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Abstract

Drawing upon Coleman's concepts of social capital, which emphasized the potential roles of resources inside and outside the family in affecting children's academic performance, this study explores the parental involvement gap between children of Southeast Asian mothers and children of Taiwanese mothers, and analyzes to what extent parental involvement is associated with trajectories of achievement in elementary school. The sample comprised 8810 fourth to sixth graders.showed that new immigrant children experienced less parental involvement than did native children. The hierarchical linear model revealed that four of the five parental involvement factors related to initial achievement, the only exception being intergenerational closure. The immigrant-native gap in initial achievement can be partially explained by parental involvement, while discrepancies in the growth rates of academic achievement were not observed between the two groups. Furthermore, a negative and long-lasting effect of parental expectation on achievement was found in Confucian culture, which is characterized by an emphasis on the importance of education and the higher academic standards set by Chinese parents.