The Immigrant Paradox in the Problem Behaviors of Youth in the United States: A Meta-analysis

This meta-analysis synthesizes the empirical data on problem behaviors among foreign- (G1) and U.S-born (G2+) youth and explores the effects of immigrant status on youth internalizing and externalizing problems. A random effects meta-regression with robust variance estimates summarized effect sizes for internalizing and externalizing problems across 91 studies (N = 179,315, M_age = 13.98). Results indicated that G1 youth reported significantly more internalizing problems (g = .06), and fewer externalizing problems than G2+ youth (g = −.06). Gender and sample type moderated the effects. The findings provide a first-step toward reconciling mixed support for the immigrant paradox by identifying for whom and under what conditions the immigrant experience serves as a risk or protective factor for youth.     

The effects of Florida's university admission policies on black and white entering freshmen, 1975–76

This study examined differential enrollment, survival, progress, and academic success of both black and white first-time-in-college students according to three admission categories (unrestrictive, restrictive, and special) in predominantly white universities in the Florida State University System. Data were extracted from the Board of Regents' student data course files and analyzed. White students were enrolled almost exclusively in the traditional (unrestrictive) category, while black students were almost equally enrolled in all three categories. Although the overall survival rate of white students was higher than that of black students, within each admission category, the survival rate of black students was higher than that of white students.This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1980.     

Pick a Number … Any Number?

A recent classroom revelation caused us to reconsider the adequacy of the instructions offered in our textbooks for one of our most elementary quantitative methods. Specifically, we found that many students were mystified concerning how to pick an initial objective function value when plotting an isoprofit line in order to graphically solve a linear programming problem. We observed that this seemingly insignificant issue was causing a surprising amount of wasted time, confusion, and even anxiety. Our experience indicated that students do not necessarily possess any consistent intuition for choosing an appropriate initial value. We confirmed this perception through informal experimentation. We reviewed several textbooks and found that most simply do not bother to address this issue. Therefore, we devised a simple, comprehensible method which we have taught our students to resolve or avoid this problem. Although we quickly found the method to be helpful for many students, we conducted an experiment to formally measure its effect.     

Spatializing a global education phenomenon: private tutoring and mobility theory in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

Along with the dramatic expansion of private tutoring around the world, a significant body of literature has been produced to understand this phenomenon. While many studies consider the issue of geographic location, the spatial dimension tends not to be a central focus of private tutoring studies. In contrast, the present essay applies mobility theory to research from Cambodia, where private tutoring is essential to student success. It does so in order to place private tutoring provision into a broader perspective that includes but moves beyond the economic dimensions of supply and demand and the sociological dimensions of economic, cultural, and social capital to include consideration of how private tutoring provision is constrained by a multidimensional spatial field of possibilities and how private tutoring participation is enabled by one’s position and abilities in relation to that field. The paper argues for increased attention to ‘spatial capital’ in studies of private tutoring and education generally.