Teaching Newcomers Inclusively: Social Studies in a New Gateway State

We explored social studies teachers’ dispositions towards working with immigrant students in an Atlantic new gateway state. We surveyed 99 middle and high school social studies teachers using the additive versus subtractive models as a theoretical framework. Although teachers’ professional backgrounds and school contexts were connected to teaching inclusively, their academic expectations of immigrant students, their beliefs on assimilation (regarding schools’ and teachers’ roles in maintaining heritage cultures and languages), and their opinions on the effective implementation of school policies concerning immigrant students’ learning were significant contributors to teaching inclusiveness.