No place like home? Familism and Latino/a–white differences in college pathways

Abstract

Recent research has argued that familism, defined as a cultural preference for privileging family goals over individual goals, may discourage some Latino/a youth from applying to and attending college, particularly if they must leave home (Desmond and López Turley, 2009). Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, we find that Latino/a students and parents indeed have stronger preferences than white students and parents for living at home during college. For students, most differences in preferences for proximate colleges are explained by socioeconomic status, academic achievement and high school/regional differences. Moreover, controlling for socioeconomic background and prior achievement explains most racial/ethnic gaps in college application and attendance among high school graduates, suggesting that familism per se is not a significant deterrent to college enrollment above and beyond these more primary factors. However, results indicate generational differences; cultural factors may contribute to racial/ethnic gaps in parental preferences for children to remain at home.

Mexican Ancestry, Immigrant Generation, and Educational Attainment in the United States

“…Relatedly, Bohon, Johnson, and Gorman (2006) show that the lower educational aspirations and expectations of Mexicans in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health can be accounted for by socioeconomic status. More directly related to our result, Ovink and Kalgorides (2014) show, with the ELS to adjust for the differences observed for 1 st generation and 3 rd + generation Mexican immigrant students is lower, but here imprecise estimation and inherent heterogeneity, respectively, degrade the capacity of the ELS data to assess the effectiveness of adjustment by socioeconomic status.…”

“…Turley (2006 and Desmond and Turley (2009) argue that familism among Hispanic adolescents and young adults may discourage them from taking advantage of available four-year college opportunities and predispose them to enroll in local community colleges from which comparatively few students then transition to and complete bachelor's degree programs. Ovink and Kalgorides (2014) challenge this conclusion, with more recent results using the same data source we also consider in this article. Ovink (2014aOvink ( , 2014b) makes the case, based on results from in-depth interviews, that familism operates in gender-differentiated fashion, such that Hispanic young women benefit from extra social support that encourages them to obtain bachelor's degrees.…”

Race and Stratification in College Enrollment Over Time

“…Thus, college attendance for Black parents does not appear to convey the same field-leveling benefits in terms of their children's higher education as it does for Hispanic parents. This perspective on the differing intergenerational returns to higher education adds more evidence to research that has described the value of parental educational attainment for Latino families (Ovink & Kalogrides, 2015) and its weakness for Black families relative to White families (D. Long, Kelly, & Gamoran, 2010).…”

Family Influences on Hooking Up and Dating Among Emerging Adults

“…Yet not all students attend residential schools or leave home to attend college. Residential location is not randomly distributed among all emerging adults, however, but varies systematically across race/ethnicity, nativity, and socioeconomic background, with working class, immigrant, and minority young adults more likely to live with or close to family (Allison and Risman 2014;Britton 2013;Ovink and Kalogrides 2015;Pew Research Center 2013). Assumptions of family independence thus reflect the focus on white, classprivileged emerging adults who attend residential campuses that has characterized much research to date, to the neglect of diverse student populations of varied living situations (Arnett 2003;Hall et al 2014;Syed and Mitchell 2013).…”

“…First, it belies the experiences of the many emerging adults who continue to live with or near family ''while attending college or working or some combination of the two'' (Arnett 2000: 471). As family co-residers are disproportionately racial or ethnic minorities, immigrants or the children of immigrants, and from working class backgrounds, the assumption of family independence ties to reliance on predominantly white, middle class samples in emerging adult research (Ovink and Kalogrides 2015). Second, even for those emerging adults who do leave home to attend college, interpersonal relationships may be shaped in part by family members.…”