Growth in Latinx Student Achievement in New and Traditional Immigrant Destinations

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 16. Im/migration, Language and School Compositional Change

Abstract

Latinx students are a growing number of all public school students and are dispersing into new regions of the country. In this paper, we use national data from the Stanford Education Data Archive and estimates of district change to compare the learning rates of Latinx in new and traditional destinations. We find no aggregate differences in growth rates between new and traditional destinations in math or ELA, but do find that Latinx learn math more slowly as in districts where the percent of Latinx in the district grew more rapidly between 1990 and 2008. Since the Latinx population is expected to continue growing, this finding portends continued low achievement in math for many Latinx. Growth in ELA is positively associated with attending districts with relatively many Latinx, many foreign born Latinx, and being less integrated with whites within the district. These findings are consistent with predictions from theories of immigrant optimism, enclaves, and group threat but not predictions from models of peer effects.

Authors

• Pat Rubio Goldsmith, Texas A&M University

• Kelsey Taylor Broadfield, Bennington College