Ethnoracial patterns of schooling and work among adolescents: Implications for Mexican immigrant incorporation

This paper investigates Mexican immigrant incorporation by examining labor force participation and schooling among Mexican-origin adolescents in the United States. Theoretical perspectives on immigrant incorporation, labor migration-related cultural repertoires and adolescent development considered together imply that studying ethnoracial differences in schooling among adolescents without taking work into account can yield mis-leading pictures of Mexican-origin non-high school completion patterns, thus hampering the assessment of incorporation theories. To avoid this, we analyze Mexican-origin generational differences in the relationship between schooling and workforce participation among adolescents compared to non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Using micro-data from the 2000 US Census, we find that Mexican immigrant boys who are not enrolled in school are more likely to be in the workforce, and conversely that those who are enrolled in school are much less likely to be in the workforce, compared to whites and blacks. Such relative differences in school/work specialization, as predicted, diminish across Mexican-origin generations. Moreover, based on supplementary analyses, we find similar patterns for a cohort of young adults who failed to complete high school during the 1990s. Overall, the results are consistent with the idea that cultural orientations growing out of the nature and experience of Mexican labor migration are important for assessing school enrollment patterns among Mexican-origin youth and for gauging their implications for educational policy and immigrant-group incorporation.     

Solamente Mexicanos? Patterns and sources of Hispanic diversity in U.S. metropolitan areas

Rapid Hispanic growth has been a major source of increasing ethnoracial diversity in the United States. However, diversity within the Hispanic population is frequently obscured by the tendency to lump all Latinos together. Our study examines Hispanic diversity at the local level, drawing insights from the Mexican dominance, Caribbean-centric settlement, spatial assimilation, and economic opportunity perspectives. Measures of the magnitude and structure of Hispanic origin-group diversity during the 1990–2010 period are constructed for 363 metropolitan areas based on each area's shares of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and ‘others’. We find that diversity magnitude varies markedly across metropolitan Hispanic populations. Although the most diverse metro areas lack a majority origin group, Mexicans often constitute a majority or plurality of local Latinos. Diversity levels and structures have remained relatively stable over time. In both 1990 and 2010, metro areas with more diverse, multigroup Hispanic communities are distinguished by their larger size, smaller proportion of Hispanics, location farther from Mexico and closer to the Caribbean, and greater odds of being a military hub. They also exhibit higher rates of housing construction and lower rates of agricultural and manufacturing employment. We use weighted data to show that Dominican metro dwellers experience the highest Hispanic diversity while the average Mexican lives in an area where four-fifths of all Latinos are Mexican. Overall, our results provide primary support for the Mexican dominance perspective but some support for the other three perspectives as well.     

Do You Like Me as Much as I Like You? Friendship Reciprocity and Its Effects on School Outcomes among Adolescents

Social scientists have long suspected that friendship dyads are not always reciprocated and those that are reciprocated are likely to be more intimate. Close friendships may provide youth with an environment conducive to healthy development and educational outcomes. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative data set of youth, we examine how attributes of respondents and their friends affect the odds of reciprocity between adolescents. Asian Americans and females are the most likely to have reciprocated friendships. Interracial friendships are less likely to be reciprocated than intraracial friendships. Further, adolescents with reciprocated friendships report higher levels of school belonging. Finally, reciprocity and school belonging both exert independent effects on academic performance. Friendship reciprocity is an important indicator of social support above and beyond the numbers of friends reported by youth.     

The impact of suspension on participation in school-based extracurricular activities and out-of-school community service

In recent decades, school suspensions have increased dramatically in the United States. To date, researchers have assessed the consequences of suspensions on adolescents' academic achievement, self-esteem, and psychological well-being. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between school discipline and youths' engagement on in-school and out-of-school activities. In this study, we investigate the relationship between suspension (i.e., in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, or both) and youth participation in extracurricular activities, both in-school and outside of school, using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002. Results suggest students who are suspended are less likely to participate in school clubs (e.g., student government, yearbook, band/choir), and are also less likely to participate in volunteer work/community service. This suggests the impact of school discipline extends beyond the schooling context. These results provide insight into how suspensions may function as a ‘pushout’ mechanism for youth by compromising their attachment to school.     

