Internalizing Problem Behaviors and Academic Performance, With a Focus on Language Minority Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Multicultural/Multiethnic Education: New Insights for Schooling

Abstract

Using a nationally representative database, this study examines internalizing problem behaviors and academic performance, with a focus on language minority students who are primarily immigrant students. The results show a discrepancy in teacher-rating and self-reporting of the language minority students’ internalizing problems, indicating that teachers are underestimating the internalizing problems of the language minority students. Profile analysis from third to eighth grade displays a steeper decline in academic competency/interests for language minority students than for their native peers, and it reveals a persistent achievement gap between LEP students and their peers. The results of a structural equation model indicate larger negative effects of internalizing problem behaviors on academic performance for LEP students than for their peers.

Authors

• Youngji Yoon Sung, The George Washington University

• Sharon Anderson Dannels, The George Washington University