The rise of the second generation: aspirations,motivations and academic success of Chinese immigrants’ children in Hong Kong

The second-generation immigrants’ advantage in education has been observed in many destination countries, and often explained in terms of their family values and practices embedded with certain culture and positive selection on psychological factors. However, the roles of culture and selectivity have been hardly disentangled from each other. In this article, we examine the self-selection hypothesis in the context of Hong Kong, as its unique setting enables us to largely control for the effect of cultural factors and focus on the positive selection effect. We identify four psychological traits that could contribute to immigrants’ outstanding performance, and employ mediation analysis to investigate how much of the effect of immigrant status on academic achievement is mediated through these factors. Analysis of data from the Programme for International Student Assessment in Hong Kong reveals that, having strong motivations to find a better life and high aspirations for upward mobility can largely explain Chinese immigrant children’s academic success in Hong Kong, with educational aspiration playing a particularly important role. In addition, the net academic advantage of second-generation immigrants is larger among low socio-economic status (SES) families, and low SES immigrant parents have exceptionally high expectation and great dedication to their children’s education.     

Latino/a immigrant parents’ educational aspirations for their children

This study explores Latino/a parents’ educational aspirations and parents’ perspectives on supporting educational attainment as a way to better understand the connection between high educational aspirations among Latino/a parents and hindrances to Latino/a youth educational attainment. Data from focus group interviews with immigrant Latino/a parents suggest that parents’ high educational aspirations are shaped by their lived experiences of their own educational and occupational struggles, their immigrant status, and perceptions of opportunity in the United States. In turn, parents’ perspectives on supporting educational attainment are focused on education in the home and guiding their children to overcome inevitable obstacles. This study contributes to current research by expanding sociological theory related to the status attainment process for Latino/as as well as incorporating parents’ perspectives into the broader body of knowledge about how parents support their children’s attainment.     

Examining educational inequalities in two national systems: a comparison of the North African second generation in France and the Mexican second generation in the United States

This paper aims to compare the educational outcomes of children of immigrants in France and in the United States to highlight the ethnic educational inequalities in both countries. The comparison focuses on children from two groups: North Africans in France and Mexicans in the United States. By using two longitudinal datasets, the French Educational Panel Survey and Add Health, we examine aspirations, expectations, and secondary attainment in the two contexts. We explore in particular the role of parental education on attainment. Immigrant families have high educational aspirations in both contexts. North-African families express higher aspirations than native French with similar background, while there are no significant differences between second-generation Mexicans and the majority group net of parental education. Second-generation children are disadvantaged in school in both countries; they are more likely to drop out and less likely to graduate from high school, but most of the disadvantage is related to their social background. Net of social background, the Mexican second generation does not differ from the majority group while the North African second generation is more likely to get the French high school diploma than their peers of French origins, in line with their high aspirations. However, North Africans are more likely to receive the technological baccalauréat than the general baccalauréat.     

论民族预科教育的发展与教育公平的实现

民族预科教育是党和国家为加快少数民族地区经济建设和社会发展而采取的一项特殊的教育政策措施,是我国民族高等教育的重要组成部分。经过近六十年的发展,民族预科教育为推进教育公平做出了重要的贡献。但是,在新的历史条件下,继续发挥民族预科教育推进教育公平的作用,需要各级政府的支持,教育主管部门的重视。要坚持以科学发展观为指导,使民族预科教育持续、稳定、科学地向前发展。     

Derrick Bell,CRT, and educational leadership 1995–present

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a centered conceptual framework to understand American education and reform (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Solorzano and Yosso; 2001; Decuir and Dixon 2004). Indeed, educational leadership scholars have not been far behind in recognizing the explicative and powerful role of CRT studies in their work (Lopez 2003; Parker and Villalpando 2007). As we acknowledge the role of CRT, we cannot do so without reflecting on the life and works of the quintessential Critical Legal Studies (CLS) scholar Derrick Bell (1930–2011). In this article, we use Bell’s collective works to analyze current trends and research in educational leadership. We bring his works into conversation not only with conceptions of instructional and distributed leadership, but with the palpability that CRT has on the current state of educational reform. More specifically, we use Bell’s theories of interest convergence and conversations around ‘racial remedies’ to understand two recent trends in educational leadership: discourses of social justice leadership and the move toward data-driven leadership behaviors. We ask questions like: what has been the impact of research discourses social justice on the education of African American and Latino urban youth? And, how has the current social structures benefited from such discourses? We conclude with recommendations for educational leadership researchers and professors, and encourage them to consider race as an integral part of their works.     

