The Role of Parents and Peers in Newcomer Immigrant Youth’s Academic Engagement

• In Event: 2-132 - The Content, Context, and Consequences of Parental Socialization of Ethnic Minority Youth

Integrative Statement

Parents and peers may play different roles in facilitating the development of positive academic dispositions and behaviors (e.g., behavioral and emotional engagement) in newcomer immigrant youth. When foreign-born youth are still adjusting to a new academic culture, support from parents and peers may mitigate their steeper declines in engagement (Barban & White, 2011) and higher rates of school dropout (McFarland et al., 2018) compared to non-immigrants and second-generation youth. Moreover, given the lower levels of academic engagement for boys (Engels et al., 2016), more research with an intersectional focus is needed to identify potential mechanisms to promote resilience in the most vulnerable. This study examined (1) the relative influence of two dimensions of parent involvement and peer relationships on change in youths behavioral and emotional engagement over time, and (2) whether the association between peer relationships and engagement varied by gender.

Data come from Years 3-5 from the five-year, Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation study (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008). Youth (N = 354, 55% female, 10 to 17 years old, M = 13.49, SD = 1.72) were from Mexico (22%), China (22%), the Dominican Republic (20%), Central America (18%), and Haiti (18%). At Year 3, participants had been in the US for no more than 1/3 of their lives (M = 3.80 years, SD = 1.39). Youth reported parent home involvement (e.g., talk with parents about day at school; α = .70) and academic socialization (e.g., importance of getting good grades to parents; α = .76); peer academic support (e.g., friends explain things I don’t understand in class; α = .68), and academic socialization (e.g., importance of getting good grades to their friends; α = .85); behavioral engagement (e.g., turn in homework on time; α = .74 - .76), and emotional engagement (e.g., enjoy learning new things; α = .57 - .68). Engagement measures were invariant over time.

Data were analyzed using latent growth curve analysis in Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) using full information maximum likelihood. All models showed good fit (Table 1). Initial levels of behavioral and emotional engagement were low to moderately high with no significant change in the linear slopes over time but with significant variance around the slopes (and intercepts). Higher initial levels of parent home involvement and parent academic socialization were associated with higher initial levels of behavioral and emotional engagement, and higher initial levels of peer academic socialization were associated with higher initial levels of emotional engagement (Model 1). Finally, there was a significant interaction between gender and peer academic socialization on emotional engagement (Model 2).

Findings suggest that parents who engage in conversations with their children about school and convey the value of academic success may facilitate greater behavioral and emotional classroom engagement over and above the academic support and socialization offered by peers. Nevertheless, the role peers play may be restricted to promoting emotional engagement in school over time, with its effects varying by gender.

Authors

• Naila Smith, Dickinson College
  Presenting Author

• Joshua L. Brown, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carola Suárez-Orozco, The University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author