DIVERGENT ACADEMIC PATHWAYS: RACIAL/ETHNIC, NATIONAL ORIGIN, AND GENERATIONAL STATUS VARIATION IN SCHOOL READINESS, KINDERGARTEN THROUGH EIGHTH GRADE ACADEMIC ABILITY GROWTH, AND ADOLESCENT ACADEMIC SELF CONCEPT
Open Access
- Author:
- Hibel, Jacob Rosson
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 05, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Michelle Lynn Frisco, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Michelle Lynn Frisco, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
George Farkas, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Alan Booth, Committee Member
Emily Kate Greenman, Committee Member
Paul Morgan, Committee Member - Keywords:
- immigration
self-concept
academic achievement
school readiness
generational status - Abstract:
- The present study draws upon nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 to examine variation in children’s early academic performance along racial/ethnic, generational status, and national origin lines. This study comprises three distinct analytic chapters. The first uses a multilevel logistic regression approach to examine patterns of between-child variation in cognitive and socioemotional school readiness. The second analytic chapter examines children’s reading and mathematics ability growth from kindergarten through eighth grade using a three-level mixed-effects modeling framework. The final component of the present study examines variation in adolescents’ reading and mathematics self-concept prior to high school entry using a two-level random-effects modeling approach. Results suggest that immigrant generational status is an important moderator of racial/ethnic variation along several measures of academic success. Among non-Asian minority children, those with foreign-born mothers tend to demonstrate lower levels of school readiness and flatter ability growth trajectories than third-plus generation children. Among Asian children, however, children of foreign-born mothers experience advantages relative to their first and second generation counterparts. After adjusting for an array of family background characteristics, children from racial/ethnic minority and immigrant families demonstrate comparable ability growth trajectories to non-Hispanic white children of native-born mothers, with the exception of non-Hispanic black and first/second generation Mexican children, who fall increasingly behind over the elementary and middle school years. Children of immigrant mothers generally demonstrate higher levels of academic self-concept than children of native-born mothers, and most minority adolescents have comparable levels of academic self-concept to non-Hispanic white adolescents after adjusting for family background characteristics.