Ethnic and Academic Identity: What Role for Children’s Scholastic Effort?

Later-generation Descendants of Immigrants and Scholastic Effort

“…This paper builds on the literature described above and on the consideration that later generations of immigrants may, on the one hand, absorb the culture of the receiving society to some extent and, on the other, retain some cultural traits of their ethnic background. Our objective is to analyse the type of relationship between teen's identification with home and mainstream cultures and their motivations to exert effort in school in line with Autiero and Nese (2017).…”

“…In the sample, teens represent later-generation descendants of immigrants (Note 2), who simultaneously learn both their home and mainstream culture. In our previous paper (Autiero & Nese, 2017), where we assessed the influence of ethnic identity on children's scholastic effort, the 1970 British Cohort Study data included both first-generation immigrants and later-generation descendants and was characterised by a limited number of observations for ethnic minorities, which did not ensure conclusive evidence. Importantly, considering later generations attenuates problems of selection into immigration (Note 3) and weakens the role of some confounding factors characterising first-generation immigrants who may find it difficult to speak a foreign language and still nurture strong ties with non-immigrating family members (Fernà ndez, 2008(Fernà ndez, , 2010.…”

“…During the early adolescence in fact the extent to which individuals may identify with the two cultures is largely determined by the attitudes of family towards integration and the attitudes of host countries in terms, for instance, of social rejection. In this respect, we previously uncovered a role for ethnic identity in children's scholastic effort (Autiero & Nese, 2017) and the current work builds on this study as it explicitly focuses on later-generation descendants of immigrants and on empirical measures of scholastic effort.…”