Immigrant students are far less likely to view school authority figures negatively. Forty percent of white American students gave negative responses when asked about their school principal, while only 10 percent of immigrant students did so. Immigrant responses were over 60 percent positive. Second-generation student evaluations of the principal were split 32 percent negative and 32 percent positive. The researchers noted that the students, coming from the same school, were evaluating the same principal.
Immigrant students have a strong commitment to learning English.
Many immigrants spontaneously referred to learning English as essential to their future success, the researchers noted. Instead, they posit a shift in achievement motivation as students assimilate to the majority American culture. Second-generation Latino youths may be assimilating to the American adolescent paradigm of ambivalence toward authority and school. In addition, other factors such as the stresses of minority status, discrimination, alienating schools, economic hardships, and pressures to work may all contribute to ambivalent attitudes and low achievement in school among members of this population. The U.S. informants were selected from a middle school and high school in a rapidly growing immigrant-receiving area in southern California.