The Immigrant Paradox and American Youth: Are Certain Adolescents Able to Reap Greater Benefits?

• In Event: 1-076 - Unpacking Heterogeneity in the Immigrant Paradox: Evidence from Canada, the US, and Greece

Integrative Statement

U.S. demographics are rapidly shifting. Current estimates suggest that one in four U.S. children live in immigrant families (ACS, 2016). Although immigrant families can face a host of challenges (e.g., language barriers, lower SES), the immigrant paradox suggests that children in these families often exhibit more optimal development than their peers from native-born families, particularly during adolescence (Garcia Coll & Marks, 2012). What is less clear is how potential heterogeneity of experiences/personal characteristics influence the extent to which adolescents benefit from their families’ immigration status (Marks et al., 2014). Reflecting this limitation, we investigate whether the links between family immigration status and adolescents’ academics and socioemotional well-being vary as a function of contextual and individual factors—fears around deportation, language-related discrimination, ethnic identity, and SES.

Data for the current study were drawn from an ongoing longitudinal study of adolescents in the Southern U.S. The 9th grade students were diverse racially/ethnically (33% Latinx, 15% Asian American, 8% African American, 38% White, 6% biracial/other) and socioeconomically. Approximately 45% of students were from immigrant families. Data on adolescents’ family immigration status, contextual factors (described above), and well-being (i.e., academic efficacy and effort, extracurricular participation, educational expectations, socioemotional well-being) were drawn from self-report surveys.

Results of the general linear models appear in Table 1 and Figure 1. When considering fear of deportation as a moderator, for both science effort and extracurricular participation, evidence of the immigrant paradox was only apparent for those who did not report fears of family/friends being deported. In fact, adolescents in immigrant families who expressed deportation fears had the lowest reports of efforts in science and extracurricular participation. When considering ethnic identity as a moderator, evidence of the immigrant paradox in relation to extracurricular involvement was only apparent for those youth who reported high levels of ethnic identity; adolescents in immigrant families who expressed low levels of ethnic identity had the lowest reports of extracurricular participation.

When considering language-related discrimination as a moderator, neither science efficacy nor science effort differed for adolescents in immigrant versus native-born households when adolescents reported experiencing no language-related discrimination. In contrast, adolescents in immigrant families were actually at a particular disadvantage in terms of science efficacy and effort when they reported discriminatory experiences. Finally, SES moderation presented a more complex set of findings. For science efficacy, evidence of the immigrant paradox was only apparent for those youth from high SES families. In fact, adolescents in immigrant families who were from middle class or low-SES families had the lowest reports of science efficacy. In contrast, for mathematics effort, the immigrant paradox was apparent only for youth in middle class families. In high- and low-SES families, adolescents from immigrant families reported lower math effort than their peers in native-born families. These findings highlight the nuances of the immigrant paradox and the importance of addressing the heterogeneity in youth from immigrant families. Planned analyses will more rigorously test the relations under study by integrating covariates, including socioemotional well-being indicators, and using an SEM approach.

Authors

• Aprile D. Benner, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Farin Bakhtiari, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author