A Hierarchical Examination of the Immigrant Achievement Gap

Abstract

This study compared immigrant and nonimmigrant educational achievement (i.e., the immigrant gap) in math by reexamining the explanatory power of race and socioeconomic status (SES)—two variables, perhaps, most commonly considered in educational research. Four research questions were explored through growth curve modeling, factor analysis, and regression analysis on a sample of participants in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 (ECLS-K) from kindergarten to eighth grade ( N = 6,861). Findings indicated that immigrant students who had been in the United States since at least their preschool years had lower math achievement than nonimmigrants when they began kindergarten; 1.75-generation students caught up to their nonimmigrant peers but second-generation students did not. Nationality played a greater role in determining immigrant performance than did race. Educational selectivity had significant explanatory power over SES in accounting for gaps between immigrant and nonimmigrant achievement. Mother’s educational selectivity was positively associated with parental involvement and center-based early childhood education. This study suggests that immigrant status alone is not a particularly powerful indicator of need for additional educational services nor is immigrant’s race in the absence of information about nationality. Because educational selectivity had positive and negative associations with educational achievement, encouraging parents with low educational selectivity to adopt the parenting processes of those with high educational selectivity cannot be recommended as a policy implication of this study. However, the incorporation of educational selectivity as a measure in future research is highly warranted due to its explanatory power regarding immigrant math achievement.