Does Immigrant Advantage for Academic Outcomes Persist in High School Similarly for Black and Hispanic Students?

One out of four students in U.S. schools comes from an immigrant-lead household, with 17.6 million children under 18 living with at least one immigrant parent. The ‘immigrant advantage’ posits that first-generation immigrant students often exhibit better academic outcomes than second-generation immigrant students, who exhibits better academic outcomes than non-immigrant students, despite first- and second- generation students facing socioeconomic and linguistic challenges. Prior research has documented this advantage in early education but less is clear about its persistence into high school, as results seem to vary. The current study examines immigrant advantage in grades 9 through 12 by using pre-existing data from Miami School Readiness Project, a large-scale, 18-year longitudinal study of students attending Miami Dade County Public Schools. Research questions include (1) To what extent does the immigrant advantage appear in high school academic outcomes? and (2) Are patterns of the immigrant advantage similar for Black and Hispanic immigrant students? The sample (n=4,341) includes 2,704 first-generation immigrants, 777 second-generation immigrants, and 860 non-immigrants. Outcome variables include end of year GPA in 9th and 12th grade, cumulative high school GPA, standardized math and reading test scores in 10th grade, end-of-course exam grades for Algebra 1, attendance in 9th and 12th grade, suspension, retention, and graduation. Multiple regression analyses will be run controlling for student race, poverty, ELL status, disability, and gender, with immigrant status as the primary independent variable, and then race-by-immigrant status interactions will be run to test question 2.

Hello, my name is Vlera Baftija and for my research project I am examining the immigrant advantage for academic outcomes and whether it persists in high school similarly for black and Hispanic students.

The US is known to be a melting pot, rich with diversity from cultures all over the world. There is a huge immigrant population in the states with one out of four students in public schools coming from an immigrant household. Given the significant presence of immigrant families in the US, it is important to examine the educational trajectories and experience of children of immigrants to help ensure their success and maximize their opportunity to thrive.

A first generation immigrant is when both the parent and the child are foreign born. A second generation immigrant is when the parent is foreign born, but the child is US born and a third plus generation or a non-immigrant is when the parent and child are US born.

The immigrant paradox or the immigrant advantage is the idea that first generation immigrants display better academic outcomes than second generation immigrants who display better academic outcomes than the third plus generation immigrants. This idea comes from the result of parents’ optimism and aspirations for their child success and influencing the child to exhibit academic resilience, despite socioeconomic disadvantages.

There are a few protective factors for this, which include familial values towards education, support from family and or ethnic ties, biculturalism, and bilingualism.

The literature has shown an immigrant advantage in elementary school in which first generation and second generation students generally perform as well or even better than the third plus generation students in academic measures such as standardized tests, grades, attendance, retention, and behavioral and soc emotional development.

However, when we get into the secondary level, the art makes results with some studies finding a first generation immigrant advantage. Other studies finding a second generation immigrant advantage, and some studies finding no advantage at all.

Reasons for this include aculturation tasks, adultification, parentification, helping out financially and documentation status.

Some studies have also looked at the moderation by race and the overall findings have been that the advantage is bigger for black immigrants when compared to their third plus counterparts and smaller for Hispanic immigrants when compared to the Hispanics third plus counterparts.

The current study will be examining the immigrant advantage in the Miami School Readiness Project, a large scale five cohort, 18 year log to project, consisting over 58,000 students. The gap in the literature is that there are very limited studies examining the immigrant academic outcomes past 10th grade, and excluding stuff like cumulative GPA and graduation.

My first research question is asking to what extent does the immigrant advantage appear in academic outcomes in grades 9 through 12 My academic outcomes is as follows, and I hypothesize that the immigrant advantage will be present at the start of high school, but will be smaller by 12th grade.

My second research question is asking if the patterns of the immigrant advantage in high school are similar for black and Hispanic immigrant students. I hypothesize that the immigrant advantage will be bigger for black immigrants and smaller for Hispanic immigrants when compared to their third plus counterparts.

For my participants, I will have roughly 4,341 students. I will have 2704 first generation immigrants, 777, second generation immigrants, and 863 plus generation immigrants. From the overall sample of the 58,000 students, about 80% of Hispanic, and about 20% are black.

For my independent variables, my primary independent variable will be the generation status and I will be controlling for things such as student race, poverty status, English language learner status, disability status, and gender.

My dependent variables will include end of year GPA in grades 9 and 12, cumulative end of high school GPA, standardized math and reading test scores in ninth and tenth grade, attendance in ninth and 12th, school suspension, retention, and graduation.

For my proposed data analysis plan for my first research question a multiple regression analysis will be used with the primary independent variable being the immigrant status while controlling for student race. Poverty status, ELL status, disability status, and gender. Dependent variables will be the academic outcome measures and each dependent variable will be entered one at a time in separate models.

For my second research question, I will be using a similar multiple regression model that was described for the previous question, but immigrant status will be crossed with race to include interaction terms.

These are my acknowledgments and thank you for watching. and these are the references that were used during the presentation.