论19—20世纪之交美国公立学校对“新移民”子女的同化作用

Study of American Public Schools'Assimilation of the New Immigrant Children in 19th-20th Century

19世纪末20世纪初,大量来自东欧和南欧的所谓“新移民”给美国带来巨大的文化冲击,促使美国主流社会中“盎格鲁遵从”论一时间兴盛。这一强制同化理论支配着当时美国公立学校的教育。公立学校采取了一系列策略,对“新移民”子女实施“美国化”,力图将其塑造成地道的美国小公民。这些同化策略确实促进了东、南欧移民子女对美国主流文化的接受和认同,但是也给这些孩子及他们的父母带来一些负面影响,造成了移民家庭代际间的文化隔阂与冲突。

During the late 19th century and the early 20th century,the massive so-called new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe brought huge culture shock to America,which made Anglo-conformity popular in the American dominant society in a short time.This kind of coercive assimilation theory dominated the American public school education at that time.The public schools adopted a series of tactics to Americanize the new immigrant children in order to mould them into genuine little American citizens.These assimilation tactics did facilitate the immigrant children to accept and identify with American mainstream culture,but it also brought about some negative impact on these children and their parents by resulting in culture barriers and conflicts between generations in immigrant families.