The purpose of this study is to find out how public schools accommodate the growing Hispanic school population in a New Hispanic Diaspora in New Jersey, and what strategies Hispanic families and schools adopt to mitigate home-school discontinuity. This study also attempts to find out what constitutes the formation of Hispanic identity among parents and students, and what role ethnic identity plays in the schooling of Hispanic students.

The research methodology used in this study are ethnography and grounded theory which offer opportunities to grasp Hispanics' points of view, their relation to life, their vision of their world, and their views on schooling and identity. The eleven subjects that were interviewed are first generation Hispanics from Mexico, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. They have lived in this New Hispanic Diaspora for three or more years, and have children attending the schools located in this school district. Each informant was interviewed a minimum of four times for one hour each time. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed.

The findings of this research study revealed that: a) The formation of Hispanic diasporic identity follows a developmental progression based on participants shared experiences; b) Hispanic parents' educational experiences and beliefs influence their children's education positively because parents view education as the road to economic success and betterment, and negatively because parents are not used to being actively involved in the education of their children; c) Parents and teachers use numerous strategies to mitigate home school discontinuity; d) Responsive schools in this New Hispanic Diaspora provide accommodations, resources, strategies and programs that address Hispanic parents' and their children's needs; and e) Hispanic children live in two parallel worlds and their identity is shaped by their parents, peers and teachers.