By 2040, about one third of U.S. children will be raised in immigrant families (Suárez-Orozco, Abo-Zena, and Marks 2015). Because educational attainment is crucial for economic mobility, debates about the incorporation of immigrants' children have long centered on their educational adaptation. Early researchers studying the children of post-1965 U.S. immigrants expressed concern that a substantial portion would experience "decline" or "downward assimilation" (Gans 1992; Portes and Zhou 1993). Yet several studies reveal a curious pattern, referred to as the "second-generation advantage," "immigrant paradox," or "superachievement": when compared to others from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, immigrants' children outperform their counterparts in native-born 684777A SRXXX10.

Previous research has shown uniquely high expectations among children of immigrants. However, existing studies have not focused on why children of immigrants have an expectations advantage over their native‐born counterparts or if this has changed over time. This study shows that an immigrant advantage in graduate school expectations persists among adolescent children of immigrants today. Regression analyses reveal that this advantage is largely explained by higher parental expectations, greater interest in school, and foreign language use in early childhood. We argue that these factors can be conceptualized as forms of cultural capital stemming from unique aspects of the immigrant experience that are common across immigrant families.

The growing literature on the intergenerational consequences of incarceration generally neglects to consider how paternal and maternal incarceration structures offspring's transition to adulthood, a fundamental life course stage that has become increasingly unequal. In this article, the authors use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to explore the relationship between parental incarceration and both subjective (e.g., respondent feels older compared to others his or her age) and behavioral (e.g., respondent is a parent) indicators of adulthood transitions among respondents younger than age 24 (N = 10,937). The results suggest that both paternal and maternal incarceration is positively associated with the number of subjective and behavioral adulthood transitions. The results also suggest that parental incarceration is associated with some individual indicators, especially subjective indicators, of adulthood. Taken together, these findings highlight that the high incarceration rate in the United States has transformative intergenerational consequences.

In uncertain economic times, who are those young adults that show positive expectations about their economic future? And who are those who worry? Based on previous stratification research and extending economic sociology insights into the realm of young people’s economic expectations, we focus on the impact of family class background and a sense of current meaningful community relations on young adults’ general and job-specific economic expectations. Analysis of Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data reveals that a sense of community belonging has a robust and positive impact on economic optimism of young adults, but the role of family socioeconomic background is weaker. We conclude that imagining one’s economic future is less about realistic calculation determined by early structural conditions but more about identity work of young people who assert their moral worth in how they imagine their economic lives and manage uncertainty and well-being in ongoing social relations.

Scholars consistently find that parents provide economic support to their young adult children through the transition to adulthood. However, scholars rarely examine whether young adults contribute monetary resources to their parents. To test this proposition, I use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, and the case of "money for living expenses." Overall, monetary independence is the modal category for all groups. However, when I compare across groups, I find that White young adults with native-born parentage are more likely to report monetary independence, African Americans are more likely to report monetary interdependence and Asian and Latino children of immigrants are more likely to report child-to-parent assistance compared to each other, with SES explaining most, but not all, of these differences. I argue that young adult offspring in non-White families are more likely to provide monetary support to their parents during the transition to adulthood. These transfers may deplete resources for non-White young adults and may exacerbate racial/ethnic inequality during the transition to adulthood.