No place like home? Familism and Latino/a–white differences in college pathways

Recent research has argued that familism, defined as a cultural preference for privileging family goals over individual goals, may discourage some Latino/a youth from applying to and attending college, particularly if they must leave home (Desmond and López Turley, 2009). Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, we find that Latino/a students and parents indeed have stronger preferences than white students and parents for living at home during college. For students, most differences in preferences for proximate colleges are explained by socioeconomic status, academic achievement and high school/regional differences. Moreover, controlling for socioeconomic background and prior achievement explains most racial/ethnic gaps in college application and attendance among high school graduates, suggesting that familism per se is not a significant deterrent to college enrollment above and beyond these more primary factors. However, results indicate generational differences; cultural factors may contribute to racial/ethnic gaps in parental preferences for children to remain at home.     

Undocumented migration and the residential segregation of Mexicans in new destinations

This study uses data from the 2000 Census and 2005–2009 American Community Survey to examine the impact of undocumented Mexican migration to new destinations on residential segregation between Mexican immigrants and native-born whites and native-born blacks. We find that Mexican-white and Mexican-black segregation is higher in new Mexican gateways than in established areas and that, for Mexican-immigrant segregation from whites, this heightened level of residential segregation in new destinations can be explained by the high presence of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living there which tends to bolster segregation between the two groups. By contrast, Mexican-immigrant segregation from native-born blacks tends to be lower in areas with larger undocumented populations, a pattern that is especially true in new destinations. Neither of these opposing effects of legal status on Mexican-immigrant segregation can be explained by compositional differences in assimilation (English ability and earnings) between documented and undocumented immigrants nor by structural variation in metropolitan areas, suggesting a unique association between legal status and segregation.     

Converting education into earnings: The patterns among Hispanic origin men

We evaluate the functional form of the relationship between education and earnings for Hispanic and non-Hispanic white men to determine whether the payoffs to education vary with level of schooling, and whether credential effects can be discerned. Results indicate that for all groups the usual linear specification, while offering the advantage of parsimony, fits the data less well than more complex models. The levels model best predicts the earnings of Puerto Rican and other Spanish origin workers, while the credential model is best suited for Mexican, Central/South American, and non-Hispanic white men. Credential effects accrue to all groups, except the other Spanish, but Central/South Americans only receive added income bonuses for the completion of a college degree, whereas Mexican, Puerto Rican, and non-Hispanic white men also receive a bonus for a high school diploma.     

新形势下的教育动机观研究

教师经常会面对一些没有学习兴趣、缺乏学习动机的学生,以及由于各种原因,虽有动机但又无法实行从而产生挫败感甚至出现放弃某学科、逃课、甚至退学念头的学生。如何排除学生的忧虑并激发他们的学习斗志,是广大教师直接面临的一个普遍问题。探讨如何使学生走出失败无奈阴影的策略是教师义不容辞的责任。     

Dropping out of high school: Effects of close and distant friendships

Prior research highlights the role of friends in influencing whether a student completes high school. Students who drop out tend to have fewer friends, as well as friends who are less oriented toward school success. We distinguish between close and distant friendships by developing a theoretical framework which predicts close and distant friends likely have distinct effects on dropping out. Close friendships provide valuable emotional support, and forging numerous close friendships at school should decrease one’s risk of dropping out. In contrast, the characteristics of distant friends help shape students’ social identities and beliefs about “what’s normative.” Our analyses of the Add Health data set confirm our expectations. Students with more close friendships are less likely to drop out, but close friends’ characteristics are unrelated to dropping out. Distant relationships (as measured by affect and regularity of interaction) with friends who have a high risk of dropping out significantly increase a student’s own risk of dropping out.     

Immigrant generation, selective acculturation, and alcohol use among Latina/o adolescents

Do alcohol use and binge drinking among Latina/o adolescents increase in the second and third generation? This study explores generational differences in alcohol use behaviors for three Latina/o ethnic groups. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 1504 Latina/o adolescents in secondary school, we found that the factors associated with alcohol use behaviors differed across the Latina/o groups. For Mexican and Cuban adolescents, but not Puerto Ricans, immigrant generation was associated with alcohol use. For Mexican, but not Cuban adolescents, acculturation mediated the effect of immigrant generation on alcohol use behaviors. Although generally social capital and a co-ethnic presence were protective factors against alcohol use behaviors, we found that some forms of social capital were actually risk factors for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Our results provide support for segmented-assimilation theory.     

