Family Social Capital and Academic Achievement of Immigrant Children

本研究旨在探讨家庭社会资本与移民儿童学业成就的关系。四种类型的家庭社会资本与儿童教育成果相关：1)与大家庭成员的网络，如祖父母；2)家长参与学校活动，例如参加家长会；3)移民与民族文化；4)亲子互动，如监督作业，讨论课堂所学材料。关于这些因素如何发挥作用以提高教育水平的理论将使用来自NELS:88的数据进行检验，这是一项纵向调查，收集了1988年八年级学生的数据，每两年进行两次随访，包括亚洲和西班牙裔学生的超额样本。分析将包括三个阶段。首先，横断面分析八年级和十二年级的数据将检验家庭社会资本的创造和维持，并确定其水平效应。其次，对亚洲和西班牙裔移民学生八年级至十二年级学业成绩增长进行纵向分析，以确定家庭社会资本变化对学业成绩增长的影响。第三，前两个阶段的分析将扩展到比较移民和本土出生的孩子的结果。本研究将通过测试家庭社会资本对儿童人力资本再生产的影响，并比较移民和本土出生种族群体的结果，有助于提高我们对家庭在儿童学业成就中的作用的认识。它还将为制定加强家庭和学校-家庭联系的政策提供证据，并有助于公共资源的分配，以改善父母的人力资本和家庭社会资本。

This is a study of family social capital and academic achievement of immigrant children. Four kinds of family social capital are identified as relevant to child educational outcomes: 1) Networks with members of the extended family, such as grandparents; 2) parent involvement in school, for example attending parent-teacher meetings; 3) immigrant and ethnic culture; 4) parent-child interaction, such as supervising homework and discussing materials learned in class. Theories on how these factors operate to enhance education will be tested using data from NELS:88, a longitudinal survey that collected data on eighth graders in 1988 with two follow-up waves at two-year intervals, including oversamples of Asian and Hispanic students. The analysis will involve three phases. First, cross-sectional analysis of data on eight and twelfth graders will examine the creation and maintenance of family social capital and identify its level effects. Second, longitudinal analysis of academic achievement growth among Asian and Hispanic immigrant students from eighth to twelfth grade will identify the effect of changes in family social capital on achievement growth. Third, the analyses in the first two phases will be extended to compare immigrant results with those for the native-born children. %%% This study will contribute to the advancement of our knowledge about the role of the family in children's academic achievement, by testing the effect of family social capital on the reproduction of human capital in children and comparing the results across immigrant and native-born ethnic groups. It will also provide evidence for designing policies to strengthen the family and school-family connections and help in the allocation of public resources to improve parents' human capital and family social capital.