Educational Expectations among Immigrant Youth: Links to Segmented Assimilation and School Context

Abstract

Although schools are important socialization venues for all children, they also serve as sites of acculturation for immigrant youth. According to segmented assimilation theory, first- and second-generation students experience divergent trajectories of incorporation, in part, because they are exposed to school contexts that support or stifle their attainment. I argue that such a process must have social-psychological underpinnings, which I examine by relating children’s educational expectations to their school environment during adolescence. Specifically, I use the National Education Longitudinal Study to assess differences in expectations by school context among immigrant and U.S.-origin youth between eighth and 12th grades. Results indicate that students in comparably disadvantaged school environments report lower expectations, though this relationship is driven by household resources and student characteristics. I also find that most students exhibit increases in their educational expectations, and that such changes are not systemically patterned by school context. This article sheds light on the goals of immigrant youth and the extent to which these plans transform from childhood to adolescence.

Systems of Oppression: The Impact of Discrimination on Latinx Immigrant Adolescents’ Well‐Being and Development

“…Moreover, studies have found undocumented status exacerbates the impact of structural discrimination as Latinx students who are undocumented may not be able to access higher education due to the inability to qualify for financial assistance or in-state tuition (Sibley & Braback, 2017). This, in turn, is associated with lower school expectations among immigrant adolescents (Diaz, 2020). Deep-rooted systemic discrimination has also led to unfair disciplinary practices in school systems as well as the greater community.…”

Segmented assimilation and mobility among men in the early 20th century

“…Family structure is likely to influence the availability of social support, the allocation of household resources, and youth supervision (Keller and Tillman 2008;Steelman et al 2002;Zhou and Bankston 1994). And while the context of reception includes laws and attitudes toward immigrants as well as the organization of the labor market (Portes and Zhou 1993;Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller 2005), scholars typically emphasize the school and neighborhood environment in the contemporary period (Akresh, Do, and Frank 2016;Diaz 2020;Greenman 2011Greenman , 2013Kroneberg 2008;Martinez Jr. and Valenzuela Jr. 2006;Xie and Greenman 2011).…”

“…Although there continues to be debate surrounding the operationalization of segmented assimilation in empirical work (Diaz 2020;Stepick and Stepick 2010;Waldinger and Feliciano 2004;Xie and Greenman 2011), it is clear that some immigrant populations fare better than others. These disparities in well-being can largely be explained by access to socioeconomic resources (Portes and Fernández Kelly 2008;Rumbaut 2005), family dynamics (Keller and Tillman 2008;Portes, Fernández-Kelly, and Haller 2005;Zhou and Kim 2006), and the context of reception.…”

Personal social networks as a superdiversity dimension: A qualitative approach with second-generation Americans

“…In recent years, social science studies have not been focusing on offspring when analyzing superdiversity, or at least when taking this conceptual framework into consideration as a whole. 1 Many studies have focused on second-generation adaptation, acculturation or integration through different facets of life and culture, such as language (Cantone, 2019; Stavans and Ashkenazi, 2020; Verhaeghe et al, 2019), religion or spirituality (Bruce, 2020; Falcke et al, 2020; Hoechner, 2020; Parnes et al, 2020; Shen, 2020), legal status (Labussière and Vink, 2020), marriage (Phillips et al, 2020), schooling (Bayona-i-Carrasco et al, 2020; Bissonnette et al, 2019; Chachashvili-Bolotin et al, 2019; Cheng and Yuen, 2019; De Feyter et al, 2020; Demintseva, 2020; Diaz, 2020; Orupabo et al, 2020; Volante et al, 2019), health (Zhu, 2019), employment (Briggs, 2020; Sakamoto and Hsu, 2020), mobilities (Marrow, 2020), national identification and belonginess (Bacchus, 2020; Etienne, 2020; Forrest et al, 2020; Marino, 2020; McClure, 2020; Schaefer and Simon, 2020; Solimene, 2019; Verhaeghe et al, 2020; Zhou and Rodríguez-Mantilla, 2020), political and/or civil society participation or activism (Khachikian, 2019; Le, 2020; Potochnick and Stegmaier, 2020; Terriquez and Lin, 2020), transnational practices (Brocket, 2020; Bruce, 2020; Hernández-León et al, 2020; Jain, 2019; Solimene, 2019), gender (Valdez and Tran, 2020), or attitudes towards others’ cultures (van Maaren and van de Rijt, 2020).…”