The social context of assimilation: testing implications of segmented assimilation theory

Segmented assimilation theory has been a popular explanation for the diverse experiences of assimilation among new waves of immigrants and their children. While the theory has been interpreted in many different ways, we emphasize its implications for the important role of social context: both processes and consequences of assimilation should depend on the local social context in which immigrants are embedded. We derive empirically falsifiable hypotheses about the interaction effects between social context and assimilation on immigrant children’s well-being. We then test the hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Our empirical analyses yield two main findings. First, for immigrant adolescents living in non-poverty neighborhoods, we find assimilation to be positively associated with educational achievement and psychological well-being but also positively associated with at-risk behavior. Second, there is little empirical evidence supporting our hypotheses derived from segmented assimilation theory. We interpret these results to mean that future research would be more fruitful focusing on differential processes of assimilation rather than differential consequences of assimilation.     

Cultural capital,teacher bias,and educational success: New evidence from monozygotic twins

In this paper we use new data on Danish monozygotic (MZ) twins to analyze the effect of cultural capital on educational success. We report three main findings. First, cultural capital has a positive direct effect on the likelihood of completing the college-bound track in Danish secondary education. Second, cultural capital leads teachers to form upwardly biased perceptions of children's academic ability, but only when their exposure to children's cultural capital is brief (as in oral and written exams) rather than long (as in grades awarded at the end of the school year). Third, we find that the positive direct effect of cultural capital on educational success is higher for children from high-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds than for those from low-SES backgrounds. This result suggests that high-SES children are more likely to be in schooling contexts that enable them to convert cultural capital into educational success.     

Housing and neighborhood quality among undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants

Extensive research has documented the challenges that undocumented immigrants face in navigating U.S. labor markets, but relatively little has explored the impact of legal status on residential outcomes despite their widespread repercussions for social well-being. Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to impute documentation status among Mexican and Central American immigrants, we examine group differences in residential outcomes, including homeownership, housing crowding, satisfaction with neighborhood and housing quality, problems with neighborhood crime/safety, governmental services, and environmental issues, and deficiencies with housing units. Results from our analysis indicate that undocumented householders are far less likely to be homeowners than documented migrants, and also live in more crowded homes, report greater structural deficiencies with their dwellings, and express greater concern about the quality of public services and environmental conditions in their neighborhoods. In comparison to native whites, undocumented migrants’ residential circumstances are lacking, but their residential outcomes tend to be superior to those of native-born blacks. Overall, our results highlight the pervasive impact of legal status on stratifying Mexicans’ and Central Americans’ prospects for successful incorporation, but also underscore the rigidity of the black/nonblack divide structuring American residential contexts.     

School choice & social stratification: How intra-district transfers shift the racial/ethnic and economic composition of schools

The liberation model hypothesizes that school choice liberates students from underperforming schools by giving them the opportunity to seek academically superior schooling options outside of their neighborhoods. Subsequently, school choice is hypothesized to diminish stratification in schools. Data from one urban school district is analyzed to test these hypotheses. We specifically examine which factors influence the propensity for parents to participate in choice, and how school choice changes the racial/ethnic and economic composition of schools. We further examine how school choice influences similar changes within distinct sociogeographic areas within the district. We find that families who are zoned to more racially/ethnically and economically diverse schools in sociogeographically diverse areas are more likely to participate in school choice. We also find that intra-district choice is associated with a slight increase in social stratification throughout the district, with more substantial stratification occurring in the most demographically diverse areas and schools.     

White,black, and Hispanic male youths in central city labor markets

Data from the 1% 1980 Census Public Use Sample are used to estimate the determinants of employment and wage rates for out-of-school male youths residing in central cities. Separate calculations are undertaken for white, black, and Hispanic youths. Independent variables include individual, family background, and local labor market characteristics. Three basic findings emerge. First, racial inequality persists, with whites showing the best outcomes, Hispanics second, and blacks at the bottom. Second, underlying these unequal outcomes are rather different patterns of effect for personal and family characteristics by race. Note-worthy here is the Hispanic pattern of low reliance on schooling and high reliance on family. Finally, net of these effects, intercity differences are interesting and important. These include negative effects of city size and race composition effects which show white gains where blacks and Hispanics are a larger share of the population.     

