University and Community Collaborations in Migrant ESL

Overview & Synopsis

Migrant English as a Second Language (ESL) has been an important form of rural adult education in the United States for decades. This chapter provides a national and historical overview of rural and migrant ESL. The educational needs of the growing population of seasonal, migrant agricultural workers are discussed and situated in relation to the growth of adult education, literacy education, and ESL as professions in the United States. Then, the majority of this chapter describes and evaluates a migrant farmworker outreach and education program created at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and brought to migrant camps in Lenawee County in rural southeastern Michigan. This program, now in its tenth year, has had an important impact on both the university community and the Lenawee County organizations that serve the migrant farmworker populations there. The authors offer this account as a model for mutually beneficial collaboration among several groups of stakeholders who have provided migrant ESL and bilingual health and safety education to adults in rural areas in an era of continuing budget cuts for both adult education and migrant education.