Parental influences on the high school students' academic achievement: A comparison of Asian immigrants,Asian Americans,and White Americans

This study investigates the differences in parental influence on academic achievement of Asian immigrants, Asian Americans, and White Americans. The sample consisted of a nationally representative sample of 10th grade students obtained from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 88, first follow-up, sponsored by the National Center for Educational Statistics. Results indicate that both Asian immigrants and Asian Americans spent significantly more time on homework and perceived higher parental educational expectation than did White American students. White American students, on the other hand, reported more parental involvement in school activities. A negative relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement was found for the Asian immigrant and Asian American students. Implications of the findings on academic achievement are discussed based on cultural perspectives. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Parental involvement of Eastern European immigrant parents in Canada: whose involvement has capital?

Abstract

This study focuses on the parental involvement among Eastern European immigrant parents of elementary school students in Canada. Interviewed parents (N?+?19) were educated in several Eastern European countries and had children attending elementary schools in the province of Ontario at the time of the study. The analysis was informed by the concepts of social and cultural capital developed by Pierre Bourdieu. It was found that Eastern European immigrant parents see their role supporting children mainly in the home by emphasizing academic achievement and extracurricular activities. Despite high levels of cultural capital there was a variation in the amount of social capital available to immigrant parents. Those who managed to recreate rich social networks in the new country communicated with teachers more successfully and were satisfied with school.     

The influence of extracurricular activities on middle school students’ science learning in China

ABSTRACT

Informal science learning has been found to have effects on students’ science learning. Through the use of secondary data from a national assessment of 7410 middle school students in China, this study explores the relationship among five types of extracurricular science activities, learning interests, academic self-concept, and science achievement. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the influence of students’ self-chosen and school-organised extracurricular activities on science achievement through mediating interests and the academic self-concept. Chi-square tests were used to determine whether there was an opportunity gap in the student’s engagement in extracurricular activities. The students’ volunteer and school-organised participation in extracurricular science activities had a positive and indirect influence on their science achievement through the mediating variables of their learning interests and academic self-concept. However, there were opportunity gaps between different groups of students in terms of school location, family background, and especially the mother’s education level. Students from urban areas with better-educated mothers or higher socioeconomic status are more likely to access diverse science-related extracurricular activities.     

Hope in the Shadows: Testing the Immigrant Optimism Hypothesis Among College Aspirational Latino Students

Scholars have proposed that immigrant optimism explains why some immigrant students outperform their United States-born peers academically. Yet, immigrant optimism has not been directly measured. This study aims to test the immigrant optimism hypothesis by operationalizing it using the Children’s Hope Scale. Using structural equation modeling, the author examined the associations between hope, immigrant generation, citizenship status, and academic outcomes among a sample of 2,369 Latino 14- to 17-year-old students. Though no difference by immigrant generation was found, undocumented students were more hopeful than their documented peers. This finding suggests that the documentation status has an indirect relative effect on academic outcomes via hope. This article reexamines the immigrant optimism as a resource that could be fostered among Latino youth, regardless of immigrant status.     

Family interdependence and academic adjustment in college: youth from immigrant and U.S.-born families

This study is an examination of family interdependence and its implications for academic adjustment among late adolescents and young adults in college (18 to 25 years). Survey data and university records were collected on 998 American youth with Asian Pacific, Latino, African/Afro-Caribbean, and European backgrounds. Results indicate that Asian Pacific Americans placed more importance on family interdependence than did European Americans. Across all panethnic groups, youth with immigrant parents placed greater emphasis on family interdependence than did youth with U.S.-born parents. The study distinguished between family interdependence attitudes and behaviors and found that they had counteracting influences on academic adjustment: Family obligation attitudes contributed to greater academic motivation among youth from immigrant as compared with U.S.-born families, but greater behavioral demands detracted from achievement.     