The transnational career aspirations of France’s high-achieving second-generation Maghrebi migrants

This article examines the mobility aspirations of France’s high-achieving second-generation Maghrebi migrants. Drawing on in-depth, open-ended interviews with students and graduates of grandes ecoles, prestigious higher education institutions, it delves into the career trajectories they intend to embark on beyond the French borders. Three distinct mobility projects are envisioned by the respondents. While some contemplate intensifying their ties with their parents’ homeland, others envisage moving to a ‘third space’ in which they have commonly lived during their studies and established strong connections. Another group of informants seek to set up hyper-mobile careers spanning multiple global-cities. The article suggests that the threat of discrimination and the desire to defy the nation-based assimilationist rhetoric frame the desire to set up transnational pathways. It further disentangles the role of educational resources, social capital in the places envisioned, as well as gender processes in informing these distinctive ways of engaging with the transnational among second-generation migrants. Lastly, the article examines the specific trajectories of respondents who intend to remain in France.     

Occupational aspirations and ethnic school segregation: social contagion effects among native German and immigrant youths

In this study, I broaden the perspective on young immigrants’ aspirations by looking at their social embeddedness in the host society in terms of their institutionally predefined ties to school peers. In particular, I investigate the relationship between the aspirations of immigrant and native youths with special regard to the social mechanisms that may underlie peer influences. My analyses are based on multilevel data on ninth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study. The results show that a high ratio of immigrants in schools positively influences the aspirations of both immigrant and native German youths by way of school climate. However, the same context has different effects on different groups of origin. For those of Turkish descent, ‘ethnic schools’ are of twofold significance: first, the aspiration gap between Turks and native Germans decreases with increasing segregation, an effect that may be attributable to less perceived discriminatory experiences in school. Second, Turkish young people's stronger adaptation to the climate in ethnically segregated schools reinforces the protective effect of ethnic segregation and, additionally, lowers the aspirations of these youths. That is, immigrants’ stronger orientation towards their in-group seems to contribute to a buffer against discrimination.     

Educational optimism in China: migrant selectivity or migration experience?

This paper addresses the so-called paradox of immigrant optimism, which accounts for the higher educational expectations of immigrant–origin children, compared to non-immigrants in destination countries, conditional on social background and school attainment. We are interested in clarifying whether the mechanisms behind this optimism are related to migrant selectivity or family migration experience. To do this we use data from the China Education Panel Study, a representative survey of junior high school students in China. We use a two-pronged analytical strategy. Firstly, we look at whether having experienced family migration (within China) is associated with higher educational expectations. Secondly, we take a step back and explore whether adolescents who wish to migrate themselves when they grow up report higher educational expectations. Our findings confirm that adolescents who wish to migrate themselves when adults are already more optimistic even before any intentions of moving come to fruition. This we take as an indirect proof of selectivity. In contrast, we find no effect of family migration on expectations.     

An exploratory study of the academic engagement and beliefs of Latino male high school students

This study provides insights to the school experiences of Latino male students through an exploration of how they describe their beliefs about education and how they engage in school for academic success. Data is drawn from interviews and surveys conducted with Latino males that participated in New York University’s Black and Latino Male School Intervention Study (BLMSIS) between 2006 and 2011. The findings revealed a dynamic interplay among how the students ‘do school’ (behavioral engagement), their intellectual involvement (cognitive engagement), and their strong beliefs in the education for social mobility shaped schooling for them. This focus on the experiences of young Latino males seeks to assist researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike design and implement programs and policies to promote their educational progress and success.     

Race to College: The “Reverse Gap”

This article uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to establish that once socioeconomic status is considered, black Americans go to college at higher rates than whites. The outcome replicates numerous other studies that use different datasets and varying methods. Combining statistics and literature, I propose that blacks’ superior educational investment is an “empirical generalization.” This leads to discussions of the black-white “gap” in education and the “attitude-achievement paradox.” The latter claims that black people have high educational aspirations but fail to act on those attitudes. But when considering the choice to invest in education, the “attitude-achievement paradox” evaporates. Black Americans have high educational aspirations and, when there are enough resources, act on those aspirations by going to college at higher rates than whites. The paper concludes with a theoretical explanation of why black people, more than whites, efficiently translate resources into educational investment. I use literature to show that in the United States, the bearers of light skin are afforded numerous informal opportunities that allow them to get higher returns out of a given level of human capital. Non-whites, on the other hand, have fewer informal opportunities, and they therefore deploy “supra-normal efforts” of skill acquisition as a strategy to overcome their informal disadvantage.     

