Using Achievement Tests to Measure Language Assimilation and Language Bias among Immigrant Children

Richard Akresh () and Ilana Redstone Akresh ()
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Ilana Redstone Akresh: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

No 3532, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use Woodcock Johnson III child assessment data in the New Immigrant Survey to examine language assimilation and test score bias among children of Hispanic immigrants. Our identification strategy exploits the test language randomization (Spanish or English) to quantitatively measure the degree and speed of language assimilation, in addition to the potential costs associated with taking a test in one’s non-dominant language. We find that U.S. born children of Hispanic immigrants are not bilingual as predicted by most language assimilation models but rather are English dominant. English language assimilation occurs at a rapid pace for foreign born children as well; children who arrive in the U.S. at an early age or who have spent more than four years in the U.S. do not benefit from taking the tests in Spanish. Results are robust to a fixed effects specification that controls for household level characteristics constant across siblings.

Keywords: New Immigrant Survey; Woodcock Johnson achievement tests; immigration; language assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I20 J18 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2008-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2011, 46(3), 647-667

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Journal Article: Using Achievement Tests to Measure Language Assimilation and Language Bias among the Children of Immigrants (2011)
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