Parent-Child Differences in Educational Expectations and the Academic Achievement of Immigrant and Native Students

Parental Expectations and Children's Academic Performance in Sociocultural Context

“…For example, a study by Peng and Wright (1994) drawing upon the NELS data found that 80% of Asian American parents of eighth graders expected their children to attain at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 50% of Latino parents, 58% of African American parents, and 62% of European American parents. Four of these eight articles tested whether Asian parents' high expectations held up after controlling for parental socioeconomic status, and all of these found that they did (Glick and White 2004;Hao and Bonstead-Burns 1998;Suizzo and Stapleton 2007;. Findings pertaining to the expectations of Latino and African Americans relative to other groups are somewhat inconsistent.…”

“…In one early study, Stevenson et al (1990) found that immigrant Latino mothers' sense of efficacy in helping their children with reading and mathematics in elementary school was significantly lower than that of European American and African American mothers. Non-immigrant Latino parents feel more confident about their children's chances for success than do those of the immigrant generation; for example, Hao and Bonstead-Burns (1998) found that immigrant Mexican parents had lower expectations for their eighth grader's future schooling than did Mexican-heritage parents born in the USA.…”

“…Of the eight articles that contrasted Asian parents with those in other groups, seven found that Asian American parents tend to hold higher expectations than do parents in other racial groups (Glick and White 2004;Hao and Bonstead-Burns 1998;Okagaki and Frensch 1998;Peng and Wright 1994;Suizzo and Stapleton 2007;Vartanian et al 2007). For example, a study by Peng and Wright (1994) drawing upon the NELS data found that 80% of Asian American parents of eighth graders expected their children to attain at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 50% of Latino parents, 58% of African American parents, and 62% of European American parents.…”

“…Findings pertaining to the expectations of Latino and African Americans relative to other groups are somewhat inconsistent. In four studies, Latino parents expressed significantly lower expectations than one or more other groups (Hao and Bonstead-Burns 1998;Okagaki and Frensch 1998;Peng and Wright 1994;Vartanian et al 2007), but one recent analysis using the ECLS-K data found that Latinos had higher expectations for their kindergarteners than African American and European American parents after controlling for maternal education, family income and maternal depression (Suizzo and Stapleton 2007). Two articles found that African American parents held significantly higher expectations than European American parents after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) (Glick and White 2004;Hao and Bonstead-Burns 1998), while one study reported no significant difference between the two groups after SES was controlled (Suizzo and Stapleton 2007).…”

Race and Ethnic Inequality in Educational Attainment in the United States

“…It seems that the very high levels of encouragement ("the most important thing to do after high school is to go to college") accounts for a share of the Asian American edge. There is a considerable literature on the very high levels of Asian American parental expectations for their children's educational attainments (Hao andBonstead-Bruns 1998, Goyette andXie 1999) But the difference between Asian American students and white students widens in Model 4 when childrearing patterns are included and in Model 5 when self-esteem and locus of control are added as covariates. The reason is that Asian American families (especially VCL Asian Americans) are less likely to communicate with their children and are more likely to try to control them.…”