The “Immigrant Vulnerability” in Education: Parental Legal Status and Children's Educational Attitudes and Performance

• In Event: 3581 - Section on Sociology of Children and Youth Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Organizations, Children and Youth

Abstract

Previous research on immigrant assimilation and educational attainment has not considered the impact of parental legal status. Using the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study, this study examines 1) how children's academic achievement vary by immigrant status—by children’s place of birth, parental nativity, and parental legal status; 2) how children’s educational attitudes and behaviors explain the variance of the academic achievement; and, 3) whether the immigrant status effects vary by age. Results indicated that parental documentation does not make a variance to the within- and between-generation differences in cognitive scores. The 1.5 generation children with unauthorized parents academically perform similar to those with documented parents, and to the second-generation children counterparts. However, the second generation children with unauthorized parents do significantly worse over the age, compared with those with documented parents and native white peers. Those citizen children with unauthorized parents may be more vulnerable than previously expected.

Author

• Jeehye Kang, Old Dominion University