Abstract

BackgroundStudies demonstrate that occupational optimism can boost adolescents’ academic attainment and perseverance in education. To contribute to this literature, we consider two hypotheses. The first posits that bilingual immigrants are remarkably resourceful and determined. Thus, they are more occupationally ambitious than their peers. The second proposes that immigrant students engage in “strategic adaptation” by specializing in science, viewed as a level playing field.MethodsTo assess these hypotheses at two points of time, we analyze data from 19 societies that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2006 and 2015. Our primary method is path analysis with balanced replicate weights (BRR) undertaken separately for each country’s data.ResultsWe find that, in many countries, bilingual immigrants expect to enter higher status occupations than non-immigrants. However, immigrants who do not speak another language are also optimistic, so linguistic resources cannot explain occupational ambition. Furthermore, immigrants accord science more instrumental value and enjoy it more at school, which accounts, across societies, for up to 12% of the variation in vocational optimism indicated by the expected occupational status, and up to 41% in plans to pursue a career in science professions.ConclusionOur results align with the “strategic adaptation” argument that many young immigrants might seek to specialize in science as a pragmatic tactic to ensure high occupational attainment.

Highlights

  • As children of immigrants make up a rapidly growing share of the youth population across the world (Suárez-Orozco 2018), factors that affect their motivation for educational and occupational attainment engender more interest (Alarcon et al 2014; Feliciano and Lanuza 2016; Schleicher 2015; Wicht 2016)

  • Optimism varies by ethnic origins and host country contexts, and some immigrant youth are pessimistic about their future educational outcomes (Khattab 2018; Yiu 2013)

  • Data limitations Initially, we considered the differences between students with different linguistic capitals within immigrant generations, i.e. the first generation, one-and-a-half and the second generation (Rumbaut 2012) using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Portes-and-Rumbaut (2001) definitions

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Summary

Methods

To assess these hypotheses at two points of time, we analyze data from 19 societies that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2006 and 2015. Our primary method is path analysis with balanced replicate weights (BRR) undertaken separately for each country’s data

Results
Conclusion
Introduction
Indirect effect due to enjoyment of science
Discussion and conclusion
Immigrant
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