Educational Attainment in New and Established Latino Metropolitan Destinations*

Objective. This study examines the educational attainment of Latinos who immigrated to the United States by age 12. We compare the educational attainment of Latino immigrants in established and emerging Latino immigrant gateway cities in order to identify whether there are any significant differences in educational attainment between immigrants in these two gateways types and why such differences might exist. Methods. We employ OLS regression using the 2000 5% Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample. Results. Our results suggest that contrary to speculation, educational attainment among Latino immigrants is significantly higher in new Latino destinations than in established Latino metropolitan areas, although much of the difference is mediated by demographic factors. Migration history, English proficiency, ethnicity, and citizenship status account for a substantial portion of the differences in educational attainment between destination types. The migration history of these immigrants suggests a selection effect: only those immigrants who are relative newcomers to their new Latino destination have significantly higher educational attainment than those in established metropolitan areas. Conclusions. We find that educational attainment among Latino immigrants is higher in new Latino destinations. Our study suggests that more highly educated Latino immigrants are choosing new Latino destinations, while longer‐term immigrant residents of new destinations are faring no better (in terms of educational levels) than those in established destinations. English proficiency, ethnicity, and citizenship status are confirmed as factors strongly associated with educational attainment among immigrants.     

Motivating Participation: The Symbolic Effects of Latino Representation on Parent School Involvement*

Objective. Decades of research suggest that parental involvement is vital for positive student academic achievement and thus one often‐proposed solution to alleviate the poor educational outcomes of minority students is to increase their parents' participation in school. Building on a psychological motivation argument, I investigate how the symbolic effects of minority representation impact minority parent involvement. Method. I test my hypotheses with original survey data from 324 Latino parents in Chicago. Results. My analysis suggests that, as hypothesized in the symbolic representation literature, Latinos in positions of power within schools send important heuristic cues to Latino parents that change their orientations to participation and ultimately manifest as increased school involvement. Conclusions. These results support education policies that attempt to increase the minority presence in schools at the administrative and governance levels, and highlight the need for greater enforcement of current diversity requirements under NCLB.     

Push‐Pull Factors and Immigrant Political Integration in Germany*

Objectives. Drawing specifically on the German case, I argue that individuals' motivations for immigration, or so‐called push‐pull factors, have a lasting impact beyond the decision to immigrate and, in fact, profoundly influence immigrants' political integration in the host country. Specifically, economic push‐pull factors are likely to impede immigrants' political integration, whereas political push‐pull factors lead immigrants to remain more interested and engaged in politics while abroad. Methods. I test these hypotheses using a combination of qualitative interviews conducted in 2002 with first‐generation Turkish immigrants living in Berlin, and quantitative survey data from the 1998 German Socio‐Economic Panel (GSOEP). Results. Results from both analyses lend considerable support to these assertions. Conclusions. The positive findings suggest that factors unique to the immigrant experience contribute to a fundamentally different understanding of immigrants' political integration from that of natives.     

Immigrant Environmental Behaviors in New York City

Objective. This article compares environmental behaviors of immigrants and the native-born to answer questions about potential impacts of immigration on the U.S. environment. Methods. We consider immigrant/native-born differences in the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behavior. With data from a survey of New York City residents, we test two hypotheses regarding environmental behavior: (1) controlling for environmental orientation, environmental knowledge, acculturation, community attachment, and economic status will reduce immigrant/native-born differences, and (2) controlling for race will increase immigrant/native-born differences. Results. Our analysis provided no support for the second hypothesis, but there were varied results for the first hypothesis depending on the type of environmental behavior considered. Conclusions. Our findings for New York City show that fears of immigrants being less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors are unfounded. Of greater significance to environmental organizations is the lower level of immigrant involvement in environmentally oriented political behaviors, suggesting that continued immigration will present challenges both in making the environmental movement more ethnically diverse and in maintaining its vitality.     

An Exploratory Study on Psychosocial Variables of Single Parent Involvement in Education

Despite the proliferation of studies on parent involvement, few have specifically examined the psychosocial variables of single parent involvement. In this qualitative study, ten single mothers with children in the first two years of primary school were interviewed to explore psychosocial variables of their involvement in education. Financial assistance, personal resilience and support from loved ones especially grandparents supported their involvement. The lack of time to provide supervision due to long hours spent at work, low wages, difficulties with quality supervision of children's homework and grandparents' differences in disciplinary practices prevented their involvement. Implications for school-community-family partnerships were discussed.     