How the host nation's boundary drawing affects immigrants’ belonging

Across Western democracies, the place for newcomers in the host society is debated, involving often a questioning of immigrants’ belonging to their new nation. This article argues that immigrants’ feeling of host national belonging depends on how the host nation imagines its community and its concomitant boundaries. Utilising survey and country level data in multilevel regressions, immigrants’ belonging is found to vary significantly across the 19 countries included. A central contribution is the finding that citizenship policies do not explain this cross-national variation. Instead, what matters is the informal boundary drawing produced in the majority population's conception of what is important for being part of the national ‘us'. Thus, immigrants’ belonging is significantly greater when the majority population prioritises attainable criteria of national membership. In addition, these priorities are shown to have deep historical roots as immigrants’ belonging is greater in settler countries and in nations which democratised early. By showing that national imageries have consequences for a country's welcoming capacities, and by showing that these welcoming capacities are historically path dependent, the study contributes to the debate within nationalism studies about national identity's causal significance.     

The paradox of integration: why do higher educated new immigrants perceive more discrimination in Germany?

This article analyses the relation between immigrants’ educational attainment and their perceived discrimination. Previous studies in the Netherlands have found that ethnic discrimination is a particularly salient concern among higher educated immigrants, also referred to as the paradox of integration. By using data from the SCIP-project (‘Causes and Consequences of Early Socio-Cultural Integration Processes among New Immigrants in Europe’), I empirically examine, firstly, whether this counterintuitive finding applies to the group of recently arrived Polish and Turkish immigrants in Germany. Secondly, based on three theoretical perspectives, and taking the opportunity structure, immigrants’ awareness, and their relative deprivation into account, I am concerned with the explanation of the integration paradox. Bivariate results confirm the existence of the integration paradox for recent immigrants in Germany. The findings of mediation analysis and effect decomposition indicate that all three theoretical approaches contribute to the explanation; however, the positive relation between educational attainment and perceived discrimination requires slightly different explanations for Poles and Turks. The results further illustrate that it would be misleading to conclude that higher educated immigrants are automatically protected against discriminatory acts.     

National day participation among immigrants in the Netherlands: the role of familiarity with commemorating and celebrating

This study explores to what extent varying levels of host national day participation among immigrants can be explained by previous participatory experiences related to their country of origin, in addition to socio-cultural factors related to the current country of residence. Utilising data from a large online immigrant panel, we concentrate on two prominent national days in the Netherlands: Remembrance Day and Liberation Day. On these days, Dutch society commemorates victims of the Second World War and celebrates freedom, respectively. Our results indicate that Dutch national day participation among immigrants is determined largely by previous familiarity with commemorating and celebrating through participation in holidays specific to immigrants’ country of origin. These findings highlight the need to place more emphasis on the role of previous participatory experiences when examining immigrants’ current patterns of participation in the host society.     

Fabulachia: urban,black female experiences and higher education in Appalachia

Abstract

This article draws on focus group conversations with black female college students attending a small, liberal arts institution in Kentucky. Based primarily on group interviews and discussions, as well as observations and analysis – a theoretical domain (referred to throughout the article as ‘Fabulachia’) emerged as a site-specific outcome of events and ideas regarding race, gender and identity experienced by the research participants. Specifically, ‘Fabulachia’ functions as a theoretical hybrid space in which urban (e.g. ‘ghetto fabulous’) black college student-voices find a sense of empowerment as they construct their own narratives of leaving ‘the hood’ to attend college in rural Appalachia. This project revises and updates previous research on race and rural identity/ies in order to situate the urban black female experience into an Appalachian context. Drawing on hip hop feminism and urban education based theoretical paradigms, the Fabulachia study seeks to give voice to black females in contemporary Appalachia, with attention to their self-proclaimed ‘ghetto fabulous’ identities honed in and through their urban upbringings. The unique experiences of (Fabulachian) black females are an important and largely absent part of larger conversations of the growing body of Urban education research that seeks to situate the black student/black youth and schooling experience in the US. In the Fabulachia study, a group of black female students shared personal narratives (part-oral history and part direct response) to prompts and queries about the role of hip hop culture, race and gender identity in their lives. They also discussed and debated what it means to be a black female in contemporary (often racist) Appalachia, and about how their families and urban surroundings influenced their processes of being and becoming in the context of higher educational achievement.     