Unemployment among Mexican immigrant men in the United States, 2003–2012

Based on their socioeconomic characteristics, Mexican immigrant men should have very high unemployment. More than half do not have a high school diploma. One in four works in construction; at the height of the recent recession, 20% of construction workers were unemployed. Yet their unemployment rates are similar to those of native-born white men. After controlling for education and occupation, Mexican immigrant men have lower probabilities of unemployment than native-born white men – both before and during the recent recession. I consider explanations based on eligibility for unemployment benefits, out-migrant selection for unemployment, and employer preferences for Mexican immigrant labor.     

Age at migration,family instability,and timing of sexual onset

This study builds on and extends previous research on nativity variations in adolescent health and risk behavior by addressing three questions: (1) whether and how generational status and age at migration are associated with timing of sexual onset among U.S. adolescents; (2) whether and how family instability mediates associations between nativity and sexual debut; and (3) whether and how these associations vary by gender. We find that first- and second-generation immigrant youth initiate sexual activity later than native youth. Foreign-born youth who migrate after the start of adolescence exhibit the latest sexual onset; boys’ sexual behavior is particularly sensitive to age at migration. Parental union stability is protective for first- and second-generation youth, especially boys; however, instability in co-residence with parents accelerates sexual debut for foreign-born girls, and dilutes protections from parental marital stability. Use of a non-English language at home delays sexual onset for immigrant girls, but not boys.     

English,Spanish and ethno-racial receptivity in a new destination: A case study of Dominican immigrants in Reading,PA

Scant information is available on experiences with language among immigrant populations in new destinations. This study provides a multi-dimensional portrait of the linguistic incorporation of Dominican immigrants in the “majority–minority” city of Reading, Pennsylvania. The results show that daily life for most largely occurs in a Spanish-language milieu, but English proficiency and use in social networks is primarily a function of exposure to the United States. This is consistent with the standard narrative of assimilation models. At the same time, negative experiences with the use of both English and Spanish suggest that the linguistic context of reception is inhospitable for a substantial share of this population. Negative experiences with English are particularly likely to be mentioned by those with dark skin and greater cumulative exposure. Lastly, language plays an important role in experiences with ethno-racial enmity more broadly. Nonetheless, the persistent effect of skin tone indicates that such experiences are not reducible to language per se.     

云南边境沿线学校教育发展现实困境阐析

云南省特殊的地理位置决定了沿边线一带学校教育呈现出"离农"性的倾向,教师流失严重,以及"双(多)语"教学开展困难等特殊的问题形态。而学校教育的功能定位游离于边民的需求之外,特殊的地理生态环境很难留住人才,以及多民族杂居的实情带来双(多)语教学工作的困境是引发这些问题的根源所在。要应对这一局面,必须从云南边民的实际需求入手,重新定位沿边线学校教育的价值和功能,以待遇和生活环境的改善为基点稳定教师队伍,并大力培养和培训双(多)语教师,确保双(多)语教学工作的顺利开展,以此促进沿边线学校教育的良性发展。     

Gangs,clubs, and alcohol: The effect of organizational membership on adolescent drinking behavior

How does adolescent organizational membership in general, and simultaneous membership in distinct types of organizations in particular, impact drinking behavior? While past studies have focused either on the learning effect of involvement with gangs or on the constraining influence of conventional organizations on adolescent problem behavior, we explore the possibility that conventional school clubs can serve as socializing opportunities for existing gang members to engage in drinking behavior with non-gang club members. Using the Add Health data, we show that gang members drink more often, and engage in more binge drinking, than non-members. More importantly, individuals who are members of both gangs and school clubs drink alcohol at greater levels than those who are solely involved in gangs. In addition, non-gang adolescents who are co-members with gang members in the same school club are more likely to drink alcohol than non-members. This result has important implications for understanding the role of organizations in adolescent behavior and suggests that the study of delinquent behaviors would benefit from devoting more attention to individuals who bridge distinct types of organizations.