The Research-Policy Gap on Latino Immigrant Issues: Impacts and New Directions on Social Policy: A Conclusion

In this final and concluding article, I focus on three broad and interwoven themes that cut across various articles in this issue. While these themes partially overlap with those highlighted in the introduction, it is their insinuation into policy discourses and actual formulations that informs their selection. These policy-oriented themes are language, immigrant integration, and the defiance of common sense; racialization, identity formation and second-generation educational achievement; and transnationalism and enforcement policies and immigrant responses. I end with a brief note on how academic research, and researchers themselves, can help further more fruitful and informed public policies.     

Policy Climates and Reductions in Automobile Use*

Objectives. This study examines how national environmental policy influences individual car‐driving behavior in the European Union. Methods. Using the International Social Survey: Environment II in conjunction with the 2001 and 2002 Environmental Sustainability Indices, we analyze the relationship between macro‐level policy indicators and the reported reduction of individual car driving for environmental reasons, controlling for meso‐ and micro‐level factors. Results. Our results show that individuals report a greater likelihood of driving less for environmental reasons when they live in nations that adopt strong pro‐environmental policies, even when such policies are not directly related to car use. Conclusions. Our finding that a national policy climate focused on environmental sustainability is associated with pro‐environmental behaviors among individuals in that nation encourages us to believe that greater international cooperation on environmental issues (such as the Kyoto Protocol) and increased strength of domestic environmental policies will positively change individual behavior.     

By What Authority? Ethics and Policy Analysis*

By what authority do social policy analysts evaluate institutions and propose reforms? They have often relied on past traditions of political and moral philosophy, briefly reviewed here, to answer that question. These sources of authority are now failing, and many analysts are moving reluctantly towards a relativist or historicist standpoint which they nevertheless find unattractive. However, by studying institutions, practices and the traditions developed within them, it is possible to formulate and defend a socially embedded morality which will be helpful to policy analysts. Principles derived from it are contestable and liable to change as social circumstances change. But this is a strength, not a weakness, of the approach. Aesthetic reasoning offers helpful paradigms for policy analysis. Social policies and programmes may be derived from moral and political values, but they also help to change them. Indeed, that may be their most important achievement. The paper concludes with questions which teachers and researchers may wish to explore with the help of the concepts set forth here.     

The Roles of Parenting Styles and Social Capital in the School Performance of Immigrant Asian and Hispanic Adolescents*

Objective. This study investigates the role of parenting styles and social capital (parental involvement, intergenerational closure, expectation, and trust) in accounting for school performance among ethnic groups and across immigrant generations. Methods. Using data from the Adolescent Health Survey, we estimate fixed‐effects models to analyze students' grade‐point averages. We compare three generations of Asian students and three generations of Hispanic students to the third‐generation (native born with native parents) white students. Results. We find significant differences by both race/ethnicity and generational status in parenting styles and forms of social capital. However, while family socioeconomic status (SES) accounts for the achievement gap between foreign‐born Hispanic and the third‐generation white students, parenting styles and forms of social capital do not moderate any ethnic‐generational differences. Conclusions. Family influences, apart from SES, cannot explain ethnicity‐generation differences in school grades among Hispanic and Asian adolescents. This study provides conceptual clarification and empirical evidence for the significant but independent association between students' school grades and parenting styles on the one hand, and social capital on the other.     

Training and the Earnings of Immigrant Males: Evidence from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey*

Objective. To improve on the existing research on earnings differentials between visible minority immigrants and the native‐born, and on the role of discrimination in producing that difference. To do this we introduce into the analysis: (1) access to training and (2) training effects on earnings growth. Method. Using a panel data set containing information on training we test cross‐sectional models of access to training, cross‐sectional models of wage determination, and panel models of wage growth. Results. Visible minority immigrants are disadvantaged in both access to training and earnings; education reduces the disadvantage; and they do better than the other two groups in wage growth. Conclusions. Some results are consistent with a discrimination interpretation but, considered together, the complete sets of results are difficult to reconcile with any relatively straightforward discrimination account.     

美国华人新移民文学的意义、局限与进阶路向

美国华人新移民文学对世界华人文学发展、对全球化时代中国形象传播以及对中国当代文学创作都具有积极影响。其所体现的现代跨文化意义、身份皈依感的诗性审美探索,以及基于超验性体验的中国文化传播,使其成为世界华文创作的一支劲旅。但作为一种他者语境的流散写作,美国华人的新移民创作也存在早期作品写作主题单一、淘金者文学功利心态的文学表达、非母语写作中中国想象的记忆落差与本土生活的隔膜等局限。在未来的发展中,这些新移民作家需要直面自己的创作局限,在全球化时代选择好进阶路向,迈过两栖文化门槛,将民族文化语境难题消弭在跨文化创作的历史进程中。     

Higher Education Policy,Enrollment, and Income Inequality*

Objective. The objective of this article is to examine whether public expenditure on higher education has an effect on income inequality by increasing enrollment. Methods. Combining data from the World Bank Development Indicators with data from the World Income Inequality Database version 2, we study the relation between government education expenditure and enrollment rates, as well as the relation between government education expenditure and the change in income inequality during the 1980s and the 1990s. Results. We find that public expenditure on higher education has no positive effect on enrollment. Increased enrollment is mainly explained by higher GDP per capita. Using carefully selected Gini coefficients to ensure comparability over time, we do not find a robust relation between higher education expenditure and lower income inequality, contrary to some previous studies. Conclusions. Government expenditure on higher education has very limited effects on enrollment and inequality. This finding, however, does not imply that there are no social benefits from such subsidies. For example, in countries where high marginal tax rates decrease the economic returns to education, governments may wish to compensate for this through subsidies.     

Attribution Style and Public Policy Attitudes Toward Gay Rights*

Objective. This study examines the influence of beliefs about the cause of homo‐sexuality on public policy attitudes concerning gay rights. Methods. Using data from the 1995 Oklahoma City Survey, we examine how beliefs about homosexuality as either a lifestyle choice or biological predisposition affect levels of support for gay rights. Results. Consistent with current debates over gay rights, our study reveals a strong positive association between biological attributions of homosexuality and support for gay rights. Opposition to gay rights is most pronounced among political conservatives, fundamentalist Protestants, persons with little or no favorable contact with gays, individuals who embrace negative stereotypes about gays, and persons with high scores on an index of homophobia. Conclusions. Etiological beliefs about homosexuality have a strong influence on public policy attitudes toward gay rights.     

Measuring State TANF Policy Variations and Change After Reform*

Objectives. Our objectives are to describe the policies adopted after PRWORA, which vary across states, to test for common underlying policy concepts, demonstrating how these policies are interrelated, and to examine whether policy stringency diffused to neighboring states results in greater policy stringency across all states over time. We convert textual TANF welfare guidelines into empirically derived policy dimensions and use the derived quantitative scores to describe variation and change in welfare policy dimensions across status during the 1996–2003 post‐welfare‐reform period. Methods. Utilizing the Urban Institute's Welfare Rules Database, we apply a factor analytic methodology to 78 unique state policy guidelines that were coded on a lenient‐to‐stringent continuum. Regression analyses, employing spatial contiguity weighting, are used to describe policy diffusion. Results. The results identified 15 underlying first‐order post‐welfare‐reform policy dimensions, which for scientific parsimony were further reduced to three second‐order underlying dimensions representing rules governing eligibility: eligibility requirements for groups, behavioral responsibilities for maintaining eligibility, and eligibility time limits and exemptions. Analysis of the quantitative scores showed that by 2003 states had become more lenient regarding eligibility criteria for groups but decidedly more stringent regarding behavioral guidelines for maintaining eligibility and eligibility time limits and exemptions. Spatial clustering is not found globally but is significant for some states at the local level. Spatial diffusion is apparent only for behavioral rules. Conclusions. Our results suggest that TANF policy variations across states go beyond payment levels to include salient eligibility rules. The patterns of variability in change scores across states do not support a pervasive “race to the bottom” conclusion.