Editorial

Twelve focus groups were conducted with African-American and Latino youth (age 14-19) in Washington, DC to inform the development of a program to postpone sexual involvement among younger teens (age 12-14). The study's objectives were to uncover the prime motivators for early sexual involvement, examine attitudes towards pregnancy and contraception, explore peer and family influences on sexual decision-making, and identify the youth's preferred sources of information and advice on sexual matters. The data suggest that sex is a peer norm for these youth and generally begins by age 15 or before. The prime motivator for early sex among the young women appears to be social pressures from boyfriends, peers and even older siblings. In contrast, young men seem to be more motivated by physical desire, and draw a clear distinction between relationships that are exclusively sexual and those that are more serious and romantic. Early pregnancy was universally viewed as undesirable, but not always as a hindrance to one's future. While motivation to avoid pregnancy appears to be less pronounced among the African-American youth, potential barriers to contraceptive use seem prominent in both groups due to strong negative opinions about the safety and efficacy of various methods. Condoms are viewed as being appropriate for casual sexual encounters, but not for longer, more established relationships. Parents received mixed reviews as sources of information and guidance on sexual matters. Latino youth were more likely than African-Americans to view parents as being influential in their sexual decision-making, but appear less likely to rely on them for information and advice. All youth preferred clinics to schools for sex education and related services. Overall, these data signal the need for interventions that generate peer support for delaying sex and pregnancy, correct misinformation about contraceptives, and encourage frank, open discussions between youth and their parents or other caring adults.     

Ethnic and Racial Identity in Adolescence: Implications for Psychosocial,Academic, and Health Outcomes

The construction of an ethnic or racial identity is considered an important developmental milestone for youth of color. This review summarizes research on links between ethnic and racial identity (ERI) with psychosocial, academic, and health risk outcomes among ethnic minority adolescents. With notable exceptions, aspects of ERI are generally associated with adaptive outcomes. ERI are generally beneficial for African American adolescents' adjustment across all three domains, whereas the evidence is somewhat mixed for Latino and American Indian youth. There is a dearth of research for academic and health risk outcomes among Asian American and Pacific Islander adolescents. The review concludes with suggestions for future research on ERI among minority youth.     

Cross‐Ethnic Friendships and Intergroup Attitudes Among Asian American Adolescents

This study examined cross‐ethnic friendship choices and intergroup attitudes in a sample of 762 sixth‐grade Asian American students (M_age = 11.5 years) attending 1 of 19 middle schools that varied in ethnic composition. Multiple measures of friendship (quantity and quality) and intergroup attitudes (affective, cognitive, behavioral) toward White, Latino, and Black grademates were assessed. The results showed that Asian American students overnominated White students and undernominated Latino and Black students as their friends when school availability of each ethnic group was accounted for. Cross‐ethnic friendships were related to better intergroup attitudes, especially the behavioral dimension of attitudes. Cross‐ethnic friendships were least likely to change attitudes toward Blacks. Implications for future research, educational practice, and attitude intervention programs were discussed.     

Intergroup Contact Attitudes Across Peer Networks in School: Selection,Influence, and Implications for Cross-Group Friendships

This study offers new insights into the power of peer networks for shaping intergroup relations in a diverse school. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of sixth–eighth graders (N = 524; M_ageT1 = 11.87; 48% girls; 9% Asian American/Pacific Islander, 28% African American, 13% Latino, 1% Native American, 31% White, 5% Other, and 11% Multiracial) in the Midwestern United States. Students with more positive intergroup contact attitudes (ICA) were most likely to be friends with similarly minded students. Students with more positive ICA were less likely to select friends of the same race/ethnicity than those with less positive ICA. Finally, students’ ICA became more similar to their friends’ ICA over time. Results implicate school-level norms and contagion in students’ ICA.     

Complicating Culture and Difference: Situating Asian American Youth Identities in Lisa Yee’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Millicent Min,Girl Genius</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time</Emphasis>

This review situates how culture, difference, and identity are discursively constructed in Millicent Min, Girl Genius and Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, two award-winning books written by critically acclaimed Asian American author Lisa Yee. Using contextual literacy approaches, the characters, cultural motifs, and physical settings in these texts are deconstructed to explore the nuances of Asian American youth identities that intersect along the lines of class, gender, and race. This review ends by offering teaching strategies for explicating Asian American young adult literature to critically investigate the representations of Asian American counter-narratives, experiences, and youth cultures. Rachel Endo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her current research interests are comparative multicultural education, immigrant/refugee experiences in post-1965 contexts, teacher education, and transnational studies of Asian America.     

