This study's purpose was to investigate the general school experiences of two groups of immigrant families, those who immigrated to the U.A.E. from other Arab countries, and those who immigrated to the U.S.A. from other Arab countries. Analyses performed on data collected from family members (parents, children) and teachers were both descriptive and inferential. The findings observed for all groups and both types of analyses are presented and discussed in this chapter of the study.
A series of descriptive analyses (computation of frequencies and percentages) were conducted to compare U.A.E. and U.S.A. immigrant groups regarding: year of immigration, number of children, parents' educational level, fluency of parents in speaking the language of the immigrant country, and parents' general feelings about the country and schools in which they were now living.
The first descriptive analyses performed compared U.S.A. with U.A.E. groups in terms of year of immigration, number of children, and parents' educational level. The findings observed for these analyses are presented in Table 1. Examination of this table indicates some differences in the two groups. First, most of those immigrating to the U.A.E. (71.95%) did so from 1980 or after, while most of those immigrating to the U.S.A. (68.85%)
Descriptive Findings*: Year of Immigration, Number of Children,
YEAR OF IMMIGRATION U.A.E. U.S.A.
Freq. % Freq. %
Before 1970 - 0.00 7 11.48
1970 - 1975 7 8.54 12 19.67
1975 - 1980 16 19.51 23 37.70
1980 - 1985 27 32.93 5 8.20
1985 - 1990 24 29.27 6 9.84
1990 - Now 8 9.75 8 13.11
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