Immigrant life satisfaction in Europe: the role of social and symbolic boundaries

The cross-national investigation of immigrant subjective well-being remains an understudied field, especially with regard to the link between institutional settings and individual outcomes. We approach this gap by investigating the role of policies regulating immigrant integration for life satisfaction. Immigrants’ status and life chances depend on the inclusiveness of integration policies in forms of rights given to immigrants in the receiving country. These policies differentiate immigrants from natives: exclusionary integration policies understood as social boundaries should result in lower levels of well-being. We also consider an alternative policy type (i.e. multicultural policies) as well as symbolic boundaries (i.e. natives’ attitudes towards immigrants). We distinguish between national citizens, EU citizens and third-country nationals (TCNs). Results based on up to five rounds of data from the European Social Survey indicate that in terms of life satisfaction only TCNs profit from inclusive integration policies. Furthermore, while political multiculturalism does not play a role, we find that EU migrants appear more susceptible to the negative impact of natives’ anti-immigrant attitudes. Policy-making is more important for TCNs, while a migrant-friendly opinion climate is more important for EU migrants. These findings are robust to controlling for unobserved time-constant country heterogeneity via country fixed effects.     

Loneliness,immigration background and self-identified ethnicity: a nationally representative study of adolescents in Denmark

Migration is an increasing worldwide phenomenon that creates multicultural societies with a growing number of adolescents who have experienced a process of migration or who have an ethnic background other than that of the majority. Migration may lead to loss of social relations and create challenges related to acculturation in the new country. These experiences may induce feelings of loneliness. Research on ethnic and migrant disparities in loneliness among adolescents is limited and inconsistent. The purpose of this study was to examine how adolescents’ immigration background and self-identified ethnicity are associated, independently and combined, with loneliness. We used data from the Danish 2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey which included a representative sample of 3083 13- and 15-year-olds. The results suggest that immigrants but not descendants of immigrants have an increased risk of loneliness compared to adolescents with a Danish origin. The results also suggest that adolescents’ self-identified ethnicity plays an essential role but differently for immigrants and descendants: identifying with the Danish majority was protective against loneliness among immigrants, whereas identifying with an ethnic minority group was protective against loneliness among descendants.     

Educational attainment of childhood immigrants: how does immigration type matter?

This study examines the extent to which the way immigrant parents are selected and admitted matters in the educational attainment of childhood immigrants above and beyond the effects of conventional factors of immigrant vulnerability and resources. Using Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey linked with immigrant landing records, this study finds large differences by admission class in university completion rates for childhood immigrants. Children of skilled workers and business immigrants had much higher university completion rates than children of refugees who, in turn, had higher rates than children of live-in caregivers and in the family class. Advantages or disadvantages associated with the admission class of immigrant parents are passed on to their children, resulting partly from group differences in the education and language ability of parents, and partly from the unique pre- and post-migration circumstances experienced by each immigrant class.     

Beyond conventional wisdom: community cultural wealth and the college knowledge of African American youth in the United States

African American youth are generally as likely as their peers from other racial and ethnic groups to aspire to earn a college degree; yet, in spite of their aspirations these students remain under-represented in college enrollment and graduation. Part of the disparity between these students’ aspirations and the realization of their goals may lie in their minimal college knowledge and nominal participation in postsecondary preparatory activities that have frequently been caused by the historic, and ongoing, systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans. During interviews, college students reflected on how similarly-aged family members, peers, co-workers, and parishioners assisted with various aspects of college preparation and enrollment. The community cultural wealth framework helps us understand the reason for, and importance of, this ‘lateral mentorship’ in the fulfillment of these students’ college aspirations. Consequently, educators and educational systems are challenged to be more responsive to the college preparatory needs of traditionally under-represented college-going populations.     

Terror, Resource Gains and Exclusionist Political Attitudes among New Immigrants and Veteran Israelis

This study analyses the antecedents of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel among Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union in comparison to Old Jewish Israelis (OJI). A large-scale study of exclusionist political attitudes was conducted in the face of ongoing terrorism in Israel through telephone surveys carried out in September 2003 with 641 OJI and 131 immigrants. The main goal of the survey was to estimate the influence of perceived loss and gain of resources-as a consequence of terror-on attitudes towards Palestinian Israelis, while controlling for other relevant predictors of exclusionism-i.e. authoritarianism or threat perception. Findings obtained via interaction analyses and structural equation modelling show that a) immigrants display higher levels of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel than OJI; b) loss of resources, authoritarianism, and hawkish (rightist) worldviews predict exclusionist political attitudes among both immigrants and non-immigrants; c) failure to undergo post-traumatic growth (resource gain) in response to terrorism (e.g. finding meaning in life, becoming closer to others) is a significant predictor of exclusionist political attitudes only among immigrants.     

广西水库移民与生态移民比较研究

广西是我国的移民大省(区)。生态移民和水库移民是广西两种最主要的移民类型。其二者之间既有区别,又存在诸多共同点。正确地分析和认识这种区别与共同点,进而揭示其相互之间的联系,对于今后进一步做好广西的移民工作,具有一定的现实意义。