This review examines research on immigrant families in the United States from the past decade from multiple disciplinary perspectives. This work has used variations on assimilation and acculturation perspectives. In the case of the assimilation perspectives, the focus has largely been on family formation, whereas research using acculturation perspectives has focused more on intrafamily relationships. But, over the course of the decade, an interesting integrative model has emerged to address interactions of attitudes and values with structural conditions in the receiving and sending communities. Some of this effort to integrate perspectives can be found in studies of transnational families. The review concludes with some suggestions for continuing this integration and expanding studies to include dynamics of migration and family processes simultaneously.Immigration drives much of the growth and diversity in the United States population. The very nature of American society has been shaped by the shifting mix of immigrants and their offspring (Hirschman, 2005). Immigrants are often thought of as individual actors, but research from the past decade has demonstrated that individuals' choices and chances-the decision to migrate, the choice of destination,

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Two nationally representative cohorts--from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) and High School and Beyond (HSB)--were used to examine the effects of generation and duration of residence on students' performance on standardized tests over a two-year period. In multivariate models, generational status predicts variation in students' performance on baseline (sophomore) tests, with effects stronger for the later age cohort (NELS) than for the earlier age cohort (HSB). With regard to the trajectory of achievement, generational status has a greatly reduced role for both cohorts. The best predictors of the trajectory of achievement are not those that are based on nativity per se, but those that reflect the social environment experienced in the United States (i.e., ethnicity and family's socioeconomic status).

Prior research seeking to explain variation in extended family coresidence focused heavily on the potentially competing roles of cultural preferences and socioeconomic and demographic structural constraints. We focus on challenges associated with international immigration as an additional factor driving variation across groups. Using 2000 census data from Mexico and the United States, we compare the prevalence and age patterns of various types of extended family and non-kin living arrangements among Mexican-origin immigrants and nonimmigrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Additionally, we use the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the stability of extended family living arrangements among Mexican-origin immigrants and natives in the United States. We find that newly arrived immigrants to the United States display unique patterns in the composition and stability of their households relative to nonimmigrants in both Mexico and the United States. Recent immigrants are more likely to reside in an extended family or non-kin household, and among those living with relatives, recent immigrants are more likely to live with extended family from a similar generation (such as siblings and cousins). Further, these households experience high levels of turnover. The results suggest that the high levels of coresidence observed among recently arrived Mexican immigrants represent a departure from "traditional" household/family structures in Mexico and are related to the challenges associated with international migration.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Population Association of America, Springer are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Demography Two nationally representative cohorts-from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) and High School and Beyond (HSB)-were used to examine the effects of generation and duration of residence on students 'performance on standardized tests over a two-year period. In multivariate models, generational status predicts variation in students 'performance on baseline (sophomore) tests, with effects stronger for the later age cohort (NELS) than for the earlier age cohort (HSB). With regard to the trajectory of achievement, generational status has a greatly reduced role for both cohorts. The best predictors of the trajectory of achievement are not those that are based on nativity per se, but those that reflect the social environment experienced in the United States (i.e., ethnicity and family s socioeconomic status).A s it did approximately 100 years ago, immigration is reshaping the composition of the American population. As of 2000, about one tenth of Americans (10.4%) were born abroad, and about another tenth were in the second generation, having one or both parents who were born abroad (U.S. Census Bureau 2001). This evolution in demographic composition once again places into relief issues of the adaptation of immigrants and their immediate descendants. Just as debates arose a century ago, questions now arise as to the rate of adjustment and the pattern of accommodation of the immigrants and the host society (Alba and Nee 1997). Given that the population of foreign stock (the first plus the second generation) has been rising for several decades and promises to continue to do so as current immigrants have children, issues surrounding adjustment become all the more pertinent to discussions of immigration policy.Recent cross-sectional comparisons have pointed to immigrants' inferior socioeconomic positions. For instance, compared with natives, immigrants (on average) exhibit lower levels of school attainment, lower personal income, higher levels of poverty, and so on. It has also been argued that immigrants of more recent vintage are even more disadvantaged (or are falling further behind natives) than were earlier arrivals (Borjas 1999;Camarota 2001). Yet another complication is the extraordinary internal diversity of the flow of immigrants. While the foreign born may be less educated, on average, than U.S.natives, recent flows of immigrants have been distributed more toward the extremes than has the native population. Whereas 13.4% of natives (aged 25 and older) lack a high school education, 33.0% of recent immigrants (who immigrated within the past 10 yea...

Children of immigrants come from diverse backgrounds and enter school with different family migration experiences and resources. This paper addresses two basic questions: (1) to what extent does generation status exert an independent effect on early school performance net of race/panethnicity, language proficiency, and the family resources available to children as they enter formal schooling? and (2) to what extent do these broad conceptualizations of children in immigrant families mask variation by national origins? We take advantage of longitudinal data on a kindergarten cohort from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to examine children from diverse backgrounds. Considerable variation in academic performance persists across racial/panethnic groups as well as by country‐of‐origin background and linguistic ability even when adjusting for family background, resources, and previous academic performance. We find some intriguing evidence of early “segmentation” among children from various groups, suggesting some convergence within race and ethnicity for some children. However, this conclusion should not be overstated, because the results also point to the great diversity by national origins that are masked by reliance on racial/panethnic groupings.

This paper examines how school engagement influences the timing of family formation for youth. We pay particular attention to variation across four racial/ethnic groups and by generation status, variation that reflects the diversification of U.S. society through immigration. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), we employ discrete-time multinomial logistic regression models examining the likelihood of childbearing or marriage in late adolescence. We find that the delaying effects of school enrollment and engagement vary by race/ethnicity, suggesting that strategies for socioeconomic success that focus on delaying family roles are more important among some groups than others. The results also indicate that controlling for school enrollment and school engagement reduces differences in early marriage and non-marital childbearing by generation status.