Making the Grade: Immigrant Children Keep Academic Pace with Peers

This is a recent study that shows immigrant children do as well or better than American-born children in school. Even though many of them live in poverty and have many strikes against them, they are motivated and do well. DP

NewsWise.com: Far from being a burden on the educational system, research from Florida State University shows immigrant children perform as well or better than their same-race, American-born counterparts.

FSU Sociology Professor Kathryn Harker Tillman found that first- and second- generation children are no more likely than their third-generation peers to have to repeat a grade despite the many social and economic disadvantages they face. The finding is true for immigrant youth of all racial and ethnic backgrounds or countries of origin. The study, co-authored by colleagues Guang Guo and Kathleen Mullan Harris from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was published in the journal Social Science Research.

“Immigrant children are more successful navigating the educational system than would be expected,” Tillman said. “Against the odds, these children are performing as well as or better than their same-race, third-generation peers."

The researchers used both the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to look at grade retention among a total of nearly 20,000 school-age children. They focused on grade retention rather than more traditional markers of educational performance, such as high school graduation, dropout rates or grades in order to see how immigrant children navigate the educational system, not just the end result.
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