Whites Aren’t Bad,Asian Americans Are Just Better: Asymmetrical Attributions for the White–Asian American Achievement Gap

Previous research has shown that people often engage in cultural-deficit thinking when reasoning about racial/ethnic achievement gaps. However, it is unclear whether culture-blaming explanations are best thought of as group-level internal attributions, expressions of prejudice against a lower status group, or self-serving bias. In this study, White and Latino participants (N = 328) responded to items that were written to express either a White-critical or pro–Asian American perspective on the White–Asian American achievement gap. Results indicated that Latinos were more likely to engage in pro-Asian than White-critical culture blaming, whereas expressions of culture blaming did not vary across frames among White participants.     

Serving Indiana's Emergent Bilingual Immigrant (EBI) Youth: A Collective Case Study of EBI Teacher Educators

ABSTRACT

Unlike states with established immigrant populations, Indiana is a new immigration gateway state that is developing its infrastructure to address immigrant needs. Indiana's English learner (EL) population between 1999 and 2018 has grown by 550% from 9,114 to 59,255 students. Of the current 59,255 ELs in K–12 schools, 24% are immigrants. Employing a collective case study, this article examines how Indiana university faculty prepare pre- and inservice teachers to address the needs of emergent bilingual immigrant (EBI) youth. While there are institutional constraints that impact how EBI youth needs are met, faculty in EL licensure programs are addressing these needs by explicitly facilitating activities that promote respect and develop empathy through perspective sharing. Despite underdeveloped social infrastructures for EBI youth and EBI teachers in Indiana schools, implications suggest that a methodical inclusion of immigration history, perspective-taking, and critical self-reflection can facilitate teacher identity development, and foster their stances of advocacy for EBIs.     

Redefining rurality: cosmopolitanism,whiteness, and the New Latino Diaspora

ABSTRACT

In mainstream discourse, rural generally implies white, while urban signifies not-white. However, what happens when ‘rural’ communities experience demographic change? This paper examines how students from a rural, New Latino Diaspora community in a Midwestern state complicate traditional notions of rurality. Data from participant observations and ethnographic interviews indicate that students from this near-majority-Latino community do not view it as rural even though its population is under 2500. Students allude to an alternative youth subculture influenced by incoming Latino students from cities in Mexico, Guatemala, and California. They contrast this with the more stereotypical subcultures they observe in neighboring, rural, majority-white communities. Demographically transitioning, rural schools present unique contexts for students to not only encounter their own privilege, but also to learn how to leverage that privilege to further the aims of social justice. However, this will not occur without explicit and careful planning, implementation, reflection, and teacher training.     

The Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth (CLAIY): Implications for Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, we draw from the Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth study to present key issues and implications related to teachers' work with immigrant youth. This synthesis draws on data and analyses from over six years of work examining the experiences, skills, and roles of teachers of immigrant youth as they navigated the complex terrain of teaching topics of citizenship in settings when not all youth had formal citizenship rights. Major themes include: the significance of building trusting relationships with immigrant students; the importance of approaches to teachers' knowledge building and legitimization of their immigrant students; and, finally, the prevalence of teachers' concern with the safety of their undocumented students. Subsequently, we pose questions for the field of teacher education in an era when immigration, education, and citizenship are intersecting in complex ways. Amid over-generalized conceptions of teaching for diversity, this article contributes to understanding how experienced teachers who supported immigrant rights practiced their craft, creating affirming environments in schools.     

Ethnicity and image: correlates of crowd affiliation among ethnic minority youth

Because ethnicity is a basis for defining peer crowds in ethnically diverse American high schools, some may question whether crowds foster discrimination and stereotyping or affirm minority youths' positive ties to their ethnic background. Through examination of both self- and peer ratings of crowd affiliation among 2,465 high school youth aged 14–19 years, this study assesses the likelihood that African American, Asian American, Latino, and multiethnic adolescents are associated with ethnically defined crowds. Crowd affiliations are related to friendship patterns among all groups, positive features of ethnic orientation for Asian and Latino youth, but also some aspects of stereotyping and discrimination for Latinos. Results emphasize ethnic diversity in the role that peer crowds play in minority adolescents' social experiences.     

