ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the experiences of African immigrant families in American Educational institutions and the different strategies used by these families to cope with the system. The study uses qualitative methods and is done within the frameworks of analytic induction and constant comparison analysis (Strauss; Goetz and LeCompte; Bogdan and Biklen) and Van Maanen’s1 impressionistic ethnographic tradition. The study demonstrates that African immigrants face considerable challenges relating to adaptation into the school system in their acquisition of the necessary professional competence needed to gain assess to high paying jobs.2 The study concludes that cultural differences and being “foreign”3 put the immigrants at risk and contribute to problems in adaptation and proper assimilation.
