Student engagement, school climate, and academic achievement of immigrants’ children.

Abstract

During the past 3 decades, the U.S. school population has witnessed an unprecedented growth in the number of foreign-born children and children of immigrants (Capps, Fix, Murray, Passel, & Herwantoro, 2005). One concern that policymakers have about this demographic growth is these children's adaptation to the U.S. school system. Their future success as adults hinges on how well they do in school as children. An indicator of students' well-being in school is their engagement-the affective component of schooling that includes students' enthusiasm about, interest in, and attachment to school (Newmann, 1992). However, it is also important to consider how children of immigrants perceive their school climate because this shapes both their engagement and their academic achievement. How adolescents view and feel about school is associated with their cognitive achievement (Anderson, 1982), which in turn influences adolescents' access to postsecondary education and labor market success (Farkas & Vicknair, 1996;Jencks & Phillips, 1998). Thus, understanding adolescent students' academic achievement and school engagement would be useful for guiding policies. On the one hand, if immigrants' children fall behind We thank William Gerhardt for his useful research assistance.

Immigrant Students’ Emotional and Cognitive Engagement at School: A Multilevel Analysis of Students in 41 countries

“…In contrast, their second-generation (native-born) co-ethnic peers often had negative attitudes towards their schools and teachers (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001). This pattern of generation decline in student attitudes is consistent with the “immigrant paradox” in academic achievement, in which first generation (foreign-born) immigrant students outperform the second, third, and higher order generation (native-born) students (Pong and Zeiser 2012). …”

Mexican-origin adolescents' educational expectation trajectories: Intersection of nativity, sex, and socioeconomic status

“…Second, the variation in trajectories for immigrant and non-immigrant adolescents also supports and extends our knowledge of the “immigrant paradox” (Pong & Zeiser, 2012) and informs practice. Our findings for immigrant adolescents align with the “immigrant-paradox” literature by showing that immigrant adolescents show higher initial educational expectations, compared to U.S.-born adolescents.…”

“…Second, we tested the moderating role of adolescents' individual and family characteristics and resources. Research informed by the “immigrant paradox” (Pong & Zeiser, 2012; Suarez-Orozco et al, 2009) guided our first hypothesis that immigrant adolescents would show higher educational expectations than their non-immigrant peers, and that such expectations would decrease over time. Next, studies on sex differences in educational attainment (Qin-Hilliard, 2003; Suarez-Orozco et al, 2010) informed our second hypothesis positing that girls would show higher and more stable trajectories of expectations as compared to boys.…”

“…This body of research has noted an “immigrant paradox” phenomena, which suggests immigrants show better health and educational outcomes than native-born individuals (García Coll & Marks, 2012). Specifically, Hispanic immigrant youth show higher achievement (e.g., grade point average) and engagement (e.g., valuing and liking school) than later generation youth (Pong & Zeiser, 2012). Further, a growing literature suggests that the “immigrant-paradox” is not only an intergenerational phenomenon, but also an intragenerational phenomenon (Almeida, Johnson, Matsumoto, & Godette, 2012; Salas-Wright, Vaughn, Schwartz, & Córdova, 2015; Suarez-Orozco, Rhodes, & Milburn, 2009) such that the protective effect of being an immigrant declines the longer adolescents live in the U.S.…”

How do they do it? The immigrant paradox in the transition to adulthood

“…However, this research has not been conducted on immigrant groups. It is unclear whether sports and social activities are an avenue to the same types of engagement for immigrant as for nonimmigrant children (Okamoto et al, 2013; Pong & Zeiser, 2012). In addition, previous studies have focused on extracurricular activities to the exclusion of informal activities in which children engage at home, such as studying, television viewing, and household work (Linver, Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2009; Nelson & Gastic, 2009).…”