms. For example, teacher Juana, argued that learning about her students experiences, es muy importante porque así me da una pauta de cómo debo de enseñar o qué debo de enseñar, o cómo debo de tratar a los niños que vienen de otros países que regresan a nuestro país («it is very important, because it gives me a guide as to how I should teach or what I should teach, or how I should treat the children who come from other countries who return to our country»). Juana discussed how in asking the student about his or her trajectory, provided a moment for self-reflection regarding her own pedagogy towards transnational students. Another teacher, Yessica, agreed with Juana’s sentiments, saying it was bastante signif icativo («very significant») to learn that her third grade student no pudo entrar en ningún centro educativo de Estados Unidos («was not able to enter into any school in the U.S.») even though the student had spent several years living there. Yessica suggested that this information was significant because her student entra [a la clase] de incógnita («entered [class] incognito»), or with a hidden background, despite only being educated in Honduras. Yessica’s earlier reflections focused on her first year of experience working in PROHECO schools after working for seven years in other systems, stating that compared to relatively normal experiences in previous schools, la experiencia que [ha] tenido… [allí] es bastante baja la educación; entonces, sí hay que reforzar esa parte («the experience [she] had… the education there is very low, so it’s important to reinforce this part»), presumably referring to the surprising information she learned in the survey. When combined, with reflection on her student’s lack of preparatory school experience in the U.S., she may be linking such experiences to the lower education levels found in her PROHECO school, illuminating possible future connections between hidden experiences and educational success of her students.

Second grade teacher Paula from Escuela Diamante Torres also summarized why learning about student’s backgrounds is important, stating that the survey le ayud[ó] a saber más sobre esa área donde [ella] está trabajando («help[ed] her know that area better that [she’s] working in»). She didn’t know about her student’s prior experience in Mexico before the survey, but afterwards revealed that the information es muy importante a saber por qué…aveces los niños entran la clase, pero [los docentes] no sabemos dónde han estado los estudiantes, ellos solo aparecen («was really good to know because…sometimes kids come into her classroom, but [the teachers] don’t know where [the students] have been, they just show up»). She added that this knowledge can también ayudarla a conocer mejor a sus alumnos («also help her know her students better»). This teacher’s response suggests that teachers like to know about their students and try to relate to them personally. When combined with Juana’s response, there is potential for use of prior knowledge to improve teacher-student relationships and improve tailored teaching practices.

However, not all teachers interviewed expressed an understanding of what to do with their knowledge of transnational students’ experiences. Balbina for example, stressed the importance of raising awareness and finding support for teachers who want to support transnational students in their classes, se dan cuenta otros países de cuantos niños se van de los centros educativos, por qué razón se van. Una de las cosas es no tener trabajo, otra es a veces sus padres uno vive con él y el otro se ha ido del país también («other countries must realize how many children go to schools, and why they leave. One reason is lack of work, another is sometimes they live with one parent and the other has left for another country»). Balbina discussed the value of disclosing the information discovered in the survey as a way of teachers’ learning the truth behind the migratory experiences of their students. Balbina also noted at another point in the interview that the government or news is not always truthful and might not accurately report numbers, and that teachers may be more reliable informants of students’ lived realities as they are the ones supporting them day-to-day in schools. Balbina’s focus on the government’s responsibility in providing truthful information may suggest that she places responsibility with the government for providing tools and information to support teachers with transnational students, with accurate news reports being an important first step to addressing the deeper problems teachers and transnational students face.

Honduran teachers are aware that, as global education trends shifts from lecture-centered to student-centered (^{Samarji & Hooley 2015}), their epistemology might be better informed by knowledge of their students’ transnational experience as a means to better re-integrate them into the classroom and serve other unique needs. Nonetheless, Honduran teaching methods continue to be primarily lecture-based or full of copying and recitation, suggesting that transnational students’ classroom experience may be incompatible with the Honduran teaching style, requiring action and training for teachers to be able to bridge this difference in experiences.