The Academic Progress of Hispanic Immigrants

Marie Hull

No 9307, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Past research has shown that Hispanic students make test score gains relative to whites as they age through school; however, this finding stands in contrast to the experience of blacks, who show little change in their relative position over the same time frame. Distinguishing Hispanic students by immigrant generation, I find that the children of immigrants (first- and second-generation Hispanics) drive the improvement in Hispanic test scores. Later-generation Hispanics consistently perform slightly below whites, perhaps due to negative selection into ethnic identification. Thus, previous estimates vastly understate the progress of first- and second-generation Hispanic immigrants. From a negative gap in 3rd grade, these students surpass socioeconomically similar whites in math and reading by middle school and end 8th grade as much as a quarter of a standard deviation ahead. Assimilation alone cannot explain this progress; a potential explanation is that immigrant parents create a home environment that fosters achievement.

Keywords: human capital; achievement gap; Hispanic immigrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J15 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2017, 57, 91-110

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Journal Article: The academic progress of Hispanic immigrants (2017)
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