FAMILY EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMENT AND CHILD ACHIEVEMENT IN EARLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FOR AMERICAN‐BORN AND IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

As the foreign‐born population in the United States grows, the achievement of immigrant children is a pressing concern. We examined family educational involvement in early elementary school as a potential source of support for the academic success of children in immigrant families. Using a nationally representative sample, we examined rates of educational involvement at first and third grade, as well as associations between involvement and math and reading achievement at these times. With regard to rates, the domain of greatest difference between U.S.‐born White parents and both U.S.‐born and immigrant parents of color (Asian, Black, and Latino) was for school‐based involvement. In addition, several variations in the associations between involvement and child achievement were evident across immigrant and race/ethnicity groups, with children in U.S.‐born White, Black, and Asian families as well as children in Latino immigrant families most consistently demonstrating positive associations between family educational involvement and achievement.     

Disclosure to Parents About Everyday Activities Among American Adolescents From Mexican, Chinese, and European Backgrounds

Disclosure to parents and reasons for not disclosing different activities were examined in 489 Chinese, Mexican, and European American adolescents ( M  =   16.37 years, SD  =   0.77). With generational status controlled, Chinese American adolescents disclosed less to mothers about personal and multifaceted activities than European Americans and less about personal feelings than other youth, primarily because these acts were considered personal, not harmful, or because parents would not listen or understand. Disclosure regarding prudential behavior was lower among Mexican American than among European American adolescents, primarily due to concerns with parental disapproval. Multigroup path analyses indicated that greater closeness to parents is associated with more disclosure for all youth and activities; associations between family obligation and disclosure varied by domain and ethnicity.     

Immigrant students in Denmark: why are they disadvantaged in civic learning?

Abstract

Although native family students often learn more than immigrant family students in school (e.g. civics), scholars have not systematically demonstrated the mechanisms through which native family students outperform immigrant family students. The Opportunity-Propensity framework guides this study. We examine the link between students’ immigrant status and civic knowledge, with antecedent factors (socioeconomic status [SES] and language spoken at home), opportunity factors (civic learning at school, civic participation at school, and political discussion), and propensity factors (perceived open classroom climate and student-teacher relationship). Two-level path analysis of the responses to the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2016 by 6254 eighth graders in Denmark showed that the civic knowledge of native family students exceeded that of immigrant family students, mediated by their own and schoolmates’ higher family SES. Meanwhile, immigrant family students had more political discussions, which are linked to better civic knowledge.     

No Poor Child Left Unrecruited: How NCLB Codifies and Perpetuates Urban School Militarism

A critical theoretical framework is used to analyze the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation and its role in codifying and perpetuating educational practices and policies that contribute to growing campus militarism in urban schools serving low-income African American and Latino students. The author argues that NCLB § 9528 is part of a broader strategy by the Pentagon to recruit low-income urban youth for the military. The article examines how NCLB's focus on standardized tests and punitive sanctions reinforces urban schools' already narrow curriculum, leading to the diminished capacity of students to question militarism and challenge social oppression.     

The Home Environment and Asian Immigrant Children’s Early Literacy Skills

Objective. The current study examines how aspects of the home literacy environment were related to Asian immigrant children’s early literacy skills. Design. One hundred and thirty-nine Asian immigrant families and their children (69 girls; mean age = 62.93 months; standard deviation = 3.82) were recruited from kindergarten classrooms at seven public elementary schools in Honolulu, Hawai?i. Trained research assistants assessed children’s early literacy skills in English at the beginning (T1) and end of kindergarten (T2). Parents (16% fathers; 84% mothers) rated their involvement in literacy-related activities in English and in their native language at T1, and classroom teachers rated children’s interest in literacy at T2. Results. Our results showed that parents’ literacy activities in English at T1 were positively related to children’s English literacy skills at T1. Parents’ literacy activities in English and in their native language at T1 were both related to children’s interest in literacy at T2, which in turn was associated with children’s English oral language skills at T2. Conclusion. These findings highlight the importance of examining the languages immigrant parents use during literacy-related activities.