Role of Immigrant Status on Parent Expectations and Involvement in Children's Education: A Test of the Immigrant Paradox

Background and Purpose: Research suggests that there is an immigrant paradox, wherein despite immigrants’ severe economic and social disadvantages, they tend to have better health and engage in less crime than native-born residents. Limited research, however, has applied the immigrant paradox to educational outcomes. Immigrant parents tend to be low income and have poor educational attainment. While parent income and education are typically associated with reduced parental expectations for and involvement in children’s education, it is unclear whether this trend extends to immigrant parents or if a paradox exists. This study aims to investigate whether immigrant status and other parental characteristics are associated with parent expectations for and involvement in children’s education.

Methods: This study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative and longitudinal study including about 21,260 kindergarteners in the 1998-1999 school year, to examine the associations between parent characteristics and their expectations for children’s educational attainment and school involvement. Parent expectations for children’s educational attainment was a dichotomous variable constructed based on whether parents expected their children to complete a bachelor’s degree or higher (=1) or less than a bachelor’s degree (=0). School involvement was comprised of two dichotomous variables based on whether parents had contacted their children’s school for any reason about their children (1=Yes, 0=No) and had attended a school event (1=Yes, 0=No). Independent variables were obtained from parent interviews, including primary language spoken at home, parent’s education level, family income, mother’s employment status, and mother’s immigrant status. A series of logit models were applied to predict parent’s expectation for child’s educational attainment and parent’s school involvement from these independent variables. The analyses were adjusted by the weight variable provided by the ECLS-K.

Results: Immigrant parents had higher expectations for their children’s educational attainment yet lower school involvement than native-born parents. After controlling for demographic characteristics, results suggest that the odds of parents expecting their children to complete a bachelor’s degree or higher are over two times higher for immigrant parents than native-born parents. Conversely, immigrant parents were 35% less likely to have contacted their children’s school and 35% less likely to attend a school event than native-born parents. Interestingly, household language did not predict parent expectations or school involvement, while mother’s employment status predicted school involvement but not parent expectations.

Conclusions and Implications: Despite socio-economic shortcomings, immigrant parents have significantly higher expectations for their children’s educational attainment than native-born parents. Most immigrants come to the United States in search of a better life for their children and, as a result, hold their children to higher expectations. While children of immigrants may be disadvantaged in the classroom as a result of lower income and language barriers, high parental expectations can be a powerful tool to foster academic outcomes for this population. Barriers for immigrant parents to become involved in the educational system should be explored to further enhance academic outcomes.