Differentials in the Academic Achievement of Children of Immigrants

One in five school-age children in the United States is the immediate descendant of an immigrant. This paper considers the performance of these children in the United States’ middle schools and high schools. These children of immigrants are a diverse group amongst themselves, hailing in significant numbers from a large variety of countries, and a variety of social and economic backgrounds. Using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, this paper establishes that there is significant variation in the academic outcomes of these children across nationality groups. It then embarks on a consideration of whence these differences arise: why do some nationality groups perform better than others? In partial answer to this question, this paper shows that these differential academic outcomes are not attributable to the observed variation in social and economic background of the children. In light of this finding, this paper briefly suggests further avenues of research. I am grateful to Professor John Pencavel for his guidance and encouragement throughout this project. It has been a great privilege to have him as an advisor and teacher—I have learned much from him. I am also grateful to Gary and Jane Burk for the grant (in the form of Stanford tuition) that made this research possible, and bemoan the planned discontinuance of their funding on June 18, 2006, (though their emotional support, Gary assures me, will continue). PREFACE In the spring of 2006 a series of massive protests on behalf of “immigrant rights” temporarily stalled sectors of the economy, made headlines, and directed the nation's attention to immigration policy. The protests, staged on behalf of unauthorized immigrant workers in the U.S., were presumably designed to demonstrate the significance of immigrants—illegal immigrants, in particular—to the nation's economy as both laborers and consumers, and encourage the adoption of an immigrant-sympathetic policy. Successful or not in that effort, the protests were effective in eliciting vocal commentary, from both supporters and critics, espousing demands ranging from a massive deportation to a massive naturalization. While the effects on immigration policy of the heated public debate over what to do about immigration have yet to be determined, the events of the spring of 2006 at least made the following clear to any thoughtful listener to the news: immigration is complicated. In 1994, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve, a controversial book that, amongst other things, argued that intelligence varies across ethnicity. Of course they were not the first to suggest such a proposition—that some races are genetically predisposed to be “smarter” than others. However they worked in a time where such a proposition was more liable to ignite controversy then others, for a variety of reasons. Herrnstein and Murray’s claims in The Bell Curve provoked a spirited debate. If nothing else, this episode demonstrates that explaining educational achievement is a tricky issue. This paper on the educational differentials over nationality groups of children of immigrants steps into both of these issues. It revolves around the simple observation that the first-generation children of immigrants to the United States perform remarkably differently from one another in middle and high school. The children of immigrants are diverse in a variety of