Immigration, Acculturation, and Academic Attitudes and Performance Among Latino Adolescents.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the impact of immigration, acculturation, and ethnic identity on Latino adolescents’ academic attitudes and performance. It explores the “immigrant paradox,” whereby early generation adolescents exhibit more positive academic outcomes than their later generation peers, and tests whether the immigrant paradox can be explained via the processes of acculturation, ethnic identity, family obligation, cultural values like familismo, and belief in the American Dream. Using a mixed methods design, the study also investigates how family immigration and education stories impact the belief in the American Dream and educational beliefs and values. The quantitative study uses self-report survey data from 223 Latino 9th graders (and a subset of 135 Dominican 9th graders) to investigate the presence of the “immigrant paradox” and the underlying processes which may explain the impact of acculturation on academic outcomes. Findings from this study provide evidence for the “immigrant paradox” in both the full sample as well as the Dominican subset. Furthermore, family obligation was found to have a significant positive effect on academic attitudes, and both familismo and belief in the American Dream were found to moderate the impact of acculturation on academic outcomes. These findings point to the importance of family processes and cultural values in motivating children of immigrants and later generation peers to succeed academically. The qualitative study continues to explore these relations by reviewing the family immigration and education stories of a subset of the 223 students. Students who reported family members immigrating to the U.S. to improve the lives of the next generation were more likely to believe in the American Dream. Family stories of positive educational experiences were positively related to adolescents’ beliefs about the value of education, while family stories of education-related struggles with negative peer interactions were negatively related to adolescents’ beliefs about the value of education. Family stories of family-related school struggles were significantly related to greater academic efficacy. Findings from the qualitative study illustrate the potential motivational role of family stories on Latino adolescent educational beliefs and values and support the important influence of family factors on academic attitudes found in